Learn Serbian & Može kafa podcast: Episode 16 - Protests in Serbia

Welcome to one more episode.

I am Nikola and here is...

My kids, hello everyone.

now what's the

plan for protests in the future

and

we'll try to explain

what it all means

and how they started in the

first place. Exactly.

So you will be sharing it in

Serbian if you want.

I will try to summarize it in English

after you finish.

Is that okay?

Yes, of course.

Okay. Let's start from the basic information I'll tell

you or read in Serbian.

So,

after the students were attacked by the final of the incident

during the first time of the incident.

After the first time of the Dramskeh Umethe, to

happen in Novi Sad in November 2024.

Nakon, Uru Shavanya, you said,

like after the collapse of the railway station canopy in the city.

Unfortunately, 15 people lost their lives

and two people were seriously injured.

And during that time, of course, people were very sad and students started

blockades on November 22nd, right?

Yes. And a faculty to Drumskih Umetnosti, you said,

which is Faculty of Dramatic Arts.

It was a very nice one.

I love the video.

It's Silent Tribute to the Victims of November 1 Incident.

And after that, other faculties and even secondary schools started to join them.

And also now it's still going on, obviously, right?

Yes. So it was like quiet protesting.

Everybody gathered, like hundreds of thousands of people, right?

And they were quietly protesting with the posters in their hands Yes.

and just the lights from their phones, as we see in the picture.

So first of all, when learning a language,

which is always good to engage

in whatever news is going on in the target country of the language you're

learning. To engage in the social layers, culture, history,

so it's easier for you to learn and have more motivation to learn.

So when we talk about these protests, they started on Isu Počeli right after

the canopy collapsed.

Collapsed. And they were mass protests.

And why they escalated is because the, let's say, politicians or the

government handled them poorly.

Instead of listening to people, they started, I guess, oppressing them

and trying to fight people in the streets.

And they did not listen properly to their demands.

The demands were to find why this happened, how could it happen, because the

railway station was renovated twice before that date.

and people

suspicious of corruption of course and no one was found

responsible like in a couple of weeks they did not

later some people were of course resigned

like the prime minister

people that

resigned

like mayor of Norvishide and similar

were that was just a show, I guess, in

order to just calm down the situation.

We had stuff

like this before and we

know that if stuff like this happens, the justice

won't be satisfied and the people who ran over someone by car or killed

someone would

be free in a very short time.

That's why we said we had a lot of bad news, dark stuff happening

in the past previous years in Serbia if you remember school

shootings mass shootings and stuff

like that so that

all built up people are very

frustrated

and the protest

after that after the

all faculties universities

in Serbia are blocked

yes the let's say winter break started

earlier yes by

the decision of the president

right all universities in serbia are blocked but also not only university high schools

as well not all of them but like good

amounts of them maybe like all the biggest high schools are blocked uh which

means there is no

um teachers there and so on and it started and because government responded poorly

started oppressing, started trying to...

Punishing. Yes, punishing, doing counter-protests and trying to

blame students. It all escalated.

Every time they did something like that, it showed that

it did counter-effect.

So now people that were never political or apolitical now started supporting students

because

that's the youth of Serbia that's who is going to

live in the village

in that country in the future and people are united more and more united

over those so since november we're talking about like for uh three month period

right and

um it's still so strong and people are so united and i'm so

like proud of everyone they're not quitting stronger and stronger yes um

protests are in every city like even in the smallest cities yes

everywhere

there's people on the streets

united

we haven't seen these

protests like this since I think people say 90s but even

before that in 60s, 70s when we had mass student

protests

and these protests can really change something

because students have nothing to lose

they cannot be scared

they cannot be punished

they have nothing to lose while people, older people

can lose their jobs which can affect their family and kids

students are very very stubborn and they can

change something I hope so, I really hope so and protests

look, we have usually start with 15 minutes of silence so imagine like 100

000 people in belgare in every

city being like dead silent for 15 minutes is uh i don't know

like you're it's how to say it like

it's kind of touches you so yes yeah it's quietness it shows the power

of you know people that quietness.

At least that.

So we show that we can change something and that

we are not scared of showing fighting for justice it's 50 minutes for

15 people that die so for

every person yeah and so this reminded me of what happened when

i was graduating from university in Turkey in 2012-13

we had the Gezi

protest time and

the same kind of reaction we had the government immediately

blamed the students

like the foreign powers

foreign intellectual

agencies are supporting them

they are guiding them, all the same

kind of oppression

I saw, unfortunately our protest did not end

in a very good way but

I believe

now everybody is taking students seriously.

Yes, that's a common thing.

Governments like this say, like paid by West.

There always has to be someone to blame.

Like the easiest scapegoat.

But unfortunately for them, no.

It's just these are the people of the country fighting.

Exactly. They are explaining themselves very clearly.

obviously there is everything is so logical from their perspective yes and they they

want to stay

apolitical in a way that they like the opposition that wanted to join the

protest they

don't want opposition inside the protest so they're clearly saying we are not siding

any oppositional parties do not come to our protest we are not siding with

with

anyone we're just people, students demanding justice and fight against corruption.

Exactly. So they say, Yes, odgovornost is responsibility.

And korupcja ubija, I heard this when they were yelling.

That's the most kind of korupcja, but corruption kills.

So let's think about the vocabulary a little bit for our listeners.

So, canopy is not a very common word that you would use, but nowadays

in the news, it's used a lot, right?

So, how would we say it again in Serbian?

Nadstrešnica.

Yeah, it's a bit challenging word, nadstrešnica.

And railway station?

Železnička stanica. Železnička, yeah, stanica.

incident is written in the same way

but read as

incident and

safety bezbejtnost

and hoce mod govarnos

we said responsibility

protest also is written in the same way

protest protest we say like plural

if it's plural yes

so we started

protestors

because of the russization on the yes

russization

is normally

fall

or collapse

well russization

is pretty

specific

verb

which

or noun

verbal noun

to collapse

a structure

that collapses

There's another way to say to destroy to collapse

it's it doesn't mean i mean we cannot use the same word when you

like when you collapse as a

person right no no okay that's a new word for me for sure

yeah yeah and i want to go on to

the posters that

people are

mostly holding in their hands in the protests

so there's a lot of them

they can get really creative

when you see pictures

from protests there's a lot of fun

of those because they try to make students try to make

it

is interesting

to catch attention and they live now they live in those blockades they live

in the sleeping streets they march

currently they march from like last couple days ago from belgory to novi sad

on foot which is how

many kilometers uh maybe 80 i'm not sure 90 yeah by car it's one

hour imagine yeah an hour yeah they're using the same way like they're on

the highway no they they went like near highway but By highway, my car

is an hour.

So they marched for two days or three days.

And they slept all over the city in Novi Sad.

They all opened the stadiums and some in the streets, some in like...

But people helped them.

People came out with food, with tents, sleeping bags.

So everybody helped them.

Yes, solidarity is there.

So one of those, we call it transparent or

The posters they have, for example, korupcija ubija, corruption kills, which is the most

frequent one. Krvave suvamruke.

Krvave suvamruke, I think,

is the one that made the government really angry, right?

Maybe, yeah. I think it was one of the first ones I remember.

Krvave suvamruke. So that means there's blood in your hands.

Yes. Or your hands are bloody, literally.

we want responsibility

students are not silent rts is silent

rts is the biggest news channel

or channel in serbia for tv

it's a national tv channel radio television of serbia all residents

or people in serbia pay for that channel

and they were quite silent about the protest and one big win of these

protests is that they started reporting on them live as well so

which is good because we don't have much

media presence of protest or anything against against the government

but did they also share what the government said mostly more than what students

were saying this happens in turkey a lot

yes yes still but it's good to like at least something yeah

yeah that's good and um i also

saw can you explain what that means i mean brojimo

like what are they counting yes is a song it's a children's song ah

okay i didn't yeah it's a children's song you can find it on

youtube um it's really a song for counting and we are not afraid we

learn to count that's how it I see.

But here it's kind of

it implies that they are counting

all the bad things that I guess.

All the corruption

issues are counting.

Very good. And also

We demand transparency.

Yeah.

That's a very good one.

And have you been to the protests, Nikola?

Yes, I have.

It's hard to avoid them now

because they're in every city almost every day.

So wherever you go in the city,

you come across them.

I see.

So the biggest ones are in Belgrade,

Novi Sad,

but every small city in Serbia

had protests. In the beginning, the police was a little bit harsh as we

saw the videos, but right now,

after all the attention gained on the students,

I think there's no conflict, not much conflict, right?

No, there's no conflict.

Police protects protests.

Yes. Because it's a large gathering.

You have to protect.

That's the law, I guess.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

Okay. So, I want you to ask the listeners now a couple of questions

that they can try to answer

by writing comments maybe on our Instagram or YouTube.

Yeah, so, šta vi mislite u ovoj situaciji?

What do you think about these situations?

Da li mislite da su protesti opravdani?

Do you think the protests are justified?

Kako biste opisali ove događe prijatelju na srpskom jeziku?

how would you describe this event to your friend in

Serbian language so share those answers

in comments section

yeah I would answer

because I prepared my answer for what do you think about this

question for you

okay

I'm happy

I'm happy to students and people in Serbia that they don't worry

and they have a peaceful protest and they are an excellent example for people

from other countries in which corruption is caused.

They write an story.

Yes. Well, thank you.

Thank you.

That's very nice.

It does feel like

we have some historical changes

happening, historical protests

at least. Even like another win is that novak jokovic supported protests yes i

was waiting for him to say

something finally he did i think a couple of weeks ago which is really

important because

all serbia likes it doesn't matter if you're against or against protest or not

all people

like novak jokovic and his word means a lot exactly so and

he's always been supportive for the young generation, right?

Yes. Now I wonder if Jokic said anything.

No, Jokic has been always neutral.

Yeah. He's like a mamrsh kind of person.

He only likes his horses and he just wants to not be bothered.

Understood, though. And also, I'd like to, I can't remember right now, but probably

will. You have this very commonly used proverb in Serbian

that the world is on the back of children, kind of meaning it has.

Do you know what that is?

Svet na mladima ostaje is in Serbia.

Yeah. Svet na mladima ostaje.

I think that's how you say it.

The word is left for young generations.

That's what they inherit.

yes i think that's proverb is just so good for this um situation to

describe this situation and

luckily the young people in in serbia knows this embraces this right yes that's

really good so i will ask you one question before you go though about

the future of this um thing but i What do you think?

It will be.

It don't know yet.

It's very weird at the moment.

Because we don't have any elections.

and Relažnu Vlado, transitional government,

which means government without the ruling party now.

Until the election time.

Yes.

The president of Serbia offered, I think offered elections, but

Syrians do not want elections

because they think the every elections we had so far did not work.

it was all

how do you call it?

Corrupted elections. Something like that.

He doesn't want transitional government.

No, he said

there won't be

transitional government.

I don't know. So

I don't know what will happen.

At least one thing that

is good is that it raised awareness of everyone, how corruption

affects everyone, and help them gather more strength

and be more brave and see that if you're united, we are united, we

can have changes.

Yes, that's a very strong message.

I really am curious what's going to happen.

I'm checking the news.

And the news, unfortunately, has always a high level of vocabulary, quite advanced and

quite heavy terminology.

But it's good.

I recommend everyone to try

and translate if it's needed but it's going to be

a top trending topic all the time I think in the upcoming weeks as

well so there you go

try learning more about protests

spread the word about the protests

and say

if you are passing by yes exactly

try to learn more about it

and tell people more about it yes

ok srečno hala

and we'll see each other in the next episode vidimo se ciao