This episode explores the mass student-led protests in Serbia against corruption of the regime. How did moral outrage over a fatal railway station roof collapse in 2024 fuel a large-scale protest movement? And what key factors are behind its momentum? Listen to hear about current government tactics and the implications for academic freedom, university autonomy and democratization of Serbian society.
Our guest: Ivanka Popović
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GLOSSARY
Milošević regime (p. 5 in the transcript, 17:28)
Slobodan Milošević was a central figure in the breakup of Yugoslavia and a key instigator of the ethnic conflicts that plagued the Balkans in the 1990s. Rising through the ranks of the Communist Party, he became Serbia’s president in 1989 and quickly moved to consolidate power by revoking the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina. His leadership fueled a wave of Serbian nationalism and played a major role in the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and later Kosovo, supporting Serbian forces involved in ethnic violence and atrocities.
Milošević’s regime was marked by authoritarian control, suppression of opposition, and state-controlled media. Though he maintained popular support in the early years by presenting himself as a defender of Serbs, his policies led to international isolation, UN sanctions, and ultimately NATO intervention. In 1999, following a brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, NATO launched a bombing campaign against Serbia.
Domestically, economic hardship and political repression led to growing dissatisfaction. After a disputed election in 2000, massive protests forced Milošević to resign. He was arrested in 2001 and extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, where he faced charges of war crimes, including genocide. He died in 2006 during the trial.source
Shalini Randeria (SR): Welcome to a new episode of Democracy and Question, the podcast series that explores the challenges democracies are facing around the world.
I'm Shalini Randeria, rector and president of Central European University in Vienna, and senior fellow at the Albert Hirschman Center on Democracy at the Graduate Institute Geneva. This is the sixth episode of season 10 of Democracy in Question. I'm really pleased to welcome today Ivanka Popovic, who is a professor at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy at the University of Belgrade Serbia.
She was the first woman president of the Serbian Chemical Society and a member of the executive board of the European Chemical Society. Between 2006 and 2012 she was the first woman dean of the faculty, and from 2018 till 2021 she served as the rector of the University of Belgrade. During her tenure, the university became a member of a European University Alliance and adopted a gender equality plan, as well as regulation on prevention and protection against sexual harassment.
Ivanka is a renowned scholar working on polymer engineering and sustainable development. She's also the vice president of the European University Association and an honorary president of the Danube Rector Conference. Besides her extensive research output, Ivanka has been actively involved with the civic initiative ProGlas, which she initiated with fellow academics and intellectuals in 2023.
Today's episode forms the first half of a timely extended conversation with Ivanka Popovic about the mass protests that have been going on in Serbia for more than half a year now. In a tragic accident on the first of November 2024, the collapse of a railway station roof killed 16 people in the city of Novi Sad.
It sparked a spontaneous wave of mourning for those who had lost their lives due to a shoddy construction using public money. These vigils then turned into mass protests led by students against the corruption of the regime. The blockades and demonstrations have continued unabated as the demands for investigating the corruption and culpability of high-ranking politicians have been stonewalled by the government.
Today these protests threatened to shake the very foundations of the Serbian regime led by President Alexander Vucic and his nationalist SNS party since 2012. I'll begin by asking Ivanka to explain how moral outrage at this fatal accident has fueled such a large-scale protest movement since months, and what the key factors behind its momentum are.
We'll focus on the techniques and the repertoires used by the students to win over large parts of the population also in rural areas by effectively countering the ruling party's monopolistic control of the media. I'll also ask her to describe the trajectory of developments from local rallies and early vigils to nationwide lockdowns and blockades and marches of hundreds of thousands in the streets.
What explains the growing resolve of Serbian citizens today to make their voices heard? Do we have historical precedence of successful student mobilization in Serbia? And given the severely harsh measures adopted by the government against university faculty joining the protestors, we will conclude today's episode by focusing on the implications of these reprisals for academic freedom and for university autonomy as well as for democratization of Serbian society more generally.
Ivanka, a warm welcome to the podcast, and it's a great pleasure to have you as a guest. Thank you so much for making the time amidst these developments in Serbia for joining me today.
Ivanka Popovic (IP): Shalini, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. And also I'm grateful for the opportunity to present to a broader audience what is actually going on in Serbia because I have the feeling that it's not getting enough attention worldwide, because even though Serbia is a very small country, I think what is going on here is related to fundamental values that Western society believes in. And that's why it should be an important topic for all of us.
SR: Let's begin with something very specific, which drew my attention. I read that every day at 11:52 in a Serbian city, people block all traffic on the streets for 16 minutes to pay homage to the 16 people killed six months ago when the roof canopy of the newly renovated train station in the city of Novi Sad collapsed. These civilian protests, which were sparked by the accident, have rapidly snowballed into an expanding wave of societal mobilization throughout the country.
The protests have been led mainly by students who have been demanding information on those who are responsible for the renovation, which should have cost 3.5 million euros, but ended up costing five times that amount. So, they're calling the regime to account, and they're asking for it to own up to the culpability of those at the very top of the state. The slogan that the demonstrators are using is “Corruption Kills”. They're not asking for the resignation of the president. Were you surprised that the collapse of a canopy of a railway station could ignite such sustained protests all over the country? Or is it that the Novi Sad tragedy can be seen as the last draw that symbolizes the anger against the cronyism and corruption of the Vucic regime.
IP: What happened in Novi Sad sparked the realization that all of us are potential victims, because just a few days ago in a local school, a roof collapsed in a classroom that could have, had the children been inside, caused severe damage. So, I think what happened initially is the shock that no one is safe anywhere because of the shoddiness of the work that is being done all over Serbia, because of the mass corruption, because the money going into any construction is actually minimal compared to the money that's formally being invested.
And I would say that there were two stages to this process. The initial response of the population was to express first of all their deep sorrow and condolences to the families of the victims. And many activists were organizing vigils. Some were spontaneous, some were organized. And that's how we actually started with this spontaneous meeting at key points in larger cities or in small villages. That 11:52 at the time of the collapse of the canopy was the time to block an intersection; we started off with 14, 15, then 16 minutes of silence as the number of victims of the tragedy grew.
These are the first weeks after the accident, the tragedy. And three weeks in, there were also some students who were paying their respects and they were attacked by a group of hooligans that were later recognized to be active members of the ruling party. They were physically assaulted when they were peacefully paying their respects to the victims of the tragedy. That was really the trigger of when the students said, enough is enough. We moved to a student engagement because so far, the students had not really been socially or politically engaged. They drew back into their faculties. They blocked the buildings. They said they would not attend classes, and they came out with four requests. They wanted accountability for those who participated in the project of the Novi Sad reconstruction of the railway station. And they also wanted accountability of those who attacked them. And also, the accountability of those who have been arresting peaceful protestors and students and jailing them and actually charging them with criminal charges. So, I think it was the student cry for a normal functioning of the state. It's absolutely correct. They did not call for the resignation of the president, nor did they call for a change in government. They wanted a normally functioning society with rule of law and independent institutions.
Serbia now for many years is not such a country. So, these demands that they put up have been then really massively supported by the population. And we see that these protests are truly now student-led protests where the students have been very careful not to come up with any individual student leaders. They have kept it a nameless protest just to keep themselves safe, to try to protect themselves from any persecution. They don't want to give a face to the protest, they want to have everyone participating in it. And in this way, it's really caught on.
SR: But it isn’t easy to mobilize citizens in Serbia as the Vucic regime maintains complete control of the media. Could you describe how the students have nevertheless managed to spread their message so successfully throughout the country? And how did they bridge the urban-rural divide and garner the support of villagers and the farmers, for example?
IP: Initially, everything that the students were doing was only covered by the independent press. And the independent press and media in Serbia do not have national coverage. The media with national coverage are controlled by the government. So, what we had is actually the news was going out but was being stifled. And people outside of Belgrade in smaller towns and villages didn't really know what was going on. And this changed when the students, realizing this aspect ,started marching from town to town taking the local roads and speaking to villagers to explain what they were doing and why they were doing it. And they were actually cheered and very well received.
I would say the turning point for this was when some of the students went home for the Christmas-New Year break, and that's when they started talking locally. Many of their parents or grandparents who only watched state-controlled T.V. didn't know what was going on or were a little bit disturbed that their children were engaged in anti-state activities. But when the students went home, started elaborating, things started to change. And when these marches started a broader base of support was developing. And it wasn't just Belgrade and Novi Sad that were protesting, but also other cities with universities, smaller towns. You really had a mass uprising of discontent. And this was not something that was led by opposition political parties. It was truly a citizens' movement asking for change.
SR: Remarkably, the momentum of protests has been sustained undeterred despite severe repression by government forces. Peaceful demonstrations have been met with a brutal use of force. What has this broad countrywide mobilization that includes various sections of Serbian society been able to achieve during the past half a year?
IP: And where are we now? Six months into this, we can say that none of the demands of the students have been met. There have been some cosmetic moves by the government, but actually nothing essential that would really lead to any type of a forensic investigation in terms of finances, of what happened with the situation in Novi Sad at the station.
This has all been sort of put under the rug. It's been hidden and the ruling party has also stooped to violence. During these peaceful protests, we have had students who have been beaten, they have been rammed by moving cars. They have been threatened and there have been some very serious injuries that have occurred. And as a consequence of one of these beatings, where a young female student was actually bludgeoned with a baseball bat, this did provoke the resignation of the Serbian Prime Minister. This happened on the 22nd of December, and it took 50 days from when he resigned for the Serbian Parliament to formally accept his resignation.
So, you see, they were buying time. And what we have now witnessed during April is that there is a new government, but it is actually just a continuation of the old. And I would say that it's even more clear in its message that no dissent will be tolerated because the selection of the people who are ministers in this government are sending a very clear message that no nonsense will be tolerated by the students.
So, nothing has really changed, and I could say that even the threat is increasing because these prolonged protests are becoming an embarrassment to the president because the students have clearly stated that the president is acting outside of what he's legally defined as president to do. As president of Serbia, his position is more of a protocol nature. The Prime Minister is actually the executive politician in Serbia. And of course, the president is doing all of the jobs. He's judiciary, he's executive. He has a comment on everything. And when the students tell him he's not relevant in this decision-making process, you can imagine what his response to this is. So, we have a complicated situation.
SR: Nevertheless, the demonstrations have only grown in size and number. In March alone, there were some 400 protests across Serbia and the largest demonstration in Belgrade on March 15 saw more than 300,000 people coming out in the streets demanding justice, transparency and punishment for the culprits.
IP: I would just like to say that the high point or a very important date, is also the 15th of March, where, as you rightfully noted, there were more than 300,000 people in the streets of Belgrade. It was a very peaceful protest, and actually it was expected that the students would now come up with maybe another request based on the fact that nothing had been fulfilled.
But this peaceful demonstration was interrupted by use of a sonic weapon. The exact origins of this sonic weapon are not clear. There has been a really farcical explanation by the government the forensics have been done by the Russian FSB, the security services. And these security services have claimed that there was no sonic weapon used, but this was a very well-orchestrated group performance using mobile phones and that people were choreographing this scurrying along the streets. I mean, this is nonsense. This is clear to everyone because we know that more than 3000 people have reported either psychological or medical issues after this incident. So, what we really have is a situation now where the government is negating the existence of its population and only claiming what is useful to them and what serves their purposes. So, there is no resolution in sight.
SR: Let’s take a few steps back and ask you to situate the current protests in a broader historical context. Serbia has a long tradition of societal mobilization, and also of student protests. Often the current wave is being compared to the student-led protests in 1968. And then again in the late 1990s, Serbia saw mass rallies by students against the Milosevic regime which were directed against its attempt at electoral fraud in the election for the mayor of Belgrade. In the end, it took almost three years to topple the Milosevic regime and send him to trial for war crimes to the international criminal court in The Hague. Could you talk about this longer history of student-led protests and the role of universities in Serbia and the former Yugoslavia as focal points of social protests? Is there anything distinctive about the current protests? To what extent are the students now asking for the fundamental political changes that will be required to reform the entire political system?
IP: Well, I think you're right that there is a tradition. Once in a generation, or a generation and a half, the students play a very important role in social and societal events in Serbia. In 1968, this was not a reflection of what was going on in Paris or Berlin. It was something that was related to a call for justice within a socialist regime where students were seeing that there were some social inequalities, and they were asking for justice. And this was a very important time. It also formed the generation of young people with open minds. They were actually the parents of those who demonstrated in the nineties against the Milosevic regime. And yes, there the trigger was election fraud. And it took a long time, but the opposition parties and the students together eventually brought about the change in October 2000.
The students have not pointed toward the irregularities in elections. And I think it's something that is now emerging. We know that students are talking about potential elections in Serbia and what we have seen in the past few elections. Mr. Vucic likes to hold elections every two years. He shows that he's in control and that he has majority support. But it's also a practical exercise because every time his grip and control of the electoral machine are becoming stronger. He has gone deeply into the electoral software where he can actually control the voting lists. He also has very good control of the polling stations. And we have seen a massive movement of voters within Serbia where people are being reinstated in another municipality. And that this is accepted. He has also been importing voters from Bosnia, from Montenegro, giving them citizenship, so they can vote.
So, there has been a lot of manipulation, and I think before the June, 2024 elections in Serbia, some investigative NGOs actually realized the extent, or at least the tip of the iceberg, of how this scheme of rigging elections functions. And that's why any future election in Serbia is pointless unless we have a significant change in conditions of voting. And this is something that has also been recognized by the European Parliament, we have the recommendations. Unfortunately, these recommendations have not been adopted by the Serbian government, and we know why. And at the moment, the students might be considering because of the fact that none of their requests or demands have been met, that elections might be the way. But whether there will be elections or not, will be decided exclusively by Mr. Vucic. And he will allow elections only if he's sure that he can win them. This is clear.
SR: That's a very interesting point that you are making here about free but unfair elections that are the hallmark of soft authoritarian regimes. We will come back to the question of elections and the participation of political parties in the second part of our conversation in a fortnight. But let me return here to the question of what university life has been like over the last six months. It seems that decision-making on the course of protests by students has been the result of open discussions in a very democratic fashion in various faculties across universities in the country. Could you describe the practices of daily assemblies, which the students are using and where decisions are being made within the university and the faculties?
IP: They're practicing direct democracy through the operation of a plenum, which means that every day or every other day the students gather together and they discuss and they make majority decisions. But of course, because each individual has the right to speak and propose, that means that these meetings take a long time. And, I would say that it's a slow process for making decisions and sometimes it's not easy because there is a timeline or a time limit to these protests. The students are sometimes very fast to respond to an incident. If there's some kind of an incident where it's very important, for example, that the students should go to the national TV station and block it, they will be there within hours. But in order to make these political articulations, these are really long, tedious talks. First at the faculty level. And I have to say more than 80 faculties in Serbia are now in lockdown. And then they have to discuss at the university level and of course, if we're going to make a unanimous decision at the national level, that means then amongst universities there has to be agreement.
So, the students at the moment are going through a wonderful education in democracy, active citizenship, in life. I think it's commendable, it's wonderful. But I would say for some of the citizens, it's nerve wracking because people who are older, with more experience, who remember the previous protests and the fact that they were not successful are really worrying.
SR: If I understand correctly normal life in universities has come to a standstill. Students have received a lot of support from faculty members and have been blocking faculties at state universities from functioning. And it seems as if this academic year may have to be written off. What I also found interesting was the support by schoolteachers of the countrywide protests. And of course, unsurprisingly, the government has declared the students to be so-called “foreign agents” in a bid to discredit them.
I was amazed at the harshness of the punitive measures, which the government has now imposed on faculty members who have joined the protest. Could you say something about the really severe cuts on salaries, et cetera, which have been imposed by the government? What has happened more recently to university administrators like yourself who have been involved actively in the protest? It looks as if this will also turn into a very important struggle for academic freedom and for the autonomy of universities as institutions.
IP: You are absolutely right. So far, we've been talking about societal impact. If we now look at university autonomy and generally the position of university and society, universities in Serbia have played very important roles in societal changes. And of course, they are very instrumental for any type of knowledge-based society and knowledge-led society.
This ruling party is anti-knowledge, anti-intellectual, anti-elite. They would like a very submissive population that will follow them without questioning. I was speaking earlier about the oppression within the schools, the primary and secondary schools, where you have these short-term contacts. And also, there have been cuts in salaries for teachers and they have been carrying this with great dignity and surviving. But it's not easy for months to receive no salary or only part of the salary, it's untenable.
And this has also happened now with the university, but in a way that actually really cuts into the essence of what a university is. Namely the government has passed the regulation defining that a university professor or an employee, so far has had their working hours divided 50-50 between research and teaching. It has now been set that 85 percent of their time is devoted to teaching and 15 percent to research. And as there is no teaching going on, which is not actually true, there is no formal teaching. But within the faculties, you've had so many workshops, panel discussions, it's been really very lively. The decision has been that salaries are cut to 15 percent. And now we are facing this drop of salaries to 15 percent. And as you know, university professors - save for some few individuals that have some very large projects - are living from salary to salary. So, we see this as a big problem. It's something that will undermine the protests.
SR: So, the government is trying to turn universities into mere teaching machines to impart technical skills but it no longer wishes to support them as autonomous institutions where independent research is carried out. What are the other legal changes introduced by the government to undermine the institutional autonomy of universities and to pressurize faculty into submission?
IP: But there is another point. The connotation of Serbian universities being turned actually into educational institutions really severely undermines their definition of being a university. Any recognition of a university abroad implies the certain activities that need to be carried out. And teaching and research are extremely important. So, I'm really worried that this is a systematic approach to having complete control over universities. We have seen that the ruling party since 2017 has been tweaking and fine- tuning university laws or laws related to university operations. There's a law on student organizing, there are laws on higher education that actually have endangered autonomy of the university as we know it. So, the universities and faculties have councils, which now with the current law have a majority of representatives by the state. And before the student protests, I have to say that students were also the weak link and were being utilized by the government to form a coalition against the academic part of these councils. So, it was sort of a stranglehold over universities. Now, of course, with the students playing a different role, this is not as easy. But I really do think that the government is willing to strangle and starve the university out of operation. This is what we are witnessing now.
The current Minister of Education voiced strong opposition to the student protests and actually called for the stopping of the protests in a very non-academic fashion. The previous minister of education even called on deans to invite police into the faculties so that they could kick the students out of the faculties.
We now see individual members of the academic community being utilized against their own community and serving the regime. I think the message is very clear. The government wants to break the back of universities. They want to put them into a position of submission, and that their only job is to do some teaching that will provide maybe skills, but not the capacity of critical thinking.
The academic community wholeheartedly supports the students. There is no dilemma there, but if you deprive them of their livelihood for a longer period of time, you're putting them in an impossible position where they have to choose between the wellbeing of their children and the wellbeing of their institution. It's a very nasty game that is being played now. This is also accompanied by faculties being sent various types of inspections to see whether they are abiding by the regulations. There will be also a question posed about their accreditation status. So, the faculties are being bullied across the board in any way that the government thinks is possible.
SR: And the latest episode in the series of attacks against universities and their leadership took place at Easter when charges were brought against the rector of your university. Could u talk about the background to this latest attempt to quell the protests by fixing responsibility on university leadership?
IP: In this inability to pinpoint student leaders, the government has turned toward the rector of the University of Belgrade. It labeled him as the culprit, as the leader of the protests. So in a response to this the government and its representatives, and by its representatives, I mean a small group of government influenced students, a very small group call calling themselves “Students That Want to Study”, and because their right to study has been affected, they have put the criminal charges against the rector. So, the general attorney's office started a process of investigation, and the rector of the University of Belgrade was called upon on Good Friday to go to a police station to give a statement. He was held in this police station for almost three hours, and in the meantime, thousands and thousands of members of the academic community gathered in front of this police station to show him their support. After this, really harrowing incident, which I think is unheard of, the rector three days later was invited by the head of the new government, the prime minister, for talks, which again is implying that the rector is the head of the protest. Being a responsible man, the rector complied and went with two of his vice rectors to this meeting.
The University of Belgrade is just one of several universities in Serbia that are protesting, and he is the president of the Serbian Universities Rector's Conference. But still he was called upon as the rector of the University of Belgrade, as if these others don't exist. So, this was a meeting that didn't bear any fruit and there was a statement issued by the University of Belgrade after this meeting saying that it was an unproductive meeting that did not lead to any constructive dialogue toward the overcoming of the students' requests and demands.
And what happens one day later is that the prime minister wants to continue these talks. But there is a second criminal charge brought against the rector, where the rector has to inform the prime minister that he cannot come to this meeting because he, again, has to report to the police because of this second criminal charge brought against him by this small group of “Students That Want to Study”.
SR: So, the government seems to be trying to delegitimize the protestors and divide the students by instrumentalizing some of them to file a case against the rector of their own university for violating their right to education? How has this tactic by the regime affected the course of the protests?
IP: And of course, it's clear that the protesting students have a very democratic way of making decisions. And if the majority of the students really wanted to stop the blockade, they would vote for this. So, these students that are now actually cooperating with thegovernment, they are a very tiny minority, and I think they're being well rewarded for their efforts allegedly. But at any rate, we are now seeing a very, very severe harassment of the rector as the symbol of the protest.
We really don't know what will come out of this because the students have realized that there must be a political articulation to their demands. Obviously, the way they set it up as a citizens’ and student protest, requiring the system to work according to law and the Constitution is not giving any results. And we now see the students very slowly trying to politically articulate their demands. And their first demand has been that this national broadcasting authority should renew the members of its board because it is this authority that is allowing the national media to support the government and not allowing independent media to be heard at a national level. So, this is where we're moving. There are other things that the students are thinking about, but obviously it's clear that this attempt by the government to harass the universities and faculties into submission is not working. And the rector has been holding strong.
SR: Thank you so much Ivanka, for this really incisive and detailed discussion of the historical trajectory and the current developments, and also for putting them into the larger regional, but also developing geopolitical context, I can only wish you the very best for the coming period, which will really be decisive for the turn that Serbia takes towards democratization. Thanks very much.
IP: Thank you for having me.
SR: We've learned today how the most unexpected, mundane, though tragic events can act as a trigger for citizens to mobilize against the rampant corruption of soft authoritarian regimes marked by cronyism, lack of transparency and accountability, as well as disregard for liberal democratic norms.
The courageous students in Serbia have shown that stubbornly principled commitment to the cause of democracy combined with creativity and the refusal to compromise on their ideals, can indeed be a formidable weapon of the weak against even a well-entrenched regime and its repressive apparatus. As Ivanka mentioned today and will also explain in greater detail in the next episode, the Serbian ruling party and its leader should not be underestimated in their use of electoral fraud and manipulation, co-optation, and even outright repression in trying to hold on to their power.
Students have been at the forefront of the current protests, which is not surprising given the tradition of universities as spaces for freethought and action in Serbian society. So, the regime has seized this opportunity to mount a full-scale attack on the remnants of university autonomy and on academic freedom.
It remains to be seen where the students, professors, as well as numerous other social groups that have stood with them in solidarity, including schoolteachers, lawyers and farmers, will eventually have enough strength to resist economic pressures, punitive measures and even violence by the state. How oppositional political parties will get involved in these current developments also remains to be seen, but one thing is already clear: by choosing solidarity and tenacity over submission and apathy, the Serbian protestors have rekindled the utopian spirit of radical democracy in an age when many have thought it had been snuffed out by soft authoritarian rulers using a mix of legal measures and police brutality.
This was the sixth episode of Season six of Democracy in Question. Thank you very much for listening. Join me again in two weeks’ time for the second part of my conversation with Ivanka Popovic. We'll talk then more about the political, as well as the geopolitical aspects of the ongoing mass protests for democratization in Serbia.
Please go back and listen to any episode you might have missed, and of course, let your friends know about the podcast, if you're enjoying it, you can stay in touch with the work of the Central European University at www.ceu.edu and the Albert Hirschman Center on democracy at www.graduateinstitute.ch/democracy.