"Student protest 1996/1997. it was an extraordinary moral act of a generation that expressed its disagreement in a direct and politically lethal way, not only with the electoral theft in Serbia (after the local elections in '96), but also with the overall situation in the country. It's not a phrase: there are no words that can faithfully describe this torrent of charm, human persistence and political maturity," wrote the editor-in-chief of "Vremen" at one time. Dragoljub Zarkovic.
In the years 2024 and 2025, the students once again launched popular resistance to a different, but equally insane and reborn, kleptocratic government. As then, even now, those in power seem powerless before the persistence, consistency, incorruptibility, and fearlessness of young people. Just like then, hysteria is growing at the top of the party state and its leader because they are unable to get students off the streets. History repeats itself: Aleksandar Vučić is like yesteryear Slobodan Milosevic swung a baton and ordered the police to beat and arrest young people in order not to intimidate them. It reminds all of that instructive story about the scorpion and the frog.
Photo: Marko Dragoslavić/FoNetStudent protests: Belgrade, December 31, 2024 / Photo: Marko Dragoslavić/FoNet
Of course there are big differences. It is essential that it is otpor had a lot of help from Western countries, and today's Serbian students do not have any support from developed democracies, except for the verbal support of certain politicians. On the contrary, unlike Slobodan Milošević, Vučić is the one who flatters the statesmen from the West, promises to fulfill what they ask of him, so they still didn't let him go, even though they know who they are dealing with. Today's president of Serbia learned that lesson.
Resistance_09Belgrade, May 27, 2000 /
Photo: Draško Gagović
The second is that the civil opposition united in the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), that Zoran Đinđić crystallized as its leader, and Vuk Drašković dropped out of the October 13 story because he did not recognize the historical moment. Today, even after XNUMX years of the rule of the Serbian Progressive Party and the Vučić brothers, the opposition is still divided, burdened by the vanity of party leaders and the need of individuals to impose themselves as leaders of the opposition. DOS was a serious political factor and cooperated with the Resistance, today's opposition has marginalized itself in the general popular revolt against lawlessness and theft.
From movement to party
And so on.
"Where the resisters see their main trump card - in a kind of political 'innocence' - lies their potential main problem: even after the student movement grew into a 'people's' movement, the resisters were still perceived as an organization of young and insufficiently experienced people," wrote Vera Didanović in "Vremen".
Otpor transformed into a political party only after the overthrow of Milošević. "We are the only organization that does not have a young person, but an old one," said the resistance fighters at the beginning of this century. The electoral victory against Milošević was won by DOS, which kicked out Vojislav Koštunica to run against Milošević in the 2000 presidential elections.
Blockade of the highway near Bubanj potok. May 9.5.2000, XNUMX. photo: Emil VasBlockade of the highway near Bubanj potok. May 9, 2000 / Photo: Emil Vas
Today's students have realized that there is no point in opposition political parties. That is why they are preparing to participate in the parliamentary elections, whenever they are called, by themselves, with their own electoral list.
The resistance in the parliamentary elections in 2023 went disastrously, public opinion polls show that today the student list would win the elections.
It started as a "game"
"In the summer of 2000, Otpor spread like a virus through Serbia, mostly among students and high school students. For most, everything that happened was a game that they liked to call 'struggle' or 'revolution', but in fact it was a good way to channel adolescent and pubertal rebellion. Instead of arguments and conflicts with parents and other authorities, there was a universal enemy: the regime of Slobodan Milošević, against whom you can fight by writing graffiti, distributing leaflets, decorating turkeys and similar performance-actions.
It would probably all have ended if the regime, with its hysterical reaction, arrests, harassment and beatings, had not 'turned out to be stupid in society' and made innocent little conspirators victims. That's how everything stopped being a game, Otpor gained social weight, and its activists from disheveled boys and girls became part of the political establishment.
Resistance_17Opposition protest in Belgrade, May 17, 2000 / Photo: Draško Gagović
From 1998, when Otpor was founded, until 2000, when they fulfilled the mission summarized in the slogan 'It's ready!', they built the image of young, energetic, disinterested in power, incorruptible, independent of political parties and any other structure," Jovana Gligorijević, who herself was active in Otpor as a teenager, wrote in "Vremen".
From this description, additional similarities and differences between Otpor and today's Students in the Blockade can easily be seen. From the very beginning of the student protests in November 2024, nothing seemed like a "game". They started by beating FDU students.
These students of today seem more mature than those who appeared on the Serbian political scene in 1996, and maybe that is just the impression of the author of this text, who is now 30 years older.
One of the essential differences between the two student movements is that the current one takes place in the era of social networks. The methods of communication and organization are significantly different, everything happens much faster, coordination is much easier, just like connecting with citizens eager for change.
This present-day student rebellion that started civil protests includes a much larger number of citizens, some in the nineties.
Don't touch the children.
Essentially, however, the similarities are greater than the differences: when young people rebel with faith in some higher goals, it is practically impossible to stop them.
Because, first: young people are far braver than middle-aged people, because they simply do not have the experience on the basis of which they could see the dangers as a consequence of their actions.
Second: they are tireless. They have energy for everything, the police can't keep up with them, because there aren't enough policemen, and they can't keep up with that pace.
Third: revolt is the natural state of young people. When that revolt is directed against the government, the government is in big trouble.
Vidovdan_blog_214Protest the day after the Vidovdan march, Belgrade, June 29, 2025. Photo: Aleksandar Barda
Fourth: when you attack a student, you also attack his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. One police baton on the student's back, hit ten other people at the same time.
It sounds like a catchphrase, but it's not: don't touch the children. Because when someone's children are attacked, all fear of any consequences disappears. Hit my child, I'll hit you, so it broke where it broke. Aleksandar Vučić did not learn that lesson.
And as for the daily hysterical screaming at Pink and Informer, at Hepi and Prva, Vučić, Vučević, Brnabić, Siniša Malog... in chorus with Vojislav Šešelj that the students are terrorists - there are no misdemeanor charges for defamation, but criminal charges for endangering personal safety and inciting hatred. They are all Seselj. Until now, the children were only beaten by the police, God forbid that someone's life should be extinguished.
concert - 25.9.2000. Imre Sabo's photoTen days before the fall of Slobodan Milošević, September 25, 2000 / Photo: Imre Sabo
Like Slobodan Milošević before, today Aleksandar Vučić has the problem that in the student rebel movement there is no one to specifically attack - there is no leader, there are no leaders - so he attacks everyone. By deciding to confront the students with bare state force and progressive counter-mythisms, he introduced his regime into the terminal phase. That genius resistance marketing slogan could still be applied today: "It's over!". Vucic and Dacic remember him very well.
