Why are students protesting in Serbia? | The Take

How did Serbia’s students prompt a national movement for change? They’re leading countrywide protests after a railway station collapse killed 15 people last November. The protests have grown beyond demands for resignations, calling for structural change. Will they pull it off?

In this episode:

- Anđela Milivojević, Investigative Journalist

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Sarí el-Khalili, Sonia Bhagat, and Amy Walters, with Ashish Malhotra, Chloe K. Li, Hanah Shokeir, Melanie Marich, Remas Alhawari, Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Noor Wazwaz.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad Al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is the Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.

[vladimirdosen]

This is absolutely not political, or any kind of war or whatever. People are simply sick of corruption. Simple as that. It's overwhelmingly peaceful.

[loredanadodson]

I'm a 70 years old woman, I'm standing with the students, you are our future !

[tabithascarlet]

Let me tell you why...cause we love our Serbia...and we want our country to be a country without corruption, we want our states institutions to do their work proparly, by law....

[AmercanWoman]

The world's youth is the world's hope. Power to Serbian students❣️ ✊😎

[svetlanaplanic]

Please keep following this protest, it is very important for people in Serbia, and democracy.

[sunflower]

I’m so proud on my people!
Greetings and prayers from London!
ПУМПАЈ‼️

[bikikikiriki]

My daughter is one of them and I am so proud. All my life I live in a country where corruption is " in the air". Democracy is far away for us, but our students are light 🕯️ in the dark. Love for our students .

[mrpotato]

Hey Serbian people, 100% support for you guys from Bangladesh ❤

[FoyezMiazi-sm]

As a Bangladeshi we support Students 🤝

[amjadkhan-jvxj]

I find that young people and in particular students around the wirkd tend to have less prejudiced and mire human. I support these young people.

[nagorik]

While talking about Serbia, the guest essentially described the Hasina era of Bangladesh. Power to the students.

[Error-klop]

The prime minister and president of the ruling party, Milos Vucevic (bald guy at 4:45) resigned from his prime minister position after it came out that his son was behind organizing physical attacks on student protesters and severely beating a girl with baseball bats.

[igormicovic]

Thank you for the video, the issue is not receiving enough international attention ❤

[tammyk]

Ok, Serbian citizen here, very important thing to note - all of the political resignations that followed the canopy collapse were very shallow attempts at accountability. At 4:45, prime minister announces his resignation, but this wasn't the day after the canopy collapse on Nov 1st. This was months later, end of January, because he is the official leader of SNS (Serbian Progressive Party), and the previous night a group of hooligans came out of SNS party headquarters and attacked students in the middle of the night with baseball bats, breaking a jaw of a female student, and wounding others. His resignation is still not formally accepted by the parliament almost 2 months later, even though it was required by law. Other ministers that resigned did so a few days after the canopy collapse after public pressure, but stated that they are not responsible for the collapse but are doing it because they love the president. To this day no one is really held accountable for the tragedy, or, as we refer to it here, the murder of 15 people. One of the ministers that resigned was arrested and then set free after a week. People in Serbia are mad because of lack of accountability from the ruling party that months before praised the train station and were bragging how they built everything, but then when it collapsed acted like they had nothing to do with it, and the president actually openly lied on the day of the tragedy, stating that the canopy was not part of the reconstruction, a statement easily disproved by anyone with functioning eyes.

edit: Added more context.

[gearsgr]

Anđela did a fairly good job of describing the situation. Just a couple of things I would like to address - Serbian Government has made questionable economic deals with both Western and Eastern countries. The particular contract regarding the Railway Station might be with the Chinese Government, but there were a lot of subcontractors involved, some foreign, but most domestic companies, used to basically ensure everyone gets their piece of the pie. They chose subcontractors based on their connection to the ruling party, not based upon the best offer for the job. The second thing - Students didn't bring up or suggest the transitional expert government, they have clearly distanced themselves from those suggestions made by some of the citizens and the opposition supporters. They have basically said, we have done our share and we have clear demands, we can not take upon ourselves to form a government. They also said that citizens could, if they want, locally organise in a way students did, with plenary sessions. Even at a very small level such as neighbourhoods, villages, workers etc. Basically a direct democracy. But the biggest accomplishment of this movement is that they have gave people hope and courage, they made good behaviour, solidarity, intelligence, love, honor, diligence, honesty - popular again.

[claudiafloroiu]

Congratulations to our Serbian brothers and sisters for making a change! We know how it feels, we have been there! Your Romanian neighbour and sister! You can make a change!

[recyclingrevolution]

Students are Serbia, Serbia is the world. Youth, intelligence, beauty- these are our students.

[klarajovanov]

Seeing my friends in this video just makes me so emotional pumpaj!!

[psychedelic.kimchi]

Stand your ground people of Serbia! I'm proud of you! Keep on protesting, close the universities, they're not important if they don't support protesting for democracy

[PenelopePitstop]

Hey, 🇷🇸 youth, you rock❣️ It takes the passion, courage and energy of youth to lead the fight. We elders will back you in your phalanx.