What European students can learn from their Serbian peers
The Serbian student mobilisation chose a political strategy that ensured its success where others had failed.
While Europe was asleep over the past two years, Serbia was wide awake. A nationwide student movement shook the foundations of a deeply entrenched government and on Sunday, it dealt it an unprecedented electoral blow – something opposition parties had failed to do for more than a decade.
Until the election results came out, the Serbian student movement was largely ignored by international media. The students were seen as naive, irrelevant, disaffected youth.
That they were underestimated by the world and by President Aleksandar Vucic was perhaps to their advantage. But Serbian students did not just rely on their opponent’s overconfidence. For almost two years, they built and practised an alternative model of politics that soon became visible and eventually triumphed at the polls.
It was collectively decided that established politicians would not be nominated. The students made it clear they rejected being incorporated into a type of leadership-based politics that was failing all across Europe.