Aleksandar Reljić, journalist and director, in an interview for H-Alter regarding the film “Najglasnija tišina” (The Loudest Silence) shown at ZagrebDox: “If the ’ćacis’ [pro-regime student counterprotesters] had any brains, they wouldn’t be such lackeys of the regime’. The strength of the students is much greater because they’ve managed to reconcile the irreconcilable in society and awaken every corner of Serbia. So this is all a story about the pointlessness of this ’lackeyism’, which fed on hatred, and it’s becoming increasingly evident that hatred is beginning to dry up in Serbian society. It was about time.”

Aleksandar Reljić, film director and journalist at RTV Vojvodina, won the sympathy of ZagrebDox audiences with his documentary film “Najglasnija tišina” (The Loudest Silence,) shown on the first day of the festival. The film was so popular that an additional screening was organised on thr last day.

He admits he’s surprised by the turnout and positive reviews for the film, which in just under half an hour depicts the organisation of a New Year’s commemorative silence by Novi Sad students in blockade. At the moment when the clock strikes midnight, at the climax of the film, during the eerie commemorative silence of citizens who responded to the students’ call, we hear fireworks and pyrotechnics in the background. This is a scene in which we have a film, says Reljić, a scene that shows two realities of Serbia.

The context of the rebellion in Serbia, which began immediately after the collapse of the canopy of Novi Sad railway station on 1^st November last year, is already clear to everyone. There have been several attempts to insidiously and violently suppress the popular revolt that continues to this day. From provoking physical confrontations by pro-regime activists to cars charging into gathered protesters on several occasions. Fortunately, there have been no tragic results so far.

Perhaps the most bizarre move by the authorities was the organisation of a counter-protest group of “students who want to study”, the so-called ’ćacis’. However, it was quickly discovered that there were hardly any students there, that those gathered (paid with daily wages and sandwiches) in Pioneer Park (in the so-called “ćaciland”) in Belgrade only served President Aleksandar Vučić as cannon fodder in case the protests radicalised.

One of the more significant attempts to break up the protests happened just a few weeks ago, when several regime television stations released recordings of wiretapped informal conversations between Novi Sad activists and students. Although the recordings don’t suggest any concrete action, the case was presented to the public as a violent attempt to overthrow the government before the protest in Belgrade, the largest in Serbia’s history. These ’exposed’ activists and students were arrested before the protest. A few who were in Croatia at the time of the arrests still don’t dare to return to Serbia.

Although the rebellion has the character of collective and direct democratic action without prominent leaders, these arrested activists were somewhat known to the public even before the rebellion against the authorities became massive. Some of them spoke to left media like H-Alter more than a year ago. Some of these activists who have been arrested or are afraid to return to the country also feature in Reljić’s film.

We talk with the film’s director, Aleksandar Reljić, about the atmosphere in Serbian cities and villages, possible outcomes of the current revolt, the pointlessness of the “students who want to study” lackeys’, and other topics related to the current situation in Serbia.

What impressions do you carry from the premiere in Zagreb? Does the film perhaps have the ambition to sensitise European public opinion?

I expected that the topic of student rebellion in Serbia would be very attractive in Zagreb, but I didn’t expect the film to have such an impact. I’m surprised by the audience’s reactions and even more by the film community. Certainly, appearing at ZagrebDox is a kind of turning point for me, because it was a great honour to open ZagrebDox, together with my dear colleague Nebojša Slijepčević, a laureate of the Palme d’Or in Cannes and an Oscar nominee.

“The government has been trying to formalise the crisis all along, which is why they’re offering elections, in order to get more space to steal them again”

I would certainly like the film to tour Europe and be part of a large number of film festivals. I’m not sure how much it can influence European public opinion. On the other hand, we’re waiting for responses from European festivals we’ve applied to, so if we pass, we pass.

I asked specifically about Europe because we hear and read daily how people in Serbia feel alone and abandoned by Europe and the West, which seems not to see that Vučić’s regime is hanging by a thread. That’s why the students started cycling from Novi Sad to Strasbourg, precisely to sensitise Europe with a symbolic act and force it to break the silence...

That’s the greatest strength of Vučić’s regime, the support it has from the current ruling circles of the European Union, who are mostly conservative. The support still continues, because there is primarily that goal of mining lithium and who knows what other business interests that are hidden from the public. Thirty years of my journalistic career have been marked by the struggle for European integration and a more normal society, and of course, they can’t just turn that focus upside down for me, but sometimes I feel betrayed to the extent that it leads me to question whether integration is even necessary. I’m horrified by the thought that the so-called Western Balkans is the Africa of Europe, and I increasingly think that the EU is pushing us towards that with purpose. On the other hand, it should be kept in mind that the whole of Europe has slid to the right and that Vučić is their natural ally, and it’s obvious that it’s time for processes of change and healing of societies to start there too.

Regarding the ignoring [of the movement] by traditional media on all meridians, I think that’s insignificant, because social networks are so powerful today that the real information about student protests has already reached the people it needs to reach. We have a situation where Madonna responded and supported the protests in Serbia as early as 1^st February, and so recently, from a concert in Carnegie Hall, New York, great support for Serbian students arrived, accompanied by huge applause from the audience.

The film follows a generation that, instead of agreeing on how many crates of beer to take for New Year’s celebrations, is arranging a commemorative silence for New Year’s Eve. Are we witnessing a shift towards maturity, a need for faster growing up of young people in Serbia?

Absolutely! These demonstrat could be my children, and I even know the parents of some students in the protests and blockade. And yet sometimes I feel immature compared to the students and the way they lead the rebellion. In Serbia, which has always been quite rigid, divided, and full of so much generated hatred, they’ve managed to erase all possible differences.

“It should be kept in mind that the whole of Europe has slid to the right and that Vučić is their natural ally, and it’s obvious that it’s time for processes of change and healing of societies to start there too”

I’ve finally experienced Kragujevac students welcoming students from Novi Pazar, preparing iftar and halal food for them. Niš students prepared something similar for them, because since the Balkan Wars, the Sandžak area [region in Serbia with a significant Bosniak/Muslim population] has been a constant target of authorities in Serbia, and in the 1990s there were many crimes against humanity, police torture of civilians, ethnic cleansing, etc. in that area. Nebojša’s film, which received such a prestigious world film award as the Palme d’Or in Cannes, talks about the atmosphere in that area. So, these young people really are mature and have deserved to be followed by all of Serbia, because they’ve erased all inter-ethnic, religious, class, and all other differences in Serbian society. There are right-wing iconographies at the protests, but they seem more like part of the folklore and decor, so I consider them completely insignificant and harmless. So far, it has been shown that the students know what they’re doing and are leading the movement in the right direction.

Are irreconcilable differences finding common ground in the student movement?

That’s exactly what I’m saying with the example of Sandžak with its majority Bosniak population, which has suffered terrible things for decades, especially in the 1990s where we have the kidnapping in Štrpci, the kidnapping of passengers from a bus from Sjeverin, thousands and thousands of people who went through police torture, rigged court proceedings, the shelling of Muslim villages... That territory of Serbia, which supposedly wasn’t at war, lived in an atmosphere of state terror, and yet the student revolt has contributed to young people from Novi Pazar and Sandžak feeling Serbia as their own country today.

So, the unity of the student movement is healing wounds...

It’s healing the wounds of all of us, because we’ve already lived for so long in that kind of nervousness and hatred generated by the government, and here I’m not just thinking about inter-ethnic hatred, but also that generally people on the streets were angry, pissed off, mad at everything. And then suddenly an atmosphere of love and solidarity appeared. Not a single news channel can convey what the situation looked like when students from Belgrade came on foot to Novi Sad, and before that slept in the open in Inđija, because some jerk who holds the position of mayor didn’t open the sports hall for the students. I welcomed them in Petrovaradin at the Belgrade Gate, through which they passed triumphantly, as if it were the Arc de Triomphe. The first echelon of Belgrade students carrying flowers to the railway station is an image I will never forget and one that simply cannot be shown, except to be experienced live. It’s a moment that still makes me feel a lump in my throat and makes me want to cry. These things were already felt in the first steps of the revolt. I noticed that through news channels, that special emotion carried by these protests can’t be shown. I feel like I’ve been looking to see what’s happening behind the camera all the time, and especially since these journalist inclusions are modern, that manner of informing the public annoys me a bit. That’s why I tried with the film to at least somewhat convey that protest organisation and at least push that camera to look inside.

“I’m horrified by the thought that the so-called Western Balkans is the Africa of Europe, and I increasingly think that the EU is pushing us towards that with purpose”

Let’s continue about the film. The culmination of the film happens at midnight. While the city pays tribute to the deceased at the end of the old year, fireworks can be heard in the distance, as if parallel realities are taking place...

Fireworks at midnight have always been a reality. The climax of the film happens at that moment where we hear pyrotechnics. It’s precisely in that scene that contrast and that loudest silence, as the film is called, can be found. The firecrackers were really far from the place where piety was being shown towards the victims. With an intervention in post-production, we deliberately amplified that sound to make that conflict, that drama, felt. We wanted to emphasise that contrast, as a social context. In that New Year’s moment, I got what would be called a film, and that’s why it was filmed in just one night.

In the film, a female student says there were only five of them until a month ago. The organisational core before the mass organisation of students into plenums is now detained or cannot return to Serbia. The student movement has officially distanced itself from Novi Sad activists, who were illegally recorded by the secret service during a private conversation about the possibility of radicalising the mass protest in Belgrade. Does it seem to you that the student movement has not remained immune to the regime’s attempt to stage radicalism in the student movement?

I’ve already mentioned that I see the declared distancing of the student movement from the arrested individuals as a marketing trick by students in the plenums. When we protested in front of the court in Novi Sad and gave support to those detained, all the students came. They are, after all, their comrades-in-arms.

The essence of this student revolt is that there are no more leaders and no charismatic leader, but it’s a movement that acts collectively and decides everything at its plenums, which are completely closed to the public, all who are not students. That’s why the government has all the time tried to personify the movement so it could stigmatise the leaders. That’s the only way Vučić’s people deal with political enemies, calling them ustashas, traitors, foreign mercenaries, etc.

On the other hand, just before the big protest on 15^th March, which gathered around a million people according to some estimates, you could find Obilićs, Apises, Gavrilo Princips [Serbian historical/mythical heroic figures] and whoever you want in every café. Everyone was discussing how to overthrow Vučić. In any café across Serbia, the authorities could have organised raids and arrested people, and they would need to open about ten concentration camps, the size of Auschwitz, to imprison them all.

Still, this particular group was their target, and that’s why they illegally wiretapped and arrested them.

There’s also the question of the government’s monopoly on talk of violence. In regime media, they talk in that key daily, mention their thugs, justify perpetrators of violence against peaceful protesters...

They constantly want violence and fortunately, they’re not succeeding in that. In the days before the protests, it was most important for them to send a message that the protests would be violent. The idea that 15^th March was supposed to be some kind of D-Day was partly instilled in the people. And the students, who were the main organisers of the protest, immediately went with the story of “the day after”. So, it was clear that 15^th March shouldn’t be a breaking point.

We older ones are impatient and carry memories of the [anti Milošević] 5^th October revolution of 2000 and other dates, and then we constantly dream of such a development of events, but this today is something different, which needs more creative approaches, like our students have.

The government all the time wants to formalise the crisis, which is why they’re offering elections, in order to get more space to steal them again. Vučić, in my opinion, hasn’t been in real power for years now, but no one has replaced him yet. The opposition is still weak, and I’m afraid that at this moment they’re additionally losing, not just Vučić. That’s why I believe that the only natural and painless way out of this situation is a transitional government, whose cabinet members will be delegated by universities in Serbia. Then fair electoral conditions could be arranged, electoral rolls revised, the electoral law changed, and everything that should be. That could be a civilised way out of this situation.

“Thirty years of my journalistic career have been marked by the struggle for European integration, they can’t just turn that focus upside down for me, but sometimes I feel betrayed to the extent that it leads me to question whether integration is even necessary”

To move away from the parliamentary perspective, how do you think, when all this is over, coexistence will look with the regime lackeys, the so-called ’ćacis’, thr “students who want to study” but also with big players from tabloids who have for years drawn targets on people’s backs, Vučić’s political associates, and generally regime accomplices?

They’ll disappear. The day when all this ends, they will no longer exist. Most will pack their bags. They simply won’t have a platform from which to bark, as they bark today. That day after them doesn’t imply and I don’t see them in any perspective. These are their last throes, and they have fewer and fewer spaces for any exit strategy from all this.

At the moment when the ’ćacis’ no longer have a foothold, they will no longer have a reason to exist. Either they’ll answer for the misdeeds they’ve done, or they’ll disappear from the face of the earth in the sense that they’ll hide in mouse holes.

If the lackeys had any brains, they wouldn’t be lackeys. Good money has been earned and that debt must be repaid. Many people here are simply blackmailed. It’s not about desires or love for the great leader, but about being pressured to complete tasks, which if not completed, doesn’t bode well for them. These characters still have to be in Vučić’s Lackeyland, to set up party stands in public places, although it no longer makes any sense.

The strength of students is much stronger because they managed to reconcile the irreconcilable in society and awaken every corner of Serbia. We have a situation where from Futog, which traditionally “wars” with Veternik, a protest column of people sets off and meets the Veternik column on the way, and these people hug, kiss, and symbolically reconcile. So this is all a story about the meaninglessness of that lackey-ism, which fed on hatred, and it’s increasingly certain that hatred has begun to dry up in Serbian society. It was about time.

‐----------------------------------------
Panel “Students in Blockade - A Different World is Possible?”

Less than two months after the horrific event in Novi Sad, students begin blockades of the largest universities. The direct cause was the thuggish march of Vučić’s supporters at one of the commemorations for victims who died in Novi Sad.

At last week’s panel moderated by journalist Matea Grgurinović, students from Novi Sad exchanged experiences of student organizing with former and current female students from Zagreb. Students in Serbia are organized in plenums, inspired largely by the experiences of the blockade of Croatian universities, primarily the Faculty of Philosophy, in 2009.

Unlike the blockade of the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, whose daily plenums were open to the public, only students with student IDs enter universities in Serbia, where they decide on the next moves of the student rebellion at plenums.

This is a security measure that is necessary due to frequent attempts at infiltration and suppression of student blockades by regime sympathizers. Teodora and Pavle, two young Novi Sad students delegated by the plenum, explained at a follow-up panel in Zagreb that they do not plan to give up on their demands and principles, justice for the victims, that they are supported by almost everyone, from the neighborhood to the majority of university professors. Support for students is most faithfully illustrated by mass protests held in all major cities of Serbia in recent months. Protests in Belgrade counted hundreds of thousands of people. They have, they say, nevertheless written off this academic year. They don’t mind losing a year of life and don’t plan to give up on their goals.

Talking to them just before the panel in Zagreb, it was easy to see their determination and sense of organization. In blockades and rebellion, everyone has their role; they are organized into groups, some of which develop media strategies, while others deal with, for example, hygiene and maintenance of university premises. Pavle makes the group at the table laugh by saying they feel like a state within a state. They even have their own passports, so to speak. These are, of course - student IDs, the symbol of rebellion in Serbia that has been going on for months.