On Candlemas (Sretenje), on the occasion of Serbia’s Statehood Day, according to the news, students from Novi Sad, Belgrade, Niš, Kraljevo, Novi Pazar, Užice and Čačak came to Kragujevac. Some of them did it on foot, thus showing their readiness for personal sacrifice. In Kragujevac, but also on the way there, tens of thousands of citizens awaited them. The gathering was not only large, but also symbolic. And symbols are important, if not crucial, in maintaining any community.
On Candlemas, a gathering of people started the First Serbian Uprising in Orašac with the goal of national liberation. On the same day, in 1835, in Kragujevac, the first Serbian Constitution was declared. And constitutions, as we know, serve to limit the power of rulers. The motives of freedom from oppression from Orašac and the constitutional limitation of the power of the authorities from Kragujevac are powerful symbols of the rally last Saturday. For more than a decade, modern Serbia has been suffering under the tyranny of a government that has humiliated the Constitution.
A mass gathering under the Serbian flag with the goals of liberation and the establishment of constitutionality can, without any doubt, be considered a true civil revolution. Citizens (students, farmers, pensioners, employees and others) were asking for only one thing: a responsible government with limits on its power.
Such a peaceful and clearly directed protest (or maybe rebellion) will result, sooner or later, in the achievement of both goals.
However, someone noticed how, for the first time, students from Novi Pazar met with their colleagues in Šumadija under the national flag. This observation is important, since we know that, for more than 30 years, the current executive power has based its survival on national divisions and hatred. The division between Serbs and Bosniaks, even among young people, played a major role here.
The student march to Kragujevac from Novi Pazar reminded me of May 2002 and the conversation between a young man named Fikret and then-Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić. At one public forum (the likes of which the usurper of all institutions is unsuccessfully trying to copy these days), Fikret asked Đinđić something about inter-ethnic relations. It was clear that he was skeptical of the Prime Minister’s messages, precisely because of the so-called national issue.
Zoran Đinđić’s answer about looking into the future has become legendary. (“You are a young man, look to the future… look to the future and I will meet you there.”). Before Saturday, that legend existed only as a utopia, as an unfulfilled, and perhaps impossible wish of someone who is no longer here. Someone who was scorched by political violence and hatred. The majority of Serbia thought that there can be no future like the one Đinđić described in his answer to Fikret:
“My policy is – let’s try to first find the issues where we can all win. Let’s not focus on issues we argue about or where someone can lose. There are so many things we can gain from cooperation. Once we do all of them, then let’s talk about our differences. When we solve all the problems, let’s talk about the divisions. But I am sure that that moment will never come, because life will always put before us problems that we can only solve together.”
Sounds simple, right? It seems that it took more than 20 years for this once unachievable vision to transform into a lived reality and necessity. Perhaps, along with other symbols, the legend from 2002 also came back to us through the embrace of students from Novi Pazar with students from other cities, all born around that time.
Maybe Đinđić’s words about looking into the future and meeting there actually meant: let’s meet on Candlemas. I would very much like to know where Fikret was on Saturday. But I know that his people from Novi Pazar were in Kragujevac, and that is the best possible news from the future.
Translated by Marijana Simić
Peščanik.net, 20.02.2025.
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