Values - before and now

The 1968: thrust and lies

The Belgrade student protests of 1968, ever since then, in spite of the radical change of the political system, had been disputed by the two main delegitimistic strongholds. The government immediately "found" their background and gave basis for the interpretation of student strivings.

The news on the background had no public character. It was spreading through the party networks. The matter was, such news was spreading out in the party networks that Belgrade students were proteststing to support Dobrica Cosic, whose public speech at the time addressing the situation in Kosovo was officially labeled as Serbian nationalism. Thus, the student protests got the same label, which have bound them with the so-called unitarism and Serbian hegemony in the political culture. This was a way of delegitimating the Belgrade student protests at their start, and even today (outside of Serbia) this background is assigned to the protests (Serbian nationalism, unitarism, and Serbian hegemony). Today, or in the last twelve years this story does not have the same meaning as it had at the very beginning. Some participants of this riot welcomed the story of nationalism, as a proof that in the past they were like what is desirable today. Nevertheless, they do know that it would be such a big lie, and it would be difficult to cope with it.

The interpretation of student strivings and their meaning was public, unlike the news on the background of the protests. It was spoken of at public meetings and published in the press. 'Uravnilovka' is the main purpose of what Belgrade students are trying to achieve with their protests. That is by what they are driven. This is what the closest formula would be like, formula with which the student strivings were tried to be delegitimated. Back then this was opposite to the economic and social reform the basic "political philosophy" of which (in order to increase the social productivity, efficiency, i.e. welfare) was to increase the social differences. The criticism of inequality based on privileges, the criticism of the society that based the social standings of people on their political power (thencefrom the criticism of "dukes of socialism") aimed at the necessity of the political reform. This would have, of course, been the political reform that would last, as such was the direction of the majority of student strivings, not the only direction of student strivings, within the thorough legitimate values of the "socialism with human face". This very criticism was to be shown in a way that basic student striving would be placed in a story on political radicalism and primitivism of "our China people" and a handful of rice for all.

Disputing the student strivings did not develop from these two delegitimiting strongholds only. However, these two although with changed purposes, became permanent. Moreover, there were quite more at the beginning: from accusations of being hooligans to accusations of being connected with external enemies. From the very beginning, the interpretations of student demonstrations became their integral part. Thus, all the events

(new conflicts, meetings, gatherings, choice of strategies - all methods of University strikes) become part of what could be called struggle over the interpretation. The striving was to articulate an ambition that could have become the subject of public dispute in a way that would not have been refused apriori (one of the first requests, connected with the democratization of media is the request to "form public opinion"), to impose it as socially legitimate position and establish the communication, basing it on some fundamental values of the society. This striving is laden with some interrelated double pressure, internal and external. Externally the student initiative was trying to present itself as socially unacceptable and even hostile action, and consequently in order to uphold the initiative, there was a tendency to emphasize internally socially acceptable symbols and suppress such events (so-
		Innenhof der Großen Moschee in Damaskus mit dem viereckigen Minarett im Hintergrund

called extremists, provokers, etc.) that outside initiatives could use for their own purposes. Such pressures - "cunningness of the system", in various ways were acting in order to discipline the student movement, to deprive it of its initiative and merge it into the mechanisms of the actual political life. In the beginning it was all about enemies (nationalism, links with external enemies), then about brutes, outcasts and thieves. Soon they were labeled as people who had been trying to achieve their legitimate requests in an illegitimate manner. Later on, the party "Directions" born in the student protests motives were imposed on students as a substitute for their programmed designed during the protests at the University, all the way to the isolation of now "hostile" minority (settlement with student press, arresting students, and later laying off eight professors of the School of Philosophy). The struggle over interpretation was at the same time a struggle over "the main thing" of the protests and what was to follow afterwards. The thing was that the students proclaimed themselves into an authorized portparolle and they tried to institutionalize and uphold that. From the very beginning, until its end of the student movement this was the central place of dispute. If this was not completely recognized from the very beginning, if this was interrupted by various actual "misleading" (hooligans, thieves, enemies, etc.), this was immediately and clearly seen after the protests ended, and when the government tried to eliminate the protests by integrating it into the "Directives", and thus made it void. The students did not accept that, they wanted to preserve their autonomy at which they had based themselves as an authorized portparolle, as the one who can be the subject of legitimization. This was the very basis of the dispute. It was an attempt to introduce a non-party political pluralism.

At the very beginning of demonstrations, on June 3, the University Board of Students' Association, the newly formed Action Committee of Demonstrations and the Student paper editorial board adopted in the Student Campus a Resolution on Student Demonstrations, citing the reasons of the student protest (unemployment, social inequality, stratification according to job, democratization of political and public life, freedom of the press, gathering and demonstrations, university reform etc.) and also the "Declaration to Belgrade Students and Citizens", demanding dismissal of directors and editors in newspapers, radio stations and other media (because, they said, their reporting on the demonstrations that took place over the night and in the morning were "outrageously mean", while the "information was unscrupulously false"), also calling for removal of police and political officials responsible for "savage and indescribably cruel police action". The demands were directed against injustice, non-freedom, violence and lies. The student demonstrations were too wide and varied to provide legitimization for any political party or option today. The mainstream, at least concerning public action, strove toward democratic socialism. Against violence and lies, for justice and freedom.
The values of '68 affirmed life, while the values of our twenty years of disgrace have been those affirming destruction and self-destruction.