This is the land for us.

Never have more tears of joy been shed than these days in Serbia. It was enough to see how the women were being carried on the streets still warm pancakes and encourage students who walk from Belgrade to Novi Sad; as the elderly man sobbed at the sight student column; how the security guards sleep on the bench - while the temperature drops to zero - tired from the day and night spent on the street fighting for their parents.

We cried because of the rush of goodness and humanity, out of relief and hope because everything that seemed to be irretrievably lost, stolen and numbed is coming back. Words that were used and perverted by some satraps - such as solidarity and compassion, justice and responsibility - are once again filled with their true meaning.

The value horizon has been changing in the past weeks in society. What is being sought is a change in the system, not a change in personality. With an almost inexplicable wisdom, the students manage to avoid the traps set for them not only by the regime, but also by the ruling political culture. Finally, after decades of professional servitude, the flag is in the hands of those who do not embrace it to steal something and do not wave it to benefit from it, but fight for the common good.

REVENGE OF THE GOOD STUDENTS

"The famous psychologist Abraham Maslow claimed that people have an innate need for higher values. 'Every child is potentially Plato.' In other words, everyone has a need for justice, freedom and truth. We are programmed to make it important in our lives, but for decades we put these needs aside because we are too pressed by existential pressures, intimidated and forced to play by different rules," Zoran Pavlović, a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade at the Department of Psychology, told Vreme.

That's why all the slogans we hear these days, writings that a place or a city stood up and the citizens woke up, are a good description of it all - something human that we had forgotten woke up in us. "We have weaned ourselves off kindness," concludes Pavlović. "And now someone has reminded us of kindness."

Where did all those tears come from? We are reacting to uncorrupted and authentic good, and at the same time, adds Pavlović, the response to the students shows how little people needed, how eager they were for someone to knock on their door and say - how long are we going to put up with this and when are we going to live like a normal world.

We should not forget that the student rebellion succeeded in uniting a society that was (was) deeply polarized mi i They group, that it managed to break the long-cultivated indifference and, as it seems now, to change the way in which we talk and negotiate, in which we relate to the authorities and in which we relate to each other. Someone wrote on the X network - the revenge of the good students has finally arrived.

RETURN OF DEMOCRACY

Vujo Ilić, research associate and assistant director at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, when he talks about the important value aspects of the student rebellion, points out that it all started with young people who were otherwise anti-authoritarian in relation to the older generations, but were quite politically passive, which proved to be unsustainable in the local political environment. And while the first value characteristic is anti-authoritarianism, the second concerns student demands. "It was not about whether you are for or against the government, but they point to the widespread problem of the culture of irresponsibility of the government," Ilić explains.

As the third important aspect, he mentions the way of fighting, which is based on the principles of direct democracy and deliberation: "We are used to democracy being reduced to elections. We often hear from representatives of the government whenever there is some criticism or objection, that their answer is - you are running in the elections. One aspect of democracy is that those who have the majority support of the voters form the government, but in our country, other mechanisms such as the participation of citizens in democratic processes are completely stunted". Finally, the deliberative aspect of democracy, which all students emphasize, are plenums where decisions are not only made, but discussed at length. This brought the discussion back to the fore in a country where it is neither in the parliament nor in the media, and where the president gives long monologues every day in which he argues with imaginary opponents.

LIVING VALUES

When it comes to the values ​​of the young generation, Zoran Pavlović points out that there is no fresh empirical research, but that it can be judged indirectly, based on the messages that students send, the transparency and how they act. In his opinion, there are four key words: solidarity, freedom, responsibility and justice.

"Political elites have had their mouths full of those same values ​​for decades - SNS representatives will not say: 'We are not for justice and democracy' - but the meaning of the terms has become perverted. What was sold as freedom and truth was very questionable and people started rejecting those values: 'If this is democracy, then we don't want democracy,'" says Pavlović.

He reminds one of the first banners hung at his faculty, on which it says - values ​​lack action. In other words: it is necessary to start behaving in accordance with the local normative framework.

"We have norms and procedures that guarantee a democratic society, but we have come to the point that those who are in a position to ensure these values ​​do not do so," concluded Pavlović.

Hence, the student request could be seen in this light as well - as living the values ​​that are being talked about.

Finally, Pavlović points out that the results of the latest European Social Survey from 2023 on values ​​in European countries show that in Serbia the general population values ​​security particularly highly: "When you offer people a list of values ​​that include freedom, justice and others, the citizens of Serbia say that the most desirable is security".

Of course, the youngest population is (was) the most ready to act at the expense of security, and for the sake of other values.

On the other hand, Đorđe Trikoš, strategist for political communications, notes for "Vreme" that at one point in the development of a community - especially if the amount of political improvisation is too great, i.e. there is complete anomie and the absence of values ​​- moral behavior begins to appear to people as the least uncertain: "When depravity and corruption become so present that they cause a justified sense of existential threat, when social norms cease to exist, then morality becomes a way out. People turn to morality as they turn to religion, as a way out of an existential crisis".

photo: lenka pavlović

MORAL REVOLUTION

A few days ago, Trikoš wrote on the X social network that the third Serbian revolution is underway in Serbia today, and the first was a moral revolution: "Serbia had a national revolution at the beginning of the 19th century, and then a democratic revolution at the end of the 20th century. From that moment, cycles of political turmoil took place, and all attempts to fight against the authoritarian rule of the SNS with conventional political methods were unsuccessful. Now a social revolution is taking place".

As Trikoš further explains, in the conditions of vulgarized media, manipulated rule of law, meaningless dialogue, open or perfidious political violence, corruption that led to the death of 15 people, such a reaction could have been expected, but it is interesting that the bearer of the ethical revolution is the generation from which it was least expected.

In what, according to him, is this ethical revolution reflected? In principle, the emotional charge and catharsis that the society goes through in meeting the student struggle extended to other layers, in the awakening of empathy and honesty among many people.

"She is guided by a moral worldview. The tragedy in Novi Sad must be solved politically, because it is necessary to establish responsibility, but the students are shifting the focus from regular politics. In other words, that revolution has political consequences, but its primary motive is moral purification", concludes Trikoš.

This nature of the rebellion, he says, is the reason why the ruling party is powerless to deal with it, because if the rebellion had been articulated against the government, the regime's repertoire of possible reactions would have come to the fore. Now it seems that they are without a solution. "By changing the mental model, you make the techniques of political struggle meaningless, you introduce a way of behavior that no one has an answer to, and especially not this kind of government," points out Đorđe Trikoš.

photo: katarina stevanović

YOU ARE NOT IN JURISDICTION

And indeed, the government tried all its usual techniques - it misinformed the public, threatened the students, then promised them hills and mountains, threatened them again, sent beaters, then scolded the beaters, insulted them, called for dialogue. However - nothing. The immunity of young people to government manipulations is very high and there is a lot to learn from that. They are fed up with local propaganda, they don't fish for carrots, nor are they afraid of sticks.

The government's previous strategies to discredit and curb the student rebellion were not successful, confirms Vujo Ilić. In some previous situations, the regime would have usually waited for the social movement to die down - because it certainly has much more resources - but the students' persistence, and the association of other social strata with them, presented the authorities with a challenge that was difficult to cope with.

However, how long-term effects can this rebellion really have, that is, how much does it signify the return of civilizational values ​​to society? And is this the beginning of a new system in which, at least for a while, Kurt will not be dismounted to mount Murt?

Vujo Ilić is convinced that we will not easily return to the previous state of things: "The way young people are socialized now is of great importance. That formative experience of students and high school students about participating in political and social processes, as well as democratic decision-making and deliberation, can have a longer-lasting effect."

In other words, Ilić points out, the generations who lead protests today will come to their work collectives tomorrow with new expectations about how decisions are made and implemented, i.e., fight to have their voices heard...

Đorđe Trikoš is also optimistic, for two reasons: this generation of students understands itself as the generation that created par excellence a new form of social process and political action, and at the same time creating a type of protest that has not been seen before.

"Silence of 15 minutes among hundreds of thousands of people is a sociological phenomenon," explains Trikoš.

Also, that generation overthrew the government and tomorrow they will be bound by the pride of that achievement and they, with the memory of this experience, will shape society as well. The rebellion has become a matter of identity for a series of generations - students and high school students - which also means that, adds Đorđe Trikoš, this kind of government has no future.

Also, the power of spreading such an authentic phenomenon is great. Trikoš points out the mimetic contagiousness of such cathartic changes where people need to be a part of it.

On the other hand, Zoran Pavlović sees the events of the previous weeks as the first step in a painstaking process, recalling the saying that you can change the political system in six months, the economic system in six years, and the political culture in 60 years. Of course, the most important element of that culture are precisely the values ​​on which it is based.

"We need to work intensively and for a long time on that culture," he adds, emphasizing that another important question is what comes next after the student rebellion. That is, will those responsible really bear the consequences for their actions, which must be done in the name of the principles on which the entire social action was started, and will the institutions begin to do their work and become depersonalized so that it will not matter who is in which position because the Constitution and laws will be respected.

photo: katarina stevanović

IS THE GOVERNMENT FALLING?

One of the basic questions that are asked is how to transform this change, under one, into a systemic change - to receive it - but under two - how is it materialize in political frameworks. Intolerance towards opposition parties is still present, as well as towards party politics as such - every mention of that particularity leads to conflict. Also, the fear that the next elections will be stolen is more than founded, and the media is still a propaganda weapon in the hands of the ruling party.

If this government is about to collapse, Đorđe Trikoš believes, it will happen as a result of mass strikes and protests, disobedience from healthcare to education to industry, rather than clearly articulating that struggle through a political profile.

"When rebel groups are more inclined to support the government - I do not include pensioners, but the active population - that will be the moment when that government will come to an end. Because the government cannot manage a society in which there is serious opposition to its active part, such as employees and young people," Trikoš points out. He emphasizes that the government still, thanks to the propaganda of the pro-regime media, has the support of pensioners, and that it would therefore also receive a large number of votes in tomorrow's elections. However, precisely through the recent meetings of the president with ordinary world, where he encountered serious criticism that was unimaginable before, you can see how much support for the authorities is falling.

"If this happens in a meeting with pensioners, we can only imagine how much that support has fallen in the active population", Trikoš explains, emphasizing that "the reaction among pensioners is a kind of proxy of that trend".

LIST OF GOODS

There is a long list of values ​​that, as it were, overnight, students brought back to the public as socially desirable. These days, if they were ever authentically there, tolerance and justice - which Trikoš even calls Antigonian because of the consequences for themselves - have returned these days. education is valued again, and arrogance and lawlessness, violence, both physical and verbal, are rejected; togetherness and the need for the common good are emphasized, not the self-indulgent need for an individual to grab as much attention and benefit as possible.

It now depends on the entire society whether this will be a period that will be remembered as a social catharsis or as the greatest missed opportunity.

Why now?

Few could have really predicted the social awakening and in general such perseverance of students, and their positioning as the main actors of important social processes. However, points out Vujo Ilić, not everything came from nothing. The students did organize themselves in waves; plenums also do not happen for the first time.

"Also, whenever we had large national protests, the mass was given by the youth. They were present all the time, remember the protests against the dictatorship in 2017. Now a new form of organization and perseverance gave them momentum", says Ilić.

Also, the student rebellion here is quite special even on a European scale. "We have a specific form of a hybrid regime, where very crude physical force will not be used in the sense that the police will not invade the faculties and occupy them, and again, the political processes are stunted and the institutions do not function."

And Zoran Pavlović believes that our perception that the student rebellion happened suddenly is not correct. However, despite the fact that we have had protests before, this rebellion is surprising: "Let the students tell us - why now. But it's possible that they were full of it. The event that prompted blockades and protests, that is, demands, was specific - it is a situation where the responsibility of the authorities is unequivocal. In all the tragedies and deaths so far, the government could spin the story that it was about individuals, that Western values ​​were to blame... Now that has become impossible."