The rebellious society is majority Serbia

400 meters from the editorial office of "Vremena" where we are talking to Gojko Božović, a mother who lost her son is on hunger strike. We talk about her, then about other victims of the regime - victims, fired, beaten, some who are sitting in prisons, others who cannot provide for their families, frightened...

Gojko Božović is a publisher, literary critic and poet. He is one of the founders of "ProGlas" and a perceptive voice in dissecting social movements. His publishing house "Archipelag" belongs to the group of those that did not participate in the recently held one Book Fair, publishes top domestic and foreign authors with equal intensity.

We start the conversation about what kind of time we live in, and then we continue about a generation that is changing this society and why it is more successful than the previous ones, about the student list and why it should not be published, the state of culture and publishing...

GOJKO BOŽOVIĆ: This is the time of great sacrifices. Students sacrifice the best years of their lives fighting for a better society. In the name of that, they are ready not only to lose the school year, but to turn the social and political problems and traumas they encountered, for which they are not at all responsible, into key generational issues. We now see the sacrifices made by Dijana Hrko and Jaćimovići. Finding no other way to fight for justice, they resort to a hunger strike, risking the most valuable thing they have, life itself. All those examples are actually a testimony of the state in which our society is. We are witnessing the collapse of a regime, but also its willingness to resort to extreme measures of repression, regardless of means. During these thirteen years, that regime created a situation that became unbearable both for the citizens of Serbia and for himself. This is the best proof that changes are inevitable and must become a key issue for every conscientious and responsible person in this country. We cannot be indifferent to the sacrifices that people make. This state of affairs must not last. Changing this government is a necessary condition to fundamentally change the system that creates so much injustice, suffering and inequality.

"WEATHER" There were also people who lost their jobs before because they criticized the government or were not party followers, people who were threatened, who were victims of violence and persecution... But that sacrifice was in a certain way meaningless, ie, it did not stimulate society to action. Thanks to which social processes it regained its meaning?

I think that it acquired its meaning at the moment when a new social and later recognized as a political actor appeared on the scene. In this year, we are witnessing the impressive emergence of an entire generation - from which no one expected it - on the public stage, and it has no reason to leave that stage anymore. For a long time it was believed that this is a generation that is not only devoid of ideological and social interests, which turned out to be completely wrong, but also that these young people are somewhat antisocial. However, Serbian society has not seen so much sociality in one generation for a long time: we see how they rejoice with each other, how they renew and create social bonds through epic marches and large protests, a whole series of gatherings, the most numerous in the history of Serbian multipartyism.

With their own enthusiasm, gift for communication as an element of a generational sensibility, willingness to risk and sacrifice, they drew in a huge number of other people and created a rebellious society, a new social and political community. There is no doubt that this is now the majority part of Serbia. Previously, people were convinced that the situation was hopeless, and especially that there was no way out to change it, and then they adapted or, as it would be said in recent times, found their way in the existing circumstances. But the light was on and people followed that light.

This is why this generation is already more successful than many previous ones that tried to change society?

This is a generation that does not want to "manage" and adapt, is not ready to make rotten and unprincipled compromises, which actually makes it acceptable, influential and attractive in the eyes of even those who have made many difficult compromises in their lives. This is a new quality that has appeared in Serbia - a generation that wants to organize society, not to manage in existing circumstances, not to accept any political system or any customs.

Social change has taken place. What a moment we are in now?

We are at a critical moment because social changes have been achieved, and the regime has been trying to restore the order of fear for half a year through mass political repression. He introduced the police into the political process because he can no longer control spin and economic extortion, that is, the existential blackmail of society.

The next step is to turn social change into political change. The regime tries to resist with bare violence, but it cannot last long because it raises the price of power and breaks the morale of members of the police establishment and the entire repressive apparatus. As long as the regime managed to control the citizens of Serbia with existential issues - what can be bought and what can be sold - it was insurmountable. It simply shows that regimes of spin dictatorships cannot be changed by classical political means, but only by peaceful and mass movements that have some transcendental theme. And the fight against corruption, which is extremely unacceptable to the young generation, is exactly such a topic.

We see that this is not the case only in Serbia, but also in many other countries around the world. The anti-corruption aspect is becoming the key political issue of a generation, so to speak on a global level, which is a very interesting phenomenon.

You said in a guest appearance that regimes like Vučić's are predictable in a certain way. I assume you meant those answers - from spin to repression and back again. How, considering that, you think it will unfold in the coming months, given that there are many indicators that the government has lost its legitimacy.

Yes, the regime has undoubtedly lost any kind of legitimacy. It has lost its democratic legitimacy due to its electoral engineering, its repression and the anti-constitutional actions of its leading representatives. It has lost its economic legitimacy - the country is in a raging economic crisis, with which the citizens of this country are finding it increasingly difficult to cope. He lost his civil legitimacy in the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad and a whole series of other incidents and extremely dubious construction projects, where it is shown that the projects to create a "new face of Serbia" actually have a corrupt basis and a corrupt meaning. He lost national legitimacy not only because of his Kosovo policy, but also because he is ending his mandate by offering one economic, symbolic or political resource of this country in order not to get any international political support for himself, which we can see in the case of, for example, the General Staff. The only legitimacy that is still clinging to is the legitimacy of violence, which is the weakest of all legitimacy. No regime resorts to violence because it is powerful but because it is weak. They try to restore the order of fear through arrests, persecutions, eavesdropping, violence at protests, but the citizens reject it. What can the regime do then? He does not dare to go to the elections, even with the use of electoral engineering, because he knows, because he has insight into public opinion surveys, that the situation in Serbia has irreversibly changed. They can then combine repression and buying time in the maddened hope that circumstances will change. But it won't. There is no turning back. People who have come out of the shackles of existential extortion will never re-accept the order of fear that they have just left and with which they have finally dealt.

photo: marija janković

And what can a rebellious society do??

Strategies that are successful should not be changed. If this student movement has shown such great imagination and gained enormous social and political strength, it should be taken as a fact.

He did not accept the found political and social authorities, but he did not even want to produce new authorities, student leaders within his framework - that is one of those facts. In the history of student protests in Serbia, we know that their weakest sides were, as a rule, student leaders. Perhaps these protests are so successful precisely because there are none. By doing so, of course, they protected themselves from additional political persecution, they also protected their protest, but I think that it is primarily an expression of the sensibility of that generation that does not tolerate authority figures, but has very clear values. In this sense, I understand why students do not publish the student list. And that is not a political custom either, because the lists are published when the elections are announced. Citizens who voted against this government in the previous elections, voted for different lists and probably the largest number of them never read, nor did they agree with all the names on any of them. But it is a form of political struggle in which we always strive to find the greatest possible common content of political values, and we cannot agree with all people.

Is that the only reason?, in your opinion, not to publish the list?

I see no reason for it to be published earlier, because we do not know when the elections will be called, and its publication ahead of time would not bring any political contribution to the student protest, and in many ways would reduce its effect. On the other hand, whatever names are found there - in a society where Novak Djokovic is called a failed tennis player - would be passed through the most terrible regime propaganda machines. I don't see what social goal that would achieve. We should start from the unquestionable: the strongest social and political actors are students, i.e. the student movement, that is one fact; the second is that the priority at this moment should be political changes in Serbia. Without them, we won't have a system change, we won't have responsibility for anything that happens, and we won't be able to stop the big corruption hydra. At the same time, without political changes, there will be no calming down of the situation. Of course, it will not be easy for any government that comes after the changes to deal with all the expectations, problems and deep consequences left by this regime.

Therefore, it is necessary to take the first steps, which are changes. It seems that the discussion about who is on the student list diminishes the importance of that priority of change. It doesn't matter to me who is on the student list, but that changes happen, and then space will be opened for politics, for existing and some new political parties, more people will enter politics, there will be a different media system, people will be informed, they will be able to vote based on a clear picture of the domestic and international politics offered. We now have no political life in Serbia and we have to restore it, to restore basic democracy and critical thinking platforms. If we insist on ideological exclusivity, we will not win that change, because if we could, it would have already happened. So, now we have one strong actor, and that actor should be supported, because in the referendum atmosphere Vučić loses in the potential elections.

Apart from the return of political life, the return of culture is also needed. This government hardly ever existed "on you" with culture, but in recent months the situation is getting worse - many events, of, The event has been canceled., investments in culture are minimal, cultural heritage is under attack... What is irretrievably lost??

A lot of damage has been done in different areas and some of that damage is irreparable. It is usually said that the most difficult thing will be to solve the economic and political consequences of the actions of this regime, which are very difficult, but I think that the social consequences will be even more difficult.

Because this regime succeeded in destroying the moral foundations of social existence, it introduced into politics, into public life, into society the "rule" that everything is possible to do, that everything is possible to say, that there is no responsibility and that if it is the personal interest of the representative of the government to do something, there is no such obstacle, value, argument that will prevent them from doing so. Those consequences are also felt in the field of culture. It seems to me that Serbian culture has not been under such a frontal attack by one government for a long time. Namely, in the current context, the regime understood that there are two communities, unequal in strength and influence, and in which almost all representatives are their opponents or dissenters. One is academic - a large enlightened community that does not accept this state of affairs in society, which is the reason why the regime targeted it, starting with teachers, through high school and gymnasium professors to university professors, and of course, high school students and students.

The second community is smaller and less influential, but the majority is almost exclusively an opponent or dissenter of the current authorities, it is a cultural community. And because of this, the regime resorted to economic sanctions against Serbian culture. We can see this by the status of representatives of the independent cultural scene, private cultural institutions, where state competitions are either not announced or, if they are implemented, they maintain the party's understanding of committed and submissive culture. But state institutions of culture are also subject to fines. In some earlier periods, for example during communism, the government dismissed the theater manager if he violated the party line with a performance, but did not destroy the theaters. We have a new situation, therefore, the National Theater is closed for an apparently indefinite period, which has never happened in the peacetime period, because the government cannot suppress the rebellion of actors and directors. Then, we have cases where state manifestations, such as Steria's theater, do not receive funds from their founders in order to be held.

The idea is to exhaust entire sectors and cultures with economic measures or sanctions and to remove them from the scene. Censorship is more and more open. BITEF will most likely not be held because the name and performance of a foreign director was not acceptable in the program. However, with all that the culture suffers, it resists this pressure and does not retreat. Along with the creativity she showed, her commitment to critical thinking is what will be the most powerful flywheel for Serbian culture in better times than the present.

About publishing

What is the situation when it comes to publishing?

Publishing is now in the biggest crisis in the last 25 years. That crisis has different elements.

On the one hand, it is a technological crisis as more and more people switch from print media to digital content. Then, the economic crisis that is increasingly visible in the country, the uncertainty in which people live is increasing, so that they have less time and opportunities to devote themselves to books. Of course, in such mass events that last for a long time, people's imagination has moved from their daily rituals, such as reading or going to the theater, to public life, so that also has its consequences. Then, as I mentioned, the state imposes economic sanctions on Serbian culture, and there is no support that exists even in highly regulated, developed and well-positioned European countries. This year in Serbia, there are no book purchases for public libraries, that is, it was held in one form, which 80-90 percent of publishers boycotted due to unacceptable conditions, which were shaped in such a way that we could not accept them.

In fact, the purchase of books for libraries was not intended for books, libraries, readers, and of course not publishers, but for the regime's ideological and political fantasies. The book fair, the single most important business event of the year for publishers, was without a significant number of publishers and, more importantly, without a significant number of readers. Officially, there were a third of visitors less than last year, but the impression of the participating publishers was that the number was even lower if you take into account the number of books sold at the Fair.

Finally, there is also a significant decline in book sales, across different publishers, genres, and areas, probably the biggest annual decline in the past two and a half decades. And the number of publications in the Serbian language has been decreasing for several years, which indicates that publishing is in a serious economic crisis, and reducing the number of books cannot be a long-term solution.

What will be the consequences of that?, What kind of books will be less??

When it comes to genres that will be more under attack, it is certainly the humanities. At the beginning of the 2000s, there were market publishers that only published books from various fields of humanities. Today, that is no longer possible. There is a dramatic decline in books and circulation in the field of humanities in Serbia. Slovenia, which is a much smaller country, has larger circulations than us. But Slovenia also has a very intelligent and dedicated cultural policy, built over many years, which has created a cultural brand on a European scale.

At the beginning of the 2000s, 10.000-12.000 titles were published annually in Serbia, which is too much for a country of this size and for such a book market. After the corona, for example, we had about 5000 titles a year. This year, I wouldn't be surprised if that number is less than 4000 titles. And it is in no way the result of a rational attitude towards the number of editions, but actually a serious cultural and publishing crisis.