When does a protest become a revolution?

On 15 April, around 80 Serbian students arrived by bicycle in Strasbourg.  They had spent the previous 12 days cycling from Novi Sad in Serbia, a journey of more than 1300km, across 6 different countries, without a break.  Their message?  That corruption in Serbia needs to end - now.

These ongoing protests began back in November 2024, when a station roof in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city, collapsed, killing 16.  The response to this tragedy was to question the transparency of investment in Serbia’s infrastructure, since it was not clear exactly who was to blame.  Students have now been organising protests in Serbia for several months, with perhaps as many as 325,000 gathering in Belgrade on 15 March, the largest anti-government protest in Serbia for decades.  Universities across the country have been shut down now for five months.

 

Crowds gather in Belgrade on 15 March 2025

Serbia has a complex relationship with protests.  It was popular protest that finally topped Slobodan Milošević in 2000, but Zoran Đinđić, who played a major role in that movement and subsequently became Prime Minister, was assassinated in 2003.  After a period of unrest, in 2012 Aleksandr Vučić began his rise to power, first as Prime Minister and then, since 2017, as President. His regime has become increasingly autocratic, with close ties to Russia (including support for the invasion of Ukraine) and China, despite also being a candidate join the EU since 2012.

Hence the students’ journey to Strasbourg, the second seat of the European Union.  They want to ensure that Serbia is not permitted to become a member of the EU until it sorts its corruption out.  “The country needs to deliver on EU reforms, in particular to take decisive steps towards media freedom, the fight against corruption and the electoral reform,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X on 25 March.

 

Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned in January, possibly a sacrificial lamb for the ruling party, and on 6 April Vučić appointed Đuro Macut, a little-known medical professor, as Prime Minister. Critics fear that the politically-inexperienced Macut will be little more than a puppet for Vučić. Thus far, the appointment of a new government has made no perceptible difference.

 

Vučić appears defiant in the face of the protests, declaring at one point that, “You will have to kill me if you want to replace me.”  He is cracking down on protests – allegedly using a sound canon to break up the protest in March – and on press freedoms.  The NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said that the pressure exerted on independent outlets from ministers and state-backed media has reached levels not seen since the 1990s.  If it seems like you haven’t heard much about what is going on in Serbia, this may be why.

 

A counter rally in support of the government, its ranks swelled by Serb nationalists from neighbouring Kosovo and Bosnia, took place on 13 April and was attended by 55,000 people, which, though smaller than the anti-government protest, is no inconsiderable number.  Vučić addressed the crowd in typically bullish manner, claiming the student protesters had "inflicted huge evil on Serbia in the past five months."  He also stated that, "Certain foreign powers cannot bear to see a free, independent and sovereign Serbia”, without clarifying which "powers" he was referring to.

 

For their part, the students themselves are keen to keep nationalism out of their protests and focus only on domestic corruption. When nationalist symbols, including the controversial map of Kosovo with ‘No Surrender’ plastered across it (a reference to the Serb nationalist claim that Kosovo will always remain part of Serbia), student leaders were quick to stress that geopolitics had no part to play in their protests.

 

Serbia is clearly a troubled nation.  Its status as a pariah state in Europe has driven it towards Russia and away from the EU.  Despite being vilified for its part in the Yugoslav wars, Serbia has never apologised for its role.  Many Serbs remain angry at the west and NATO for its bombing during the Kosovo War, with bombed out buildings left untouched as reminders of what was done to the country.  If there is hope of banishing the ghosts of the past, it may lie with the younger generation, as has been the case throughout history when it comes to movements affecting radical change.

 

The protests remain ongoing.  This week, the protesters have called for a snap election, and though Vučić has vehemently opposed the idea, there are small signs that the tide may be turning.  Even Trump seems to think Vučić is toxic – it is rumoured that he denied the Serbian president a meeting on his visit to the USA last week.  And if POTUS thinks you’re doing something wrong, you really must be.

 

On 25 April, a group of students from Belgrade began a relay ultramarathon to Brussels that will cover almost 2000km.  They plan to arrive in Brussels on 12 May, when the European Parliament should be in session, in order to deliver letters about the political situation in Serbia.  One of the students taking part said the hope is that the letters will be read in Brussels so that “more attention will be given to the deep political and social crisis in Serbia.”  One can only hope that these young people will succeed in bringing the world’s notice to their country and help to bring about the end of the era of the rabid nationalist politician in the Balkans.

 

References and Further Reading

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/30/we-are-done-with-corruption-how-the-students-of-serbia-rose-up-against-the-system

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/15/tensions-mount-in-serbia-as-protesters-converge-on-belgrade

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/21/calls-serbia-investigation-claims-sound-cannon-targeted-protesters

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/23/press-freedom-in-serbia-is-facing-a-dangerous-turning-point-warn-editors

 

https://www.rferl.org/a/serbia-cyclists-students-strasbourg-Vučić-canopy/33386850.html

 

https://www.rferl.org/a/serbia-Vučić-railway-canopy-protest-belgrade-students/33349372.html

 

https://balkaninsight.com/2025/04/16/serbian-students-bring-protest-cause-to-strasbourg-after-bicycle-marathon/

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly18qd7x7do

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qdyg8yn5yo

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/thousands-gather-pro-government-rally-serbia-2025-04-12/

 

https://intellinews.com/serbs-from-kosovo-march-to-belgrade-for-pro-government-rally-375863/?source=kosovo

https://a2news.com/english/rajoni-bota/ballkani/fare-fshihet-pas-pankartes-per-kosoven-ne-protestat-e-stude-i1137934

 

https://prishtinainsight.com/serbias-student-protests-and-kosovo-between-hope-and-concerns-mag/

 

https://balkaninsight.com/2025/04/30/exemplary-punishment-the-people-paying-the-price-for-supporting-serbias-protests/

 

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/serbias-protesting-students-demand-snap-090746622.html

 

https://balkaninsight.com/2025/04/25/message-to-europe-serbian-student-protesters-begin-ultramarathon-to-brussels/

One nation...in isolation?

Thursday’s local election results have an eerily familiar ring to them.  An electorate dissatisfied with the establishment, in the throes of an economic crisis, looking for someone to blame, votes for the party which claims to represent the frustrations of the average citizen.  In the 1930s, when Germans were pushing their life savings around in wheelbarrows just to buy a loaf of bread, a vote for the National Socialists seemed like the only way to make a change.

Outsiders make easy targets for election campaigns.  Why can’t you get a job?  Because the foreigners are taking them.  Why are your benefits being cut?  Because the government is handing out houses and healthcare to immigrants.  What’s the solution?  Send them back and cut loose from the control of the European Union and the floods of workshy scroungers that come with our membership.

It’s an argument that goes down well with people frustrated by a seemingly endless recession perpetuated by a remote and duplicitous political elite.  In taking an average of 25% of the votes in the seats in which it stood, UKIP registered itself as a serious force on the British political landscape, sending a clear message to the old guard.  A vote for UKIP was a protest vote – but a dangerous one.  As purveyors of “I’m not racist, but…” ideology, UKIP’s leadership know exactly how to target the susceptible.  Though not explicitly racist, political parties which advocate intolerance as a solution to economic difficulties, can conduct a creeping and far more worrying advance into the national psyche.

UKIP, by putting the United Kingdom in its party name, plays on misplaced notions of patriotism.  Patriotism in itself is not necessarily a negative concept, but when it spills over into nationalism, it becomes a dangerous force.  Albert Einstein called nationalism “an infantile disease.”  What are nations, after all, but arbitrary lines drawn on maps?  Imagined communities, as Benedict Anderson once argued, created by man as a method of controlling others.

Immigration, sometimes on mass, sometimes in small groups, has taken place voluntarily (and not so voluntarily) throughout history.  Immigrant communities have brought their own cultures, mixed them with local customs, and created unique new traditions.  They have become part of the landscape, absorbed into the national character, no longer questioned.  Things change.  Populations move.  Communities shift and adapt around them.

Peering out from behind Rawls’ ‘Veil of Ignorance’, one might ask why anyone should be denied the right to settle where they choose.  After all, it is generally acknowledged that a person should be free to move wherever they choose within their own country.  Joseph Carens, in making his influential case for open borders that would have Nigel Farrage choking on his celebratory pint, argues that this should be applied on a global level; after all,  “whether one is a citizen of a rich nation or a poor one, whether one is already a citizen of a particular state or an alien who wishes to become a citizen” is just as morally arbitrary as your sex, race or class (Joseph H. Carens, ‘Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders’, Review of Politics,  Vol.49, (1987), p.256).

Free movement across borders would not necessarily signify the erosion of national character.  I like to use football to support this theory.  I like football.  I support West Ham United.  I do not live in West Ham, and never have done.  I support West Ham because my Dad does.  He’s never lived in West Ham either.  He supports West Ham because his father did.  My joy at West Ham’s successes and despair at their defeats is not diminished by my distance from the East End of London; nor is it detrimentally affected by the presence of rival team supporters living in the area.  Over a hundred years since the team was formed, the players still play in claret and blue and the supporters will be forever blowing bubbles.  Why can this principle not be applied at the global level?

Membership of the European Union is not the poisonous domination of our laws and national freedom that UKIP and many Tory backbenchers would have us believe.  In this day and age we need greater integration, not isolation.  Isolationism, as a foreign policy strategy, hasn’t worked all that well in the past, as the US learnt in catastrophic manner on 7 December 1941.  As Signor Ferrari asks in Casablanca, Hollywood’s most iconic critique of the White House’s isolationist policies, “My dear Rick, when will you realize that in this world today isolationism is no longer a practical policy?”

This is true more than ever.  In an increasingly globalised world, to withdraw from the European Union would be a foolish move.  Eric Hobsbawm warned that “nothing stimulates nationalism on both sides as much as international conflict” (Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (CUP, 1991), p.91).  At the most pragmatic level, greater integration prevents wars.  Nations are less likely to declare war on nations with which they are politically and, most importantly, financially entangled.  The EU is not perfect; it’s a work in progress.  But human history is, despite how it might appear, on an upward trajectory.  Less than 70 years ago the nations of Europe were at war with one another.  The key to maintaining the upward trajectory is to move towards greater openness and integration.

The Conservative Party will undoubtedly run to the right on immigration and the EU to win back its supporters from UKIP.  Labour, wishing to avoid being seen as soft on immigration, will toughen its stance too.  The Westminster clique would do better to come down from on high, stop fiddling their expenses and granting privileges to the highest bidder, and learn how real people live.  Leading by example and preaching a little tolerance would be a good start.  We can only hope that calmer heads, and perhaps, cynically, traditional British apathy, will prevail.