Prelude

‘What the media isn’t reporting…’, began Madonna’s post on Instagram at the start of February 2025. Her video showed drone images of the largest student protest in Europe since 1968, made beautiful by an acoustic cover of ‘Just Like A Prayer’, and encouraged her followers to lend support.

I drew closer. I have felt affinity with Serbia since many years. I did business there in the 90s, just as the war was easing; I love the Serb spirit; have friends in Belgrade. What’s more, the romance of student protests in the Paris of 1968 has also left its mark.

It is a trope of art, after all: those with least to lose, are destined to create the biggest change.

I decided to investigate.

***

The Canopy

It was, truth be told, an ugly-ass canopy.

Stretching 48-metres along the main entrance of Novi Sad’s railway station, the cantilevered concrete-and-steel affair provided shade and shelter in a public space with busy footfall. Most significant for this story, the canopy was very, very heavy. The railway station had been experiencing something of a rebirth, since its construction in 1964. As part of an initiative to link Novi Sad with Budapest, a major renovation had just been completed. Although the outward look of the canopy changed little, photographs prove that these works indeed altered its structure.

Like many things in Serbia, the Novi Sad public works project was subject to extraordinary overspend, starting with at a price tag of €3 million, and ultimately costing €16 million. That’s five times the agreed price, and then some. In today’s Serbia, the dogs in the street know where these monies are being funnelled – hidden among a myriad sub-contractors and maximal opacity. The galling face of Serbian corruption exacts a heavy, heavy price.

***

The Event

The 1st November 2024 had a coolness in the morning air, hinting to the approaching Balkan winter. Novi Sad railway station was open as usual, and all seemed as per usual.

Some minutes before midday, a calamity occurred at the station’s main entrance.

The suspended canopy, all 48 metres of it, spontaneously collapsed to the ground. Ripped from the main structure of building, and impossibly heavy – its destruction was absolute.

To watch the cctv footage is an exercise in horror. People are seen going about their business, passing under the canopy to gain entrance to the train station; others are seated on the permanent benches under the canopy’s cover.

Suddenly, without warning, the awning drops to the ground. Fifteen lives are lost.

By midday on November 1st 2024, although no one knows it, Serbia has entered a changed world.

***

A Nation Called Serbia

Every nation is sculpted from its own history. Serbia has an impressive back catalogue of strong-armed authority (Milošević, by way of Tito, inspired by almost 500 years of Turkish Ottomania). Establishing democratic order takes goodly time, and is a non-linear path, subject to drama.

If the world’s democracies were one raucous family, Serbia is its troubled teenager, confused by the hormonal shock of constitutional governance. It is the talented, bright-eyed child, with a short, short fuse.

Today, Serbs live in a beautiful country, a liminal society, and an opaque economy. The country has deep links with Russia, whilst its politicians simultaneously woo the EU. Serbia’s munitions industry supplies bullets to Ukraine for use in its war with Russian, yet has refused to impose sanctions on the Russians.

The Balkans’ largest nation has a constitutional democracy with powers vested in a Prime Minister. Like many other western democracies, it also has an adjunct, ceremonial Presidency.

But in reality, these roles have been reversed. That is to say, the guy who should be opening hospital wings and conferring honours, is actually running the show.

Serbia’s Strongman hides behind a presidential fig leaf.

President Aleksandar Vučić never tires of lecturing the country, and his Prime Minister, via live State television broadcasts. Serbs have discovered that their president is expert in many things, from Covid-ian bronchial infections, to basketball strategy. he regularly berates the prime minister. He holds forth on all and anything, in defiance of the constitution, democracy and ethics. He’s a kit and caboodle president – absurd, dangerous and serious, all at once.

The EU, great bulwark of constitutional democracy, appears to have turned a blind-eye to his roguish. To walk to carpets with Vučić is part of the EU’s Realpolitik, which some call ‘stabilitocracy’.

I like its definition; ‘a regime that includes considerable shortcomings in terms of democratic governance, yet enjoys external legitimacy by offering some supposed stability.’

Some supposed stability.

In the immediate aftermath of the canopy’s collapse, lies emerged from the President’s official sources. It was claimed, for example, that the renovations had not included work on the canopy (They had).

A slow unfurl of the real reasons why a newly-restored building should spontaneously collapse has begun. It is fully clear that corrupt dealings in the renovation contract led to exorbitant prices, as well as shoddy workmanship. And the latter led to 15 dead people.

Someone had blood on their hands.

But who?

***

Students Find Their Voice

Into a sweltering soup of civil discontent steps a fresh, and consequential voice.

Gen Z is the most maligned cohort in history. Its elders criticise the world’s freshest batch of young people for being feckless, entitled, lazy and screen-glued. This is surely not the whole truth.

The job of every young generation is to realise their potential. They may have no power, no job and no money – but they sure will lay claim to their future.

Novi Sad became a trigger of change.

Serbia’s Gen Z (16-25 years old) has never known war, and only known either Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić or President Aleksandar Vučić. They are a tribe of digital natives informed by social media – American culture, Euro-influencers and their own Balkan cojones. They are neo-Serbs – inventing a new way to be Serbian.

In late November, students from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts at the University of Belgrade gathered to honour the 15 dead in Novi Sad, and to demand accountability. It is significant that the Arts stood up first.

What happened next was a cascade: clampdown by authorities, matched at every pace by increasing numbers of students from all universities and high-schools across the country, demanding explanations regarding what the hell happened.

The student assertion is that individuals have authority, and must now take responsibility – and these people should be brought to justice, in accordance with the instruments of Serbia’s constitutional democracy.

A bloodied red hand has become the symbol of their demands.

For more than two months, the students’ civic resistance has placed Serbian Government officials on red alert, paralysing the normal functioning of the State. Strongman Vučić has insinuated himself into the centre of the response, suggesting that the students must engage with him to find a resolution. But the students insist that the [ceremonial] presidency is irrelevant, and his expertise, no matter how impressive, is inconsequential.

***

Consequences

I texted my friend in Belgrade, as all of this was playing out. His take on events – raw, as is the Serb way – was memorable.

“We are so fucking proud of our youth. We thought they are TikTok zombies. Turns out they are better than us, by miles.”

Some days later, we Zoom-ed to talk it through, and his wife joined too.

Vuk and Snežana are engaged citizens and parents, with every interest in seeing a more proper functioning of their country. They explained the startling paradox that Serbia’s students have become the nation’s ‘professors’.

“All of a sudden, they are teaching us that change is possible”, said Snežana, explaining the solidarity of a nation which now sees civil disobedience as the opportunity to create a better future.

At the heart of the protests is an unsettling truth for any Strongman: the students have no fear, and nothing to lose. They seek no regime change. They simply want their country to work.

***

Coda

When the Novi Sad canopy collapsed, an invisible world of cynicism, greed and corruption was rendered visible. The light shone in, and young people stood up, and led. Momentum takes time. First within the country, and then by the world. Within days of Madonna’s post, the New York Times covered the situation too.

It is all to the good. Strongmen hate the light. And Spring is coming soon, to Serbia.