The silence of institutions or their behaviour as if they were a party service induced and demonstrated the justification of protests following the tragedies in Montenegro, Serbia, and North Macedonia, but also further weakened citizens’ trust in institutions, it was assessed in PROUDCAST, it was assessed in PROUDCAST, jointly produced by the MINA agency, the Centre for Civic Education (CCE), and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES).
In response to the question of how much the tragedies in the region served as a “trigger” for broader frustration towards institutions, Irena Cvetković, a researcher from North Macedonia, assessed that, when it comes to North Macedonia, it may not have been the trigger, but it was “the last straw”.
“Unlike Montenegro and Serbia, in Macedonia a major protest known as the Colourful Revolution took place ten years ago. Before that, there were student plenums and blockades. That period was marked by a certain hope, creativity, and desire for change,” said Cvetković.
As she explained, a decade later they are facing completely different dominant public feelings – apathy and disappointment, as a result of the disappointed expectations that Macedonian citizens had after that revolution. ” In that sense, the only reason that brings people to the streets in Macedonia is tragedies. But that is just a trigger, and the real feeling is that the state and the system have abandoned us ,” stated Cvetković.
Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade, Dušan Spasojević, is of the opinion that the events following the tragedy in Novi Sad can also be viewed in the context of the two mass murders from 2023 – at the “Vladislav Ribnikar” Primary School and in the villages around Mladenovac, which were and remain a great trauma for society, for which no one has been held accountable.” “And when, conditionally speaking, a similar thing happened in Novi Sad, then anger poured out into the streets. That indeed was a trigger of discontent, which in the political sense is also a reflection of the attitude towards the government of Aleksandar Vučić,” said Spasojević.
The Executive Director of the Centre for Civic Education (CCE), Daliborka Uljarević, pointed out that tragedies also occur in developed democratic societies, and that these are not necessarily followed by protests.” “I think what is crucial is the citizen’ feeling that institutions have abandoned them, and that they could have prevented it, reacted, or mitigated the consequences… And tragedies are a trigger because they awaken strong emotions, which are unfortunately predominantly marked by sorrow and anger, but they are also an expression of broader and deeper dissatisfaction,” said Uljarević.
As she stated, this indicates that citizens no longer trust the institutions, with the observation that nowadays it is not easy to bring citizens to the streets, especially in a region burdened by disappointed expectations from many earlier processes.
Asked what the attitude of the institutions towards the young people who protested in the three countries says about the degree of political tolerance towards civil resistance, Uljarević said that the attitude of the institutions showed the justification of the protests “The silence of the institutions, or even worse, their behaviour as if they were a party service, only proved the justification of those protests and the need for these institutions to be fundamentally changed, to be what they should be – a service for citizens,” she said.
Spasojević agrees with Uljarević, stating that this essentially applies more or less to Serbia as well “At one point when the students’ demands were made, someone from the Government appeared and said: here are all the documents, we have fulfilled the demands. Then the students said: ten more things are missing. Then they said: here, now we have fulfilled all the demands again. And so, about five times… We’re just going around in circles, and it’s clear that there are more documents the government is not allowed to show and more indictments that need to be filed,” said Spasojević. Cvetković also emphasises that distrust in institutions is the motivation for taking to the streets. “People were at the protest on the same day the tragedy happened. That shows that, although they are demanding the institutions to do their job, they actually do not trust them,” said Cvetković.
She reminded that the tragedy in Kočani happened in March, so the authorities had time to see what was happening in Serbia, to be afraid of, as they would say, the Serbian scenario. “They tricked their own people again by opening the widest possible investigation on the same day, in which they found 30 people in one day,” said Cvetković, adding that this may have worked well as some kind of PR spin, but that these are investigations that can never be completed.
Referring to the recent and earlier protests in North Macedonia, she said that they were very similar, but that the protest decor was completely different from that of the Colourful Revolution“Collective public mourning and public grief were now the primary motivation for people to gather in public spaces,” she explained.
Spasojević, in relation to the similarities between the recent student protests and earlier ones in Serbia, said that there are several things that helped the last protests to be more long-term and successful, and the first is the reason. ” If we compare it with mass murders, the fall of the canopy is clearly related to an important development project in which the entire government was involved. Something that was newly created, that is, something that was the pride and joy of Aleksandar Vučić, and in that sense, someone’s political, professional, legal responsibility is explicit ,” he said.
As he stated, another thing that helped the student protests to be more successful is the very way in which the students are organised and the fact that the students are the ones carrying the protest. He emphasised that the students demands are still not fulfilled, because they go to the core of Vučić’s government, and it is hard to imagine that the government would fulfil them without leading to an even more serious crisis of that same government.
Speaking about the recent student protests in Montenegro, Uljarević assessed that it was a big and positive surprise, because research continuously shows that young people are increasingly disinterested in socio-political developments. “That was unexpected for Montenegrin circumstances, because we haven’t had any student protests for a very long time. We generally don’t have a tradition of such protests, as is the case in some of the countries of the region,” said Uljarević.
As she said, they presented a number of demands that were of a systemic nature, and that’s where a link between the protests in the three countries can be seen “It seems to me that young people in none of these countries – or in North Macedonia it’s a broader group – are focusing only on the concrete replacement of certain individuals, but are trying to bring about a change of the system,” Uljarević pointed out.
Cvetković emphasised that different media had different approaches to the protests, and that in North Macedonia, pro-government media from the very first day were engaged in delegitimising the people who were protesting “In Macedonia, that was done by connecting certain individuals who were at the protests with opposition parties. This government came into power about a year ago and it still enjoys that legitimacy among the people,” said Cvetković, adding that it is a good thing that independent media are not pushing that narrative.
Spasojević also highlights the exceptional importance of the media, explaining that in Serbia they contributed to nervousness and anger, because pro-government media immediately started with various spins. “If it weren’t for those few independent or professional media in Serbia, as well as media from the region working in our language, I think this story would not have grown to the extent it has,” he assessed.
Uljarević is of the opinion that the media did not help the informal student group Kamo śutra much, and that the media which could have contributed the most systemically, either consciously or due to some need for sensationalism, tried to suppress that protest “There were also media outlets that were very supportive, but their reach – in terms of viewership, readership, or influence – was much smaller compared to those who tried to extinguish those protests for political or interest-based reasons,” she said.
When asked whether resistance can survive without a clear structure, given that the protests, especially in Serbia, are known for lacking a leader, Spasojević said that the advantages of this are participation, inclusiveness, and a sense of belonging to the movement “In the Serbian case, it is very important that you don’t have leaders whom the authorities can target. They, of course, tried to do that for a while – whoever spoke out, they attacked in various ways. But if that student no longer appears in public, then you can’t attack them the same way you can attack a political leader,” explained Spasojević.
Speaking about the absence of a protest leader, Uljarević said that it is a nice, idealistic model which has its advantages in preventing one or two people from being targeted as the face of the protest, but she also assessed that the model is not sustainable. ” It is a model that has an expiration date, and sooner or later there must be institutionalization within the movement itself in order for it to result in some kind of effect and something that could be presented as a success ,” said Uljarević.
She pointed out that, although success is a relative category, all those protests were very successful, regardless of how they will proceed or whether, as in the case of Montenegro, they have practically stopped functioning, because they showed that the power of mobilisation exists and that pressure from below can be initiated.
Asked how long the authorities can ignore the protests, Uljarević assessed that the authorities and the people who were the central targets of the “Kamo śutra” protests have been delegitimised “They can pretend that it didn’t happen, that it has no effect, but that is simply not true, and it will be visible in their electoral performance,” she added.
She stated that the bigger problem is how to make that civic activism politically usable, in the sense that it truly changes the political system, institutions, and political culture.
From Serbia’s perspective, Spasojević states that the problem is that the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has been in power for a long time without the possibility of an alternative. “When there is no real alternative, the government behaves in a specific way. Essentially, in democracies, this type of criticism would always have to lead to reduced legitimacy or a drop in support and some growth on the other side, and then the authorities would behave differently,” said Spasojević.
Cvetković believes that it is impossible for the authorities to ignore the protests, but that their tactic is to exhaust them and shift the dissatisfaction from the streets into the institutions. “That doesn’t work now because people don’t trust the institutions,” she emphasised.
Speaking about the position of civil society, Cvetković said that in North Macedonia, civil society is no longer interesting to young activists, because professional work within civil society makes it equated with the system and the state “All public opinion polls in Macedonia show that people do not trust civil society, but they do trust initiatives that are authentic and oriented towards the problems of the people. I believe activism will change, and with it civil society, and I think that is a good thing,” she added.
Spasojević pointed out that the protests demonstrated the importance of investing in people and of protest and activist experience. “Although I agree with the assessment that civil society in Serbia is not particularly valued and lacks the trust of the wider community, the activist group that existed in Belgrade and Novi Sad, and which matured through ‘Serbia Against Violence’ and various protests over the past five or six years, was essential in organising the first plenums and expanding them,” he said.
Uljarević pointed out that the situation in Montenegro is different, and that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are among the most trusted actors in society “On one hand, this is a burden for the NGO sector itself, as it creates excessive expectations, which inevitably lead to certain disappointments—perhaps this has also contributed to the weaker position of civil society in other countries in the region,” Uljarević stated.
She said it is difficult to predict what activism will look like in the future and how it will transform, but it is evident that young people are emerging who are seeking alternative paths and avant-garde forms.
The PROUDCAST was hosted by Sara Čabarkapa, Programme Coordinator for Active Citizenship at CCE, and the full episode is available via the link.
MINA Agency