There are at least two recent events in Serbia that are an unequivocal point of memory. Just as the Americans know where they were and what they were doing when the New York Twin Towers collapsed, so everyone here knows where he was and what he was doing on October 5, 2000 and March 12, 2003, when Zoran Djindjic was killed. Memories of those events are related to the frustrations of the nineties, which many of us are rightly convinced have marked, to a good extent set back, if not destroyed, our lives. We who belong to the middle and later generations have said, written and heard a lot about the last decade of the 20th century, and on October 5th, it seems to us that there is nothing new to add.
When younger people, born in the 5s or 130.000s, are asked what happened twenty years ago and earlier, they receive scant answers - from those that Milosevic was overthrown on October XNUMX and "democracy was introduced" to that on that date "it was overthrown and burning Belgrade". As for the nineties, with more than XNUMX people killed in the region, they will vaguely remember what they heard from their parents - it was, was it, some kind of war. Most of them will add that the Serbs were not to blame. They will learn something similar in school.
MATERIAL
We talk about the vision of October 5 and the nineties, but also about how young generations perceive the recent past, with those who were kids in the XNUMXs and who today, due to the nature of their work (activists, journalists), know much more about these topics than their peers.
Civic activist and "Danasa" columnist Milan Vujić was only two years old when the "October 5th Revolution" took place. Vujić, who was in the public eye a month and a half ago because he was brutally beaten for his publicly stated political views, tells "Vreme" that most members of his generation "are not very interested in the period of the nineties", but also that they generally "do not have a positive opinion about during the reign of Slobodan Milosevic". He says that he was always interested in politics and that he tried to find out everything about who is a "good guy" and who is a "bad guy". "The 'scars' from that period still hurt today, and that's the reason why I wanted to know what happened then," says Vujić.
Journalist Zoran Strika, responsible editor of the Novi Sad portal 021, was five years old on October 5, 2000. He says that his generation is "interested exclusively in the conflict sense, as a source of new divisions", while "they are not overly interested in the economic or social aspects of that decade." There are also several angles of viewing the personality of Slobodan Milošević, depending on which part of the political spectrum you are on. For some, Milosevic will be a criminal, for others a nationalist, and that will be highlighted as a positive characteristic, and then there are those who will present Milosevic as some kind of anti-globalist. In essence, one forgets that the man was an ordinary banker and as such had a good predisposition to rape you at some point, which he did. The Internet and its phenomena (like mimes) bring new popularity to Milošević, which is based solely on his image and a clearly drawn Serbian sign, without any deeper context," says Strika in an interview with "Vreme".
Strika adds that "one of the nebulae" of our education system is that "more attention is paid to the May coup than to October 5. Regardless of the fact that the latter directly affected the lives of those learning that history lesson and their parents. So, for my generation, October 5 is a subject that you will learn in one history class when you have a test," Strika says.
Commissioner of Democratic Youth (DS) Dejan Bagarić was born in 1996. He too, like Vujić, was a victim of violence: last year he was beaten in the Novi Sad campus because of his political activism. In an interview with "Vreme", Bagarić points out that "there are more and more people" who do not see the October 5th changes as "a victory for democracy that had to happen." On the contrary, thanks to the ruling party's narrative, everything that was achieved on October 5 is being called into question. When I talk about it with my peers, at least the few who are interested in it at all, I get the impression that they are little aware of the situation in the country in those years," says Bagarić and adds that, although many expectations were not met, October XNUMX is "a significant date in the history of our democracy and that should not be relativized in any way".
Brajan Brković, Commissioner of the Freedom and Justice Party for Novi Sad (1993), says that his generation, when it comes to the nineties and October 5, is "either indifferent or divided." However, it seems to him that, as the years go by, more and more people are beginning to question what happened back then. He says that the government and its media are spreading confusing, contradictory information whose goal is to "cast a shadow on the true will of the people to defeat the dictatorship and fight for freedom and democracy." He says that many people today feel frustrated because they believed that some things after October 5 were irreversible, and today we have come to a situation where "we are fighting against the same principle of government and the same set of politicians, only reinforced by the most corrupt personnel from the period after October 5." , says Brković for "Vreme".
When asked if he thinks that this society should make a serious assessment of the tragic nineties, Strika replies that the issue is "complex". "Clarification of what really happened in the 1990s and how it came to be that we have dead and displaced people everywhere should have contributed to overcoming a collective trauma, but it seems to me that whenever politicians talk about it here, it just becomes a new source division and hatred", he says and adds that he believes that "in the period to come, people will be more relieved, especially when those who were the bearers of the torches of war and murders'".
Vujić has the impression that the nineties are being forgotten here. "We as a society can move forward, but the scars of that time will always hold us back until we take stock." But, as time goes on, it is more and more difficult that it will ever be done, since the actors of 'blood and soil' politics are back in power," he says.
Bagarić says that in some segments of life, we are still living in the "unhappy nineties". "In this regard, we are selective." When we talk about the war, we forget that the culprits and the main culprits for those events are precisely the people who are in leading government positions today. I believe that the only solution is the complete rejection of the concept of collective guilt, that is, its replacement by the individual guilt of each individual who, through his actions, influenced the incitement of hatred and pushed nations into mutual conflicts. However, this cannot happen while the leading positions of almost all countries in the region are occupied by the same people who directed the nineties," he says.
A DANGEROUS RESULT
Brajan Brković says that, in his opinion, this society avoids settling accounts with the nineties. "Many crimes, war profiteering, political profiteering - remained unsolved." The fifth of October did not bring us the resolution of that decade. When I think about it, I get the impression that the length and intensity of the struggle and daily life in that dark decade made us tired and that with the fall of Milošević, the struggle for a better society ends," says Brković.
Strika also agrees with him, saying that we didn't just miss October 6, but "October 20, November, December, January...". "The lesson is that of football - 2:0 is the most dangerous result. The team started celebrating the victory before the game ended. The first goal was every bit of common sense that was preserved in these areas during the nineties, and October 5th was that goal for 2:0. And everyone thought that the referee played the end, but he only played the end of the first half. And then if in the second half your team is in disarray, and there are no tactics, the result is reversed and that's what happened here. It was played without tactics. Those who called for wars in the XNUMXs and who looted and destroyed the country won," says Strika.
Vujić points out that on October 5, "one house of horror" was demolished, and that a new one was built, but without a foundation. "It was necessary to pass certain laws that will allow all those who deserved it to be condemned and censored. That was not done, and that's why my generation is living the XNUMXs again after two decades," he says.
Bagarić confirms that the lack of lustration is a problem. "Each of the accomplices in the joint criminal enterprise should have been eliminated from the public space, which was actually the case in the 1990s." It is a mistake that cost us too much and must not be repeated. There must not be any compromises in that regard," he says.
For Brković, October 5 and what happened afterwards are a message that when a criminal regime, such as Milosevic's and the current one, Vučić's, is being overthrown, the only guarantee that it will be fundamentally defeated is lustration and the law on the origin of property. . "From the nineties until today, many people have become astronomically and criminally rich through politics." We must show the citizens that they will not and must not be untouchable. "Political organizations that acted as criminal organizations should be banned," says Brković.
