Where is the strength and power of the "little man"

At the first blockade of the Gazelle on November 27, 2021, and this is already iconic photo-documented, actress Jelena Stupljanin was the first to set foot on the highway, stood in front of the vehicle and stopped the traffic. Then we saw her as the protagonist in a "banned" advertisement against Rio Tinto, which the public service refused to show. At mass protests against lithium mining, she addressed the crowd from the lectern, offering them unreserved support together with her husband, actor Bojan Dimitrijević. "It is important that we all stand together with the inhabitants of Gornji Nedeljice and its surroundings," she said when she joined the road blockade near Loznica. She publicly wrote to the Minister of Culture, in support of her colleague Nikola Koji, that she does not understand what culture is and that culture cannot be bought with money: "That's why we don't agree, dear minister, and that's why you'll never understand why there are so many people at the protests."

Her professional path once took her to New York, and after her return to Belgrade, as before, she was most attached to Atelier 212. She is currently playing in several plays there, and more recently in Mami Nebojša Bradić also in the piece Like all single girls Selma Spahić, director from Sarajevo. He plays in a play at the Yugoslav Drama Theater Why did Mr. R go crazy?, directed by Bobo Jelčić from Zagreb. In the Theater on Terazije, directed by Nebojša Bradić, he plays the title role in the play Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. "Vremenu" reveals: "In a few days I will start rehearsals for a new piece directed by Iva Milošević in Atelje 212".

As a counterpoint to her all-too-visible social involvement and the rigid rigidity of the state system, which hardly forgives disobedience - art, theater and theater colleagues continue to form a strong protective framework for her professional success and personal freedom.

"WEATHER" You entered activism with vigor, with a lot of compassion for anyone who finds themselves targeted by the authorities, you have become an inseparable part of the protest, blockade. Recently, you again reacted strongly by carrying a rather emotional banner at a protest in front of the maternity hospital in Sremska Mitrovica.. As we speak, all those previous events and all those problems are still open, like fresh wounds, but do you think they have quieted down a bit?? What is your impression after all?

JELENA STUPLJANIN: For people who have an aspiration to fight for something better, the most normal reaction is just that - to react immediately when something happens. Unfortunately, none of the above has happened yet. Everything is still going on, smoldering, everything is still waiting for an opportunity to jump out of the bushes and surprise us with something terrible again. As we can see, the story of Rio Tinto is not the past, mining is being announced again, whether there will be or not, it is a constant game of nerves. That story is not finished and will definitely continue to happen and develop.

Subjectively, my inner feeling towards all these things says the following: for whatever reason and no matter how fundamentally I tried to hide and dedicate myself to my acting profession, no matter how much I tried not to "poke the bear" and not be where, as usual says, "you can't do anything", such events affect me personally and create a common-sense need for resistance, to say "no". Just like in elementary school, at least in my generation when we were children, so when someone got into a fight or someone hit a younger person, one of us always jumped up to say: "Hey, what's wrong with you", and it's the same now. In my case, it is a natural need to say to bullies, be it the state apparatus or a bully doctor or a system that violently leads to something that is not normal by all criteria: no, enough.

Can I empathize here, activism, street protest, in the end and lead to the desired solution?

With that, we now enter the sphere of politics, it is more of a political issue. I can see and I'm aware of what can't be done here, but like every time so far, I still think it's not up to me to think about whether something can be done further or not, because I'm not a politician. I don't deal with it, nor am I interested in dealing with it. What obviously exists in me is the human impulse not to allow myself to be silenced when I see something bad happening and that's why I react. It is clear to me what kind of country we live in and that who knows when there will be a fundamental change in the system. And now I have to quote my husband Bojan Dimitrijević, who, in moments when I fall into despair because nothing changes, actually explains the nature of both my and his needs to act socially, to speak publicly: "At the end of the day, what matters is whether are you personally on the side of good or on the side of evil". As in any saga, good will not win immediately nor, in the end, do I do anything to make good win - but because I simply want to belong to that side. And that's all I can do. Beyond that, it doesn't depend on me.

On whom does the further course and outcome of the fight depend?

Let's take this situation with obstetric violence as an example. It started with the mother Marica Mihajlović and the death of her baby in the maternity hospital in Sremska Mitrovica, during all that time Ana Mihajlovski published a huge number of similar terrible experiences of women on Instagram "stories". Then, Jelena Ivković, a woman who lost her baby at the same doctor in Sremska Mitrovica a year ago, went public, "Kreni-Promeni" activists from Sremska Mitrovica organized a protest in front of the maternity hospital there, Jelena Riznić from Women's Solidarity organized a protest in Belgrade in front of the Ministry of Health, women in Vranje had a protest against obstetric violence. Social networks were on fire, no one spoke about the obstetric violence and what happened to Marica, including a large number of my colleagues. I want to say, when the struggle of ordinary citizens, of the "little man", we are there.

However, we have a situation where doctors from Sremska Mitrovica, under the pressure of a "little man", not politicians but "little people" like us, perform an autopsy and say that the baby died due to violence. After that, the president of the state receives Marica and her husband and says that he will do everything to investigate the case, and the next day the Minister of Health, Danica Grujičić, declares that her colleagues ran and prematurely made a decision about the doctor's guilt, and that only with a real autopsy, I don't know what kind, to judge. So it obviously becomes a very political story. We will see, of course, what will happen next, but it seems to me that this is also the case for some brave political actors with a very thought-out, "cheeky" plan to push it further in a country where a normal system does not exist.

As one young man in Sremska Mitrovica said, "we citizens are left on the road that leads to anarchy". And anarchy does not help anyone, on the contrary. That evening when we had, admittedly, a planned, staged anarchy in front of the City Assembly, it happened that innocent students were convicted and ended up in prison, where they are still sitting.

How about you personally, as an activist, as someone who invests himself, the instruction or "warning" that there is a very long fight ahead. Is there a fear of exhaustion?

It seems quite demoralizing to me. I am genuinely interested in the steps of that struggle, and I think that citizens currently do not know those steps. Because if they call us out on the street, and we've been out on the street a hundred times and nothing has changed, it's natural for people to ask: "And why on the street again?". What is the purpose of the street if you cannot get what you want there. If citizens are expected to agree to fight, it is natural for citizens to hear what the plan of that fight is. I wonder more and more often, in fact, I keep asking myself - what is this struggle? Who are we really fighting against? What and who is our "enemy", the other, opposite side, and unfortunately, I think it is more and more unarticulated. And that leads us to fall deeper and deeper.

What do you mean?? For example, in the case of Rio Tinto, you don't know who you're up against?

And how do we know when information is constantly changing? And not only are they constantly changing, but the information is not fully available. What we are once told is, after a few months or years it is claimed that it was never said. Quite simply, all the documents must be opened, the statements must not be changed, because in this way it is not really known what is happening there and what is being done there. We don't know anything, how and when it all started, why this works, why it can't, why agriculture can't, why lithium can, why everything has to be like that, why, why, why... The questions about lithium are countless, and the answers are the right ones. there is none. I understand that the government works like that on purpose. For years, she has been killing us by directly insulting our intelligence, publicly insulting us, and if we have come to the point where her response to everything we do is "well, what?!", then it seems to me that it is not productive to think that the citizens "will not wrinkles". Because it is natural that we will all say at some point: "I only have one life and I only have to look after myself". Although I personally left months on the street going out to protests, fighting, not reading books, not going to castings, not getting new roles, compromised, called names, I wonder more and more often: for how long? People did go out en masse. It's just that being a citizen and what you can do as a citizen is one thing, and fighting as a politician is another.

photo: marija janković

You put yourself outside the political sphere, so in that light, perhaps the story about accepting or not accepting the mandate of the opposition carries the label of politics?

Honestly, I didn't bother with that question. The essence of the problem lies in this: who am I or who are we, as citizens, to talk so much about politics at all and to have a deep understanding of it. I am a conscientious person both on the political and social level, and because I actively participate in everything, I want to know what is happening in our country. But politics is a serious science and I cannot know so much about something that is not part of my job. And it seems to me that we, the citizens, are somehow expected to follow everything and know everything, every day, non-stop. Because if we don't follow, then we are somehow "guilty" of living in such a country. And it's not like that. It is literally pushing a citizen not into the role of a politician, but into a politician himself, and citizens are not obliged to know about it, nor to be one.

Ko, in your opinion, that is expected by those who make politicians out of citizens?

I mean that when they say "it depends on the citizens". Now, we don't know if Europe will get involved and fight for our electoral justice, which supposedly depends on us citizens. What depends on me? Apropos of that, I have to say that the two students Emilija Milenković and Staša Cvetković, who went to Brussels, made an excellent move. Dobrica Veselinović was also in Brussels. Those are great steps. And that is what a professional politician can do. There is an expression "pichovanje" (from the English startup pitch - presentation, trying to convince a business partner, first. aut.) which is used in the film industry, when you "pitch" your film. In the political sense, in Brussels "peach" your policy. But you can't let anyone from Europe tell you - so that depends on your citizens. Citizens voted for the opposition, but the votes were stolen! What else can citizens do? To go out into the street. Well, they went out into the street. And got beaten. Some students are still in prison. So, what else can ordinary citizens do in a country where the law is not respected and where brutal force is used on peaceful demonstrations?!

Do you resent others around you for being silent?, that there aren't many more who are willing to come out and say it "ne"?

I don't mind. I don't tend to think about what others are going to do, somehow that's not part of my story. I don't know how those other people would behave, I don't really know how they think. As for me, I always and exclusively go only for those who are in danger at that moment. And they are not the only ones at risk, we are all at risk. In the case of stolen elections, it is only obvious, our votes, my vote, were stolen directly. But I have no expectations about whether anyone else will follow the same path. Here we come back to the topic of how many people have been going out until now, where they have all been, what is the general situation of those who live here. I think the truth is on the opposite side of the popular idea that people are not aware of where they live and that they are not interested in politics, but the truth is that people are actually aware that nothing can change here. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that those who stayed at home did better than I did.

In what sense? What is the consequence of their non-activism or your activism?

I can now freely say that I have come to terms with the fact that I am not in television roles, in series, because I have not been getting such roles for a long time. And I'm very resigned to the fact that it won't happen anytime soon. It is desirable that an actor or actress, due to the very nature of their profession, should be like an unwritten book so that various characters can be written there. If I am someone who is recognized for any work outside of roles, which has nothing to do with my profession, most productions and directors will call an actress who does not burden them with personal content rather than someone who the audience can relate to some other stories. A special thing is that I was called out in the Assembly, Pink made a video, publicly or secretly, I must have resented some people and closed some doors behind me with my social involvement.

And in theater work?

In the theater, the people I work with, primarily the directors, and in Atelier 212, where I work most of all, are above all open to artistic creation and action. The people I work with are not primarily interested in what I do outside the theater, but what I can give on stage. And for that, I must say, I am infinitely grateful to them.

Among your like-minded people are people who admire you, who call you the heroine of the protest. Your engagement is seen as an inspiration for others, for them to wake up and fight with the same passion as you.

I must say that my social involvement does not have such a deliberate plan, rather it would be the opposite. In fact, if we're being honest, I'm very sad about all of this. Because I would like us to recognize each other by our work, the profession we are engaged in, for everyone to have a person in their work who inspires them and for that to be enough for us.

Da, but the life of the conscious and brave in a completely drastic society does not seem to offer much choice, nor models of different behavior.

We live in a deeply oppressive society. It's not joy, I'd prefer to meet in another way. I am also inspired by Ceca Bojković and Seka Sablić, who are outstanding in their acting profession. But, I don't see them in leading or leading roles in the movies and series that are currently showing. We have now become an inspiration to each other in the categories of activism, courage.

Do you have the impression that social, political events can still turn in a positive way, expected direction?

The phase of pessimism is absolutely normal, especially after the recently concluded elections. We just feel that way now, like losers, and we have every right to feel that way because the election went the way it went. However, that is just a feeling, and feelings are not facts. What will happen next and whether something will change, I'll say again, I'm not someone who can know or even think about it, because I'm not involved in politics. Things will change if there is a plan to change things, a concrete, good plan. Of course, it depends on many factors, primarily financial, in order to further develop that plan, because the opposition, first of all, badly needs many experts.

One period of life, about 12 years, you spent in America. Were you interested in social activism there and simply what could you see?

Yes, I lived there exactly at the time when the "Occupy Wall Street" movement was taking place, when they first took to the streets "We are the 99 percent" against the "One percent", those were the famous demonstrations. Of course I was also on the street with my friends in protests against police brutality for "Black Lives Matter". Then I saw the dark side of the American system literally on the skin of my friends. I finally realized that I can't run away from myself and my activism, wherever I am. On the other hand, I can never say that it is the same there and here, because the differences are like heaven and earth, although both societies carry their own complex problems.

In what sense? What is the possibility "little man", citizen, to fight for his right, there and here?

Unlike all other countries, it is also very noticeable - the law is not respected here. We often hear about it, our experts say that there are laws, they are even good, but the application of those laws, their defense is a completely different story. And that is the essential difference. Of course, there are problems in every country, but are the laws respected in America, that is, if they are not respected, are the perpetrators sanctioned, all of them "dirty detectives"? Absolutely yes. It may take some time for justice to be served, but justice is served. Their famous sentence that is promoted constantly and everywhere: I know my rights. And no one can violate that, and when they do, as happened in cases of police brutality, the whole country comes out and protests, and the government changes because of it.

In your social visibility, bobby, is there a clear political aspect? Political framework, idea?

My only idea, at the moment, is that the law be respected, that the institutions do their job. Regarding Rio Tinto, to open the documents, to give clear information, to have clear answers. As for obstetric violence, how terrible is it that a doctor called "The Butcher" gives birth to women, has had cases of infant deaths for years, and insults mothers on ethnic grounds? And again I return to the non-existent institutions that do not sanction this. These are all basic things that do not exist here. Broader in an ideological sense - I'm a vegetarian, I believe in climate change and I know that we breathe catastrophic air, I believe that ecology must be much more conscious among the people who live here, but also globally, I believe in renewable energy sources, healthy materials, I believe that AI it can help people, but only if it focuses on making the planet greener, more humane. Whether it is a political direction or not, someone will say that it is, but I do not look at it in the context of party politics, but as elementary human rights.

Finally, if there were elections tomorrow, would you go out on them again?

Well, yes, I go to the polls and I do, it has nothing to do with whether they can change something and how much they can change. But I don't think that the opposition would go to the elections under the same conditions. The way things are now, I really can't see the next election under the same conditions, it's unthinkable for me.