Vukašin Milićević he became priest without a parish and a professor without a chair because he spoke what he thought, about the top of the Church, but also politics in Serbia. Among other things, because he supported the students in the blockade at the Orthodox Theological Faculty, where he taught.
He supports the students even now, but not from the professor's chair, but as a member of the Presidency of the Democratic Party, the only opposition party in Serbia that has clearly paved its way before the next parliamentary elections - whenever the elections are called, the DS will not participate in them as a list, but will make all its capacities available to the students.
"WEATHER" The Democratic Party is completely behind the students, How do you defend this decision??
VUKASIN MILICEVIC: I have great confidence in the students. It is woven into my personal position, which students have already known for months, but also the position of the Democratic Party. I am not the only one who knows students and has worked with them. Among the members of the DS, as well as in the "Ljuba Davidović" foundation, which I head, there are many university professors from different faculties.
The students also gained my political trust because I witnessed the values they stand for. So I had no dilemma whether we should support them. I will allow myself to say that students are the only responsible and constructive answer to the regime, considering the political moment in which Serbia finds itself. Hence, it is our duty to be the first to lend a hand to these people, but not only as a principled stance of support, but also to do something concrete for those who actually carry the greatest burden for the future of Serbia on their backs. Both symbolically and literally.
Do you believe that other parties will follow you in supporting the student list, or will the opposition disagree again??
I am convinced that the best way to fight against the government is to create a unified civil court, and students are the only ones who can lead it at the moment, because they have a very clear focus and goal. There aren't many goals here. From the beginning, students have insisted on one thing without which democracy is impossible, and that is the rule of law. It also brings the fight against corruption, the fight for media freedom, free elections and, of course, the fulfillment of student demands. Only now has it become clear to everyone how important the autonomy of universities and that relationship to politics were in Serbia, in every crisis of the past decades.
So I hope the rest of the opposition will go our way because I believe that is the only responsible political course of action at this time. Those who fail to do so risk being left without a political perspective after the student victory. And I am convinced that the students will win.
You say that parties that do not stand with students will be lost. But what will happen to the parties that will, by withdrawing from the election, to lose the opportunity for the financial injection they receive by entering the parliament? Many parties live on that money.
I am absolutely sure that nobody who is serious about the political future of this country, and I believe that these people also support the student list, does not think of destroying political parties. That is why I am convinced that some mode will be found for the parties that support students in the elections to survive in the long term.
We have local elections coming up, which will certainly enable the opposition parties to solve that issue as well. Then I guess the parties also have some foothold in the electorate that can help them, and there is also the membership.
The Democratic Party has already endured an incredibly difficult time outside of Parliament, left without any resources, affected by an active brutal campaign against it, not for the last year but for a decade.
So there is no doubt that when the question of values versus basic survival is raised, in order for survival to have any meaning - it is necessary to prioritize values. Because otherwise survival without value means nothing. Then we are only talking about mere survival. Life is measured by quality, not just quantity.
You mention local elections as an opportunity for parties, but also other opportunities for cooperation with students. At the Foundation "Ljuba Davidovic", as you said, a lot of university professors do. Some of them are also non-partisan figures. Could any of them be on the student list?? Jer, DS may have said that they will not ask for their officials to be on the student list, but maybe it will be people close to the party.
The "Ljuba Davidović" Foundation is a legal entity separate from the Democratic Party and is formally a non-governmental organization. Some people who work in it are DS members, like me, some are not.
The students have the only right to express themselves about their possible participation in the student list. They made decisions about the student list within their procedures, through internal decision-making, and I believe that this is the maximum of Serbian democracy in modern history. Since 1804, nothing has been decided as democratically as that list.
Someone may say that not much is known about the process of selecting people who will be on the student list and that the process is not transparent enough for the general public. But it is important to understand that the public in Serbia is devastated, that there is no formal media space where these candidates would speak, and we know that we also have political prisoners in the country, so I just wonder - what would happen to the student candidates if their names were known. I think it's good students' judgment not to publish names. It is their decisions that represent the rise from the ashes of the democratic capacities of this country. And I think that the party called Democratic must support that.
Would you be on the list??
I am not on the student list, nor can I be, because I am a member of the party. But if they invited me, if they judged that such a step was necessary for the state - of course I would accept. Because they are the ones who best felt the political impulse that miraculously survived in this devastated country, and only that impulse leads to the restoration of democracy in Serbia.
But I really think it is not good for anyone who is actively involved in politics in the country to be on the student list. When we think about students not wanting politicians, we often forget one more thing - they left themselves off that list. Democracy rests precisely on the idea that you must listen and hear the other, leave room for realization. This is where we come back to the most beautiful thing about democracy, which is solidarity and empathy. Because what else is democracy than empathy translated to the social level.
As someone who was practically expelled from the Orthodox Theological Faculty, and the Serbian Orthodox Church is trying very hard to formally deprive you of priesthood, do you expect the Church to show that solidarity and empathy towards students?
If we talk about the Church as an institution, it was usurped by the regime, like almost all institutions in Serbia, with the exception of the University and some scientific institutions. So I don't expect any empathy or solidarity from that side, neither towards me personally, nor towards the citizens who want good for this country. They had many opportunities to show that and they didn't use them.
When the elections come, if the SPC judges that it will benefit her, it could happen that some kind of survival instinct will work in her and she, as often happened in our country, will try to "fly over" to the students. Although I believe that the outcome of this would not be bad, I am very doubtful about how sincere the move would be.
That's why I believe that we should not leave much room for skirmishes, both in the case of politicians and their colleagues and collaborators from the Church, the so-called "church politicians".
Regardless of how they dress and what kind of styling, what the students would say, the Church officials "go crazy", these are people who believe exclusively in the phantasm of their own authority and are ready to do everything to preserve that phantasm.
How do you think believers treat students??
Regardless of the Serbian Orthodox Church, I believe that the largest number of active believers support the students and that a good part of them have lost confidence in the church leadership. Because, fundamentally, people in Serbia believe in the Church and the army, but I think that when they say that, they do not mean the military and church leaders, but some traditional values of this people. A large number of people in our country identify with the Church or the army, but few know who the Chief of the General Staff or any figure of the Church is, other than the patriarch.
These are institutions that we should not be afraid of as such, but to direct the impulse of the people towards good. The students said the same thing during the military parade, when they said that they believe in the Serbian Army, not referring to the people who lead the army, but to the soldiers themselves. The reactions of those soldiers to the students repeatedly showed that the feeling was mutual.
It is similar with some members of the clergy, a large number of them trust students.
