this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
48 points (100.0% liked)
Europe
1815 readers
538 users here now
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
(This list may get expanded when necessary.)
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.
founded 7 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Serb here, here's some context:
We had mass anti-government protests in Serbia almost every year for the past 6-7 years, but this current wave is the biggest since the fall of Milosevic. In November, the canopy at the train station in Novi Sad suddenly collapsed, killing 15 people (the train station was renovated twice and opened in July last year), essentially nobody was punished and we had protests, the same as every year when something happens.
But then the students in Novi Sad, Belgrade and Nis rose and blocked virtually all universities. They started blocking the streets for 15 mins every day at 11:52 (1 minute for each person that was killed by corruption), and held weekly protests. Almost everyone was delighted by this and joined and helped the students in any way they could. Then pupils in secondary schools started protesting, which caused the government to close the schools for winter early. The new semester was supposed to start this week, but some schools and teachers deceided to strike and stay closed. A few weeks ago in Belgrade we had the biggest protests in the history of Serbia (bigger than the 5th October protests that ended the reign of Milosevic).
The students came out with a list of specific demands and wouldn't pull back an inch, and everyone else is participating in support of the students and their demands. They're insanely well organized and made this as clearly guided as possible (there's absolutely no talk of Russia, the EU, Kosovo, the US, who's a nationalist, who's progressive, the protests are for a country with functioning institutions). It really shattered the image of young people being apolitical and not caring about anything.
This is all built on 13 years of scandal after scandal, and the Novi Sad tragedy could very well be the breaking point that led everyone to say enough is enough. I left a lot out, but we never had a movement such as this one, and there is a very real possibility that real change comes out of this.
Thank you very much for your insight!
Well done the kids!