How Gen Z took us by surprise: The unexpected journey of Serbian students

Imagine 100,000 people standing in utmost silence for 15 minutes, with their phone flashlights pointed at the sky. 

They pay tribute to the 15 innocent people who died under the rubble of the collapsed, newly reconstructed eave of the railway station in the city of Novi Sad, Serbia. 100,000 students and supporting citizens, standing still and united in palpable silence, in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Those present witnessed a moment that sent a chill up their spine.

This scene alone deserves a bright place in modern history. A ‘loud’ public silence expressing not only sadness for the victims of the tragedy that happened in Novi Sad in Serbia on 1 November 2024, when 15 citizens lost their lives in a horrible tragedy but also anger at the corruption and ruined institutions that led to it. The scene also took the citizens of Serbia by surprise, rekindling hope that the young generation that made such an astonishing non-violent reaction possible could help them revive dwindling democracy in the country. The Serbian students are sending a strong message to the youth across the world: we know what we want, and we will stand up for it. Can these protests be seen as a universal model of youth response to the same worrying decline in democratic practices across the globe and offer us a glimpse into new modes of civic engagement?

Number 15: Both tragic and hopeful

To understand the full scope of the paradigm shift the Serbian youth is proposing, we need a brief context. The tragedy in Novi Sad triggered massive student and youth protests throughout Serbia, as they witnessed 15 of their compatriots fall victim to systemic corruption, negligence, incompetence, and the failure of the institutions to do their work. In the absence of any reaction from the prosecution to investigate the responsibility for the tragedy – a reaction that has become customary for many other criminal cases in recent years – students have initiated a daily 15-minute silence on the streets of Novi Sad and Belgrade to honour the victims and demand the prosecution of those responsible, including the corrupt officials. 

As is often the case in violent autocracies, the highest authorities responded with violent rhetoric and ad hominem, targeting individual students across the national media. Consequently, a series of incidents followed where masked bullies physically assaulted students – most strikingly running cars into the masses – injuring dozens. However, this continuous violence against students at their peaceful daily tributes backfired: it drew additional support not only from their professors and parents but also from all walks of life, from already angry farmers to well-off IT professionals. After more than two months, the spiral of student protests and brutality against them has led to unrest all across Serbia, with the prospect of turning into a general strike. 

Well, we are seeing such developments all over the world. So, what’s new?

What’s new is not the problem but the response. Judging by the approval the Serbian students receive from their peers in neighbouring countries and increasingly from the public worldwide, their precedent model is important to understand – and support. What can we learn from it?

Lesson 1: Grassroot movement with poise and style (the ‘Serbian model’)

The silent and (en)lighted hundreds of thousands on the Belgrade square were only a watershed. What happened afterwards – and is still happening – is even more fascinating.

Amazingly self-organised students from over 60 faculties turned to occupying another main Belgrade intersection for 24 hours. Not only did they organise it in a humble and decent manner, full of a positive vibe and atmosphere of unity, but their colleagues acting as rally security ensured that not a single incident happened. Their showcase of how a society should behave enticed support from thousands of tens of citizens who poured in to join them. In the end, they cleaned up every single piece of garbage left after thousands of people had spent 24 hours outside – and gave farewell ‘thank you’ hugs to policemen who were on duty!

Days later, 300 of them set off on an 80-kilometre march from Belgrade to support their colleagues’ protest in Novi Sad. Along the two-day journey, they were greeted by thousands at every corner of their route. As some local authorities denied them access to heated public facilities, they turned to spending the night sleeping under the freezing January night sky, people offering them tents, blankets, pancakes, hot tea – and lots of love. (Un)expectedly, many citizens – cried. As they were approaching Novi Sad the next day, the 300 turned to 3,000 and then 30,000 and more, clogging the highway access to the city and blocking the city’s major bridges.

In these young people, citizens recognise a long-forgotten drive to fight for justice, respect, and decency. They admire the students for breaking through the atmosphere of fear when no one else could. They respect their polite and smart kids for bringing together different segments of society. Their parents were not only moved by the love-spreading energy and determination of the youth to make their country decent (rather than great) again but were equally surprised by the youth themselves- as if we had all unfairly given up on this coming generation.

Lesson 2: From values to walking the talk

‘Gen Z’, the generation born between 1997 and 2012, is often labelled as disengaged, uninterested, lacking clear values, motives, and beliefs. Serbian students are proving otherwise. Despite being raised in a non-democratic environment, they perfectly understand that the institutions that citizens pay for should do their job. The values that guide their movement are our common denominator: justice, transparency, and accountability. 

Their demands are basic, very reasonable, and clearly articulated: transparency of the work of the public sector, implementation of the laws, functional depoliticised judicial institutions, prosecution of the culprits and justice for the victims. Importantly, they also request bigger spending for education! They do not demand a change of government or communicate with political leaders; instead, they address the responsible institutions directly, such as the prosecutor’s office.

‘These young people are not just demanding change; they are calling for a society bound by these principles.’ (Dusan Milenkovic)

While trying to ‘resurrect’ democracy, they are actually walking the talk. The uprising of this new generation is, by all means, decent, well-behaved, peaceful, and responsible. It runs with politeness but also determination. It is driven by unity versus divisions, love and understanding versus hate and violence. It is filled with pride.

At all times, these students stay clear-minded and focused. In response to violence against them, youngsters follow Gandhi’s behaviour: staying calm while bullies rage against them and threaten them. If officials label them as foreign agents and hooligans – they intensify the protests. When officials then (schizophrenically) called for negotiations, they replied by reminding of their non-negotiable demands: that competent institutions do their job.

‘That invitation [by a President for negotiations] was not interesting to us, because our requests were not addressed to the President but to the institutions that should deal with these matters. We will not change our opinion until all requests are fulfilled. The President of the republic does not have a mandate for that.’ (David Delimedjac, a student, for 021)

Lesson 3: Plenums – direct democracy at its best

Their decision-making modus operandi is even more fascinating: they have turned to direct democracy, with no leaders, and relying on digital technologies. At the level of faculties, they organise regular student plenums which allow every student from a particular faculty to speak and vote, following clear procedures. In a bottom-up manner and by majority vote, they decide on everything from discussion agenda and moderators to demands and future actions. Interestingly, their modus operandi has inspired others, such as school teachers deciding about the support or a crowd of protesters deciding how to go ahead with their activities after the big protest in Novi Sad.

Digital tools, like messengers, enable students to maintain their dialogue continuously and enhance the functionality of the plenum as a direct democracy mechanism for coordination across the 60-plus faculties. They use various software and online platforms to debate, coordinate, delegate tasks, report to each other, ask for help, etc. They inspired the creation of a protest-related palette of stickers for Viber and other messengers and created very engaging videos that went viral through social media. Their online portals with lists of needs are regularly updated and accessible to any citizen willing to donate anything from soaps, food, tea and water to (bio-disposable!) cutlery and blankets. Without trusting mainstream broadcasters, which commonly do not report from protests – or, worse even, skew the reports against them – the students have put up their own web portal with demands, announcements of actions and live broadcasts of their activities relying entirely on their own resources.

A functional bottom-up governance approach has allowed them to be ‘headless’: with no central leaders that could impose their own views, fall into negotiations without broad approval, or be efficiently targeted or bribed by the authorities to undermine the protests. Instead, they have a very distributed and participatory decision-making process that has withstood many tests.

Lesson 4: Avantguard to traditional political activism

Politically, their demands and acts are non-partisan – and they are very vocal about that. In their demands, they are neither right, centre, nor left. They are driven by common sense, the basic values and expectations from a modern democratic society: to be based on independent functional institutions that protect basic rights, respect the laws, and combat corruption, and on elected representatives who serve their citizens.

More deeply, however, they question the widespread political model where dubious ‘elites’ are immersed in corruption and draining national and natural resources while dividing society by national or religious lines and spreading hatred and violence. Importantly, they themselves offer a model of cooperation based on the opposite: common sense, respect, unity about common values, creativity, and smart use of the digital environment.

Impact and legacy: Beyond Madonna and the Nobel

In just over two months, Serbian students have inspired diverse communities in Serbia to join them. They have also garnered support from their peers in the region, as well as some celebrities like Madonna. They have broken the silence of the global mainstream media outlets, which have now started covering the developments. They have also officially become candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize.

More importantly, Serbian students have restored hope in a fearless fight for common sense and responsibility. They have left their grown-ups in awe of just how well they used democratic values and means to bring back democracy. At a time when human-centred politics is retreating worldwide and (often violent) autocracies are spreading for a wide range of reasons, Serbia’s students are showing there is a generation of hope.

Establishments have always had their ways of ‘killing’ progressive movements. They might find one again. Or maybe not this time? Now it is up to adults to support their children. Whatever happens, this GenZ movement has reminded the world that decency, creativity and love, coupled with pride and determination, can turn to ‘(en)light makes right’. It inspires people to fight for their rights, gives hope in our youth, and assures us we should stand with them – if not follow. If only for that, they indeed deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Or, at least, one for Hope!

Note: This is an opinion piece written in an individual capacity. It does not necessarily reflect or represent the position of DiploFoundation as an organisation.