{"id":245206,"date":"2025-12-18T09:19:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T08:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/?p=245206"},"modified":"2025-12-19T13:13:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T12:13:17","slug":"this-country-will-never-be-the-same-again-interview-with-students-marija-and-dimitrije-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/this-country-will-never-be-the-same-again-interview-with-students-marija-and-dimitrije-2\/","title":{"rendered":"This country will never be the same again – interview with students Marija and Dimitrije"},"content":{"rendered":"

We spoke to Marija Ili\u0107<\/strong> and Dimitrije Gluk\u010devi\u0107<\/strong>, students from Ni\u0161 who are actively involved in the student protests, but who are also taking part in the Training of Trainers organised by the Centre for Nonviolent Action, about the student protests that have been ongoing in Serbia since November 2024 (my colleague Ivana Franovi\u0107 wrote about the protests in a separate article<\/a>. Previously, both Marija and Dimitrije participated in some of our peacebuilding trainings, Marija in the Basic Training, and Dimitrije in the Mir-Paqe-\u041c\u0438\u0440 training.<\/p>\n

We spoke with them the day after the large protest that was held in Belgrade on 28 June 2025, after which the police beat people in the streets, and attempted to raid the Faculty of Law.<\/p>\n

Could you start by telling us a little about yourself?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> I was born in 2001 in Para\u0107in, I am now studying for an MA degree in Communication Studies in Ni\u0161, at the Faculty of Philosophy. As for activism, I have been active since my second year of secondary school when together with a friend from school I set up the organisation \u201cEho\u201d. We made videos of our professors answering the question: What makes intellectuals return to a small town after studying in bigger cities? Why didn\u2019t they stay where they studied, in Belgrade, Ni\u0161, Kragujevac, Novi Sad, instead of returning to Para\u0107in? That was my first venture into activism at the local level. After that, I was in the student parliament, and then in Kreni \u2013 Promeni, that\u2019s where I met Dimitrije. And then I started getting involved in youth policy and that turned into a job, first at Koms and now I work at the National Coalition for Decentralisation. That whole time, I\u2019ve been going to protests. I hope that the first quarter of my life I\u2019ll spend protesting and the rest in freedom. That\u2019s my wish for the future.<\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> I am Dimitrije Gluk\u010devi\u0107, also from Ni\u0161, I study here at the Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics, I\u2019m in the second year of the MA programme in mathematics. It was Marija, actually, who introduced me to the Centre for Nonviolent Action. She told me to apply to the Mir-Paqe-\u041c\u0438\u0440 Training. I was doing something else at the time, but I ended up applying at the last minute and I\u2019m really glad I did.<\/p>\n

Did the experience of working in a group on sensitive and difficult topics from the trainings you attended help you in any way when it comes to organising student protests?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> We were just talking about this yesterday, Dimitrije and me, about how much that experience meant to us and how we would recommend the training to others, because we think it would mean a lot for them and it would empower them. We were familiar with the plenum process, which is practiced at faculty blockades, and we knew how to present arguments and how important that is.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the ideology of the protests, the students are not a homogenous group, there are many differences among you, just like in society, but you are focused on one goal: having your demands met?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> Students are, just like everyone else, part of the general population of Serbia, which needs work, we still don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll be carrying that \u0161e\u0161eljevsko-vojvodska<\/em> flag, I don\u2019t know what the black flag is called, and it seems like student protests are full of nationalist right-wing symbols, but that does not mean it is the actual ideology of the students. If we\u2019re trying to make people somehow politically literate or to break down the stigma of anti-politics, then it seems to me we shouldn\u2019t be treating them like children one moment, doing things to appease them, and then splashing them with cold water the next.<\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> I wouldn\u2019t agree, because I think the flags that appear do not reflect the real picture, or the actual structure of the masses, because I think those flags are carried by those who are more extreme, while most people aren\u2019t actually like that. I think we are all over the place, and that is actually one of the main problems we have. Conflicts mostly arise, not out of a lack of understanding, but because of some essential ideas that we take as our starting points.<\/p>\n

Problems in what sense? In deciding on actions, activities, next steps?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> Maybe in the way we want to achieve certain goals, these can be actions, activities, long-term plans, or anything like that. We have trouble communicating properly, but that can all be overcome in some way. These ideological differences I mentioned, that is what we\u2019ve never been able to resolve, and I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a way to do that, because we\u2019re very heterogeneous. We have a common goal, but the ways in which we want to achieve that common goal are completely different.<\/p>\n

The student protests have been going on for seven months and in all that time, despite all the government\u2019s efforts, with all the negative things that have been happening, the threats, beatings, arrests, smear campaigns, black-listing, name-calling, threats to families, with everything that was happening in these seven months, the student protests have remained united, strong and there hasn\u2019t been any instance of disunity visible to the public. Watching from the sidelines, we see the heterogeneity, but in a good sense: we\u2019re all different, but we have one goal and one idea. How do you explain that?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> We had one crisis. First, the value that really brought us together was solidarity, and not just altruist solidarity, but also preventive solidarity in the sense that when the canopy collapsed on those people, that could have been any of us. Some people protested, they gave their opinion, they said something loudly, then they started getting beaten. I think we are there for each other precisely because we are different. We actually had a crisis of solidarity when that thing happened in Novi Sad right before 15 March, when the students were arrested. That was our weak point, a weak moment. We grew up in anti-politics. Now, when they arrest someone, we don\u2019t care anymore if they are members of a political party, an NGO or anyone else. And in this attitude towards political parties and the non-governmental sector, you can see how for 13 years all of us under this government have been listening to different narratives about people being \u201cforeign agents, domestic traitors\u201d…<\/p>\n

Our friend is the youngest councillor in the Ni\u0161 City Assembly, and being a councillor gives her even greater responsibility. When people are deciding on issues about my life, I don\u2019t want that to be a dirty game, I want them to be the kind of people like my friend. But then in the plenums we repeatedly had a no confidence vote for people who had been involved in politics before the student blockades, which I find problematic. Students don\u2019t have an exclusive right to fight for justice, and we finally realised that after 15 March.<\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> What has kind of kept up the blockades these seven months are the demands that brought us together. Now, why, do I say \u201ckind of\u201d, well, because even after seven months we still haven\u2019t synchronised those demands between all the universities in the country. Almost every university has its own version of the demands, which just goes to show how we\u2019re actually unable to agree. Even though it may look good from the sidelines,, and I\u2019m sure someone has even noticed that our demands are not all the same, thankfully that isn\u2019t being held against us. As for the values that we keep mentioning, they sound good and they look good on paper, but what I have experienced is that when those values are put to the test, as in when we\u2019re meant to show solidarity, then nothing happens.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to have solidarity when we\u2019ve seen that every time someone gets arrested, we go out into the streets and nothing happens, but when there\u2019s a difficulty or an obstacle, why don\u2019t we show solidarity then? The fact that we had the demands to lead us, that was great in a sense because we all knew to stick to that. But when the demands are no longer the primary thing that brings us together, I think that\u2019s when things went sideways.<\/p>\n

Something I had learned from earlier involvement in activism was that, actually, if there are more than two demands, no one even knows what the demands are anymore. For example, calling an election is really a much simpler demand, but it is completely the opposite of what we were talking about and demanding before.<\/p>\n

How did your personal involvement in the protests begin? What was the moment when you got involved?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> On 1 November, I was going from Ni\u0161 to Belgrade, I had a workshop at FKM.<\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> I think I was at a caf\u00e9 across the street from the faculty in Ni\u0161 when I found out. Someone had seen the news. We didn\u2019t understand how serious it was back then. By the end of that day, I understood…<\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> It was interesting, I was supposed to be doing the workshop at FKM with a friend from Subotica who was supposed to arrive by train. It was also personal, because when the canopy collapsed, one of the victims was from my town, Anja Radonji\u0107. In Ni\u0161, a blockade of the Rectorate had been announced for 4 December, and I was there from that moment on, because my faculty, the Faculty of Philosophy, was the first to join the blockade.<\/p>\n

Dimitrije<\/strong>: The first thing that comes to mind is a scene from the Rectorate when the rector wanted to say, \u201cSo, what am I supposed to do now, talk to all of you?\u201d and we all shouted \u201cYes!\u201d and went to the amphitheatre. For me, the blockade began before the fourth. Time is very relative for me and I have the feeling that it\u2019s been years. For months, I had been talking with friends from the journalism programme about how students should generally become more engaged, because there had been other protests before about things that are \u00a0important to us and it was always about a dozen students coming out to protest and then nothing. We were talking about how to get other students involved, what we could do, and I remember that in that period, from 1 November to 4 December, I was very involved in actions related to free textbooks. It was a very active period for me and I remember we were preparing for a serious guerrilla action and I get a call from a friend who tells me she had been thinking about this for a while and she can\u2019t believe nothing was being done in Ni\u0161. That FDU was blockaded, that there were other faculties in Belgrade that were blockaded, but we in Ni\u0161 were silent, and how is that possible, where are the students of Ni\u0161, what is going on… We should do something… And then we started planning the protests and there were three or four of us who knew we would be showing up at the Rectorate and we invited practically everyone we thought would show up, would definitely be there. That morning when the Rectorate was meant to be blockaded, I remember, I got on my bicycle to rush off and get some canvas to paint on a red handprint, I buy the paints, and then a friend calls asking me to get her heart medication, so I go back to the pharmacy and then rush to their apartment…… So, I\u2019m trying the paint the handprint on the canvas at their place, on the floor of a student room that is literally two by two meters. We were planning to paint it there, let it dry, but we didn\u2019t have time. I jump in a taxi, I get to the Rectorate, we just draped that canvas down at the quay, just quickly daubed it with paint, and I rush into the Rectorate… in the taxi we were talking about how no one would show up, how we\u2019d all get arrested, and about \u201cwho would bring them cigarettes when they get hauled off to prison\u201d.<\/p>\n

And then – the Rectorate was full, the amphitheatre was full and there were people in front. When we got there, I was overjoyed. Was this really happening? We realised it was possible to also blockade some faculties and we voted on blockading the Faculty of Philosophy. It\u2019s interesting that we didn\u2019t really know what blockading the Rectorate meant, because we were thinking, ok, so we go in , but what if there\u2019s just five of us, what do we do there, how long do we stay?<\/p>\n

How many times in these almost seven months have there been moments that you thought weren\u2019t possible? Did you ever think you\u2019d be going from Ni\u0161 to Belgrade on foot?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> I was hoping for things like this, I must admit. In the early days of the blockades I jokingly said that we could walk to Belgrade, because I know they did that in the 1990s, but I really didn\u2019t think it would come true, especially not that so many people would actually go on these walks. There were so many incredible moments, but then, of course, there is the question of the turning point when something incredible becomes probable and possible, because every protest and every walk and everything else, at some point you have to start planning it and so you know it will happen. I\u2019m not an optimist by nature, but when it came to all the things we were organising, I was really optimistic, I was convinced we would succeed every time, \u00a0You could just feel the enthusiasm in the air.<\/p>\n

From an activist perspective, these are activities that require both physical and mental strength, they\u2019re exhausting on every level, but they get people involved and the people from all those towns and villages, the magnificent welcomes in Belgrade and Kragujevac, it was all emotionally very powerful. How did you cope with all those emotions, which are all completely different? Fear is always present, because that\u2019s the country we live in, how do you overcome your fear?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> There were ups and downs, and we were really tired. Just before 15 February, ahead of the protest in Kragujevac, we were talking about how we felt deflated, we had been at plenums up to then, making decisions about what to do next, and then I walked from Jagodina to Kragujevac, and that was important for me. To see people welcome you like liberators, that\u2019s not entirely true, they just see in you that you care about what they invested their lives in. Especially the older people, they invested their whole lives in this country and now they see that someone still cares about it, someone is walking here, someone wanted to pass through here, these young people want something, they have the will for something. Many had thought we were apathetic, apolitical, just looking at our phones and not caring about anything else, all of us just dreaming of going to America, moving there, or Canada, Germany… That has changed a lot. When it comes to fear: I run away. When it\u2019s about talking, I think I could say anything, but when it comes to physical dangers, then I\u2019m a coward.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think anyone would have the right to call you a coward, you have tremendous courage.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> I think I \u00a0generally have a high threshold for fear, in the sense that where other people wouldn\u2019t dare set foot, \u00a0I go in headfirst. And my previous activism that I did was tied in with that a lot. And then these blockades gave me space where I could develop that part of myself and that means a lot to me. When I go to a protest and I\u2019m just part of the crowd that\u2019s there and walking around, I don\u2019t feel good. It\u2019s not quite the same experience as when I\u2019m actively involved, in the sense that there\u2019s also fear there and other emotions, happiness, joy, you can feel the energy, the crowd… I\u2019m often using the megaphone and that interaction with the crowd means a lot to me. I usually don\u2019t think about fear.<\/p>\n

When we talk about things that symbolised change, what I saw was on 13 February, because the protest in Kragujevac was on the 14th, but on 13 February when students from Novi Pazar arrived in Kragujevac that evening, when there were shouts of \u201cKragujevac is the capital again\u201d together with students from Kragujevac, with their DUNP flag, at that moment I felt one of the biggest changes I\u2019d seen in this country, and that was that suddenly we all became \u2013 us, and that suddenly that part of Serbia was also joining the big river of change. How did you experience this? All the differences that were there, for example on 31 October last year, many have been overcome since.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> When I met people from different parts of Serbia, it really felt like we\u2019d known each other for years, and that we\u2019re all a team. We have the feeling that the people involved in the blockades, especially the people that are the most active, that walk, come to meetings, where there\u2019s the most interaction… Among us there\u2019s no: we\u2019re from Pazar, we\u2019re from Ni\u0161, we\u2019re from Belgrade, we are all just one big community and I think that\u2019s what motivates me the most, because I feel we can build that kind of society, where we can all be equal, where the solidarity we like talking about so much is really respected, fostered, lived.<\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> When we were doing the protest in Ni\u0161, because the Faculty of Philosophy was providing accommodation for the DUNP students, we were looking for a place for iftar, because it was the month of Ramadan. And then when we walked over there, because that was during lent, they prepared lent-friendly mantije<\/em> for us. The people I talked with see this as an opportunity to stay in their country, because this country belongs to us:\u00a0 people from DUNP, Ni\u0161, Para\u0107in, Kragujevac, Novi Sad.<\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> For me, the human component in all the people who become active is the most striking. I don\u2019t think anyone is thinking about things like, going abroad or something, we are all just together. It\u2019s more of a feeling, something in the air, not something that\u2019s discussed. And it\u2019s really special, because I hadn\u2019t felt it before, especially not with so many people.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very emotional to be thinking about making a society that\u2019s good to live in, for me that\u2019s the height of policy<\/strong> \u00a0and the height of getting people involved, and people also feel it. Who did you feel most supported by, and who didn\u2019t support you or who did their best to get in your way?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> I grew up in a family that was never involved in activism or politics, I\u2019m the one who got my family into politics. And my family supports me, most of all my mum, but not all of my extended family. I also have the support of friends, colleagues, people at the blockades. We were lucky with our dean, but she was also lucky because she\u2019s at the end of her last possible mandate.<\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> Honestly, it\u2019s not that my parents don\u2019t support me, but they\u2019ve always said: \u201cWhy are you doing this, what do you need this for.\u201d Because I\u2019ve been doing activism in general, they\u2019ve always had this attitude of simply, I\u2019m a maths student, from a completely different field, I\u2019m into physics, programming, all these natural and technical sciences, so what am I doing going to protests, and do I really have to be in the front row, why do I need to be blockading, there\u2019s other students… But, when the blockades started, I had a routine where I would be at the blockades for two days, I\u2019d sleep a little at the faculty, then I\u2019d go home to take a shower, get my things, and then I\u2019d be back at the faculty. I didn\u2019t need anyone\u2019s support, except for the people at the blockades, and I think that\u2019s what meant the most to us. We were all living in one home that we shared.<\/p>\n

And what about other citizens, in what sense do other citizens provide you with support and in what sense is that support not what you need?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> I woke up one morning and started thinking about what kind of country I wanted to live in. This is the story of the assemblies, when we started talking about it, it seemed like we had all progressed so much since the plenums and the blockades began. I can\u2019t count how many times I would have an opinion about something, I would come to the plenum, hear some arguments and then see myself raising my hand for something I thought I would never vote for. That\u2019s the impossible stuff. For me, that kind of support was the most important, that people got more involved in the assemblies, so you\u2019d find out that this country is theirs, if only the local community, and then onwards.<\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> The IT people gave us a lot of support, that has to be mentioned.<\/p>\n

At the time when we\u2019re completing our Annual Report, there\u2019s no end to the protests in sight. In the meantime, the students have issued a demand for snap elections that the government is refusing to call. During the summer, there were bloody clashes in the streets of various cities in Serbia, the repression is stronger, the government is using all the force it has (mostly unlawfully), so I want to ask you what you\u2019d like to say at the end of this interview?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Marija:<\/strong> I really think we have changed, all of us. Maybe the change isn\u2019t momentary, but we should really think about if in 20 to 30 years these students will be the ones making decisions in politics. Maybe that will be our golden age. Not golden in terms of money, but a golden age of democracy. I hope all of this will make me want to stay here. I really see a lot of hope in everything that has happened.<\/p>\n

Dimitrije:<\/strong> Currently, I\u2019m really living my twenties in their full glory and I think that at these faculties where we all exist collectively with other people of similar attitudes, we are literally making the country we want to live in a reality.<\/p>\n

Interviewed by Katarina Mili\u0107evi\u0107<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We spoke to Marija Ili\u0107 and Dimitrije Gluk\u010devi\u0107, students from Ni\u0161 who are actively involved in the student protests, but who are also taking part in the Training of Trainers organised by the Centre for Nonviolent Action, about the student protests that have been ongoing in Serbia since November 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":245187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,2397,45],"tags":[311,2705,316,1861,304,143,147,303],"class_list":["post-245206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activities","category-personal-views","category-training","tag-activism","tag-mirovno-obrazovanje","tag-nonviolence","tag-peace-activism","tag-peacebuilding","tag-responsibility","tag-serbia","tag-training-of-trainers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245207,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245206\/revisions\/245207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}