Neither holidays, nor icy days like the one on Sretenje when they were outside for a full 15 hours, nor even colder nights, when they slept under the open sky on the way to Novi Sad, bothered them. Neither the bloody feet from walking hundreds of kilometers, nor the daily intimidation from the authorities that they will be left without scholarships and homes, nor the latest threat that they will lose the year, hindered them. How students teach everyone else what perseverance and adaptability are in the face of new challenges
When the students, after months of blockades of the faculty and intersections at 11.52:XNUMX, and then after the milestone protest at Autokomanda, suddenly thought of expanding their scope of action by walking to Novi Sad, psychologist Žarko Trebješanin was amazed, to say the least.
"It sounded incredible, that they were walking to Novi Sad. I thought, why are they exhausting themselves so unnecessarily and wasting human resources", says Trebješanin for "Vreme". "But it turned out that this move was extraordinary from the point of view of the impact on ordinary people, and then the marketing of the entire protests. With this, they showed us that they have a recipe and the only possible strategy for long-lasting protests, which is to always have an upward line, to reach more people and mobilize them with each undertaking."
That is why now, according to Trebješanin, no one should teach students how to keep their own protests alive or in which direction to direct them.
"Students showed us incredible originality, the kind of originality we have not seen so far among political actors in Serbia, and that in several different fields, and mostly when it comes to adaptability. Because, they nicely say - it is not true that we are apolitical, we are just not party oriented. They showed that they always have a new strategy, carefully thought out and unique, which will keep our attention and make the authorities a pain", adds Trebješanin.
STUDENT SPRING
Much depends on the political dynamics during March. After a large protest on March 1 in Nis, students from Novi Sad called for a general strike and going out on the streets on March 7, and the rest of Serbia accepted the call not to go to restaurants and cafes, not to shop at supermarkets and gas stations, or to work on that day. Just one day later, students from Belgrade, together with workers from numerous economic activities, postmen, educators, employees of the EPS department, will go to the Serbian Parliament for a protest called "Shoulder to shoulder".
Then there will be a big protest on March 15 in Belgrade, which will probably also be in front of the Assembly, but there is a possibility that it will be moved to New Belgrade due to the mass. With all these dates, students on lockout will enter the spring.
"This will certainly be a student spring, in the sense that the protests will continue in that period as well," Đorđe Pavićević, a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, told Vreme. "Students have already taught us that they are ready to step into new fields of activity whenever they feel the need, so I think it will be the same in the spring."
New constant threats to students from the President of the Assembly Ana Brnabić - that they have to return to the benches or they will lose the year - Pavićević sees as another example of "matchmaking by the government, which trades with demands that it pretends to fulfill, but in fact does not fulfill anything. Ultimately, the students showed such perseverance that they were ready to sacrifice that year. If that happens, this will certainly be a student spring, they will be relieved completely. Only then, if they make such a sacrifice for the country, it is hard to imagine that they will give up."
HOW THEY HAVE SHOWN THAT THEY LAST
The first among many milestones in the field of political relations towards the government is certainly the move by which the students reduced the president of Serbia to his limitations by function.
"Usually, until now, at civil protests, everything was focused on that one man, but the students made a Copernican twist and completely eliminated him. "Aleksandar Vučić certainly did not expect that and tried in every way to get back into the game as the only one who is wondering", says Trebješanin. "So we saw that we older people have a completely wrong picture when we think about the fight against the regime. This was a unique, unusual move and they continued the fight on that track."
Pavićević, who is also a deputy of the Green-Left Front in the Serbian Parliament, thinks that the main indicator of student perseverance is the insistence on fulfilling four demands: "You see that they do not give up on the initial idea, they keep coming back to it, and you also see that they cannot be deceived, which we often did not have even with very experienced political actors. Another thing is the solidarity they present and maintain. In their speeches, there is not much soloing and presenting positions with which the majority does not agree. There is no emerging leader either, which is often the key to the political failure of new actors."
STUDENTS AS PSYCHOTHERAPISTS
For Trebješanin, walking from town to town was proof of perseverance, but also adaptability to new circumstances, because the students got to know the whole of Serbia on foot, reaching people who have no other way to get information, who need to see them live. For them, the goal is not only reaching the destination, but the entire journey, until they reach the goal.
"They managed fantastically to make people aware, to make them sensitive in the best way", continues Trebješanin. "They showed that, if today you address only your supporters, and scold those who are against - that is the road to ruin".
In politics, according to Trebješanin, it is very important to win over those who are apathetic and undecided, who think that it is pointless to participate, and the students managed to activate them, and even to enter the voting body of the SNS and parties in power: "Whether consciously or unconsciously, they applied the pattern used in prichotherapy. They did not immediately point a finger in the eye, criticize the government and Vučić, because that would only lead to resistance from those who are in favor of him. Those people would shut down."
Instead, they performed - we are students, we have nothing to do with the government, we just say what the system should be, which made people think. "Imagine that in a conversation with a dissenter you immediately say - you have complexes, you are a narcissist. People immediately retreat. That's why psychotherapists, like students now, first work on lowering people's resistance. This is crucial because they teach us a very important lesson that they are only hinting at - if we really want to change the system, we have to change those who defend it", concludes Trebješanin.
WHY ARE WE ALL WAITING FOR THEM?
Adult learned people have come to a situation where they closely follow every move from the university. But not the professors, the gray eminences of every society, but their students.
The students, rightly, built the image of someone who has their own plan, and Pavićević thinks that a part of the society "put" a lot of pressure on them: "We have people who are just waiting for the students to avoid responsibility themselves, but we also have a part of the society that does not want to do anything beyond the students and makes its own political moves so as not to undermine the students. It has already been shown - everything that students do has some weight and we should not potentially lighten the weight that they leave on the government."
However, Trebješanin says that the citizens and the opposition should think not only how to act collectively, but also learn how to make sacrifices themselves: "As the students came and said - the most important thing for us right now is that the institutions work, and not only what will happen to us, ordinary people should also see what they can do", Trebješanin believes, and states that this is exactly what the Student Edict shows, because the students are potentially saying that "freedom cannot be given away".
"We have been saying for a long time that we need a different system of values, that violence, greed, and selfishness have been favored in Serbia for years, and that society needs the opposite - empathy, solidarity," this interlocutor points out. "That was shown by the edict, that we should return to those original values."
"None of us can be expert enough, nor should we evaluate every road section, every airplane purchase, every state project, such as the Expo, such as the national stadium. It is the state that should prove that we need it, regardless of what we think. But there is none."
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