More of a bloomer rant I think this time around.
I think a good chunk of you already know but there’s a lot of civil unrest going on in my country (Serbia) as of the last couple of months.
Went to protests and blockades once a week basically. Helped me out a bit mentally ngl. I went to two with a long time childhood friend and a third one with an org group I decided to join. They were pretty chill and nice too. So I’m really glad I could do some ground work. Though we didn’t use symbols since we respect the students rules of no political symbols but we still had a good time. Met the general secretary too.
Besides that some lib opposition activist groups tried to infiltrate some protests and blockades but failed miserably. With self-organized college students telling them to fuck off basically. In the end the libs blamed both the radical left and right lmao. So that’s pretty good.
Also since I got ghosted by some studio’s HR for a 2D animator position 2 months ago I thought I’d start making some stuff for YouTube. Basically fulfilling my middle school me’s dream lol. Though I’m still unsure about It.
Still that’s kinda about It. I thank ya’ll for the support :D
I follow Lily Lynch for balkan stuff (she spent a long time in serbia too), and she also points out that the students have been explicitly distancing themselves from parties and NGOs. I read this all through Vicent Bevins’ book about modern protests movements and he points out that if there are no leaders, and no one willing to embody the movement to negotiate with power OR TAKE IT, then the political vacum opened up by the protests that suck everyone’s political energy towards them like a vortex will end up being filled by SOMEONE, who might not necesserily be beholden to the movement’s original aims (and they’ll bring their own aims and assign them to the movement’s). He gives plenty of examples where this happened, brazil, ukraine, egypt etc
Do you think there’s a risk of that? Of someone, not from the parties and NGOs which are suspect, coming in from the outside or emerging from within the movement and direct it towards something that’s not what people originally wanted? Obviously the fear I have is that the US, who is the only world power with the means and will to do shit like this (although with trump’s cuts to USAID idk anymore about the will and means), will try and steer the situation to its own benefit (which here I guess would mean anti-russia politics). Not calling the movement a colour revolution at all btw, my point is that even though these things DO happen organically, somehow America ends up benefiting in the end.
Glad you’re doing well and staying positive, sucks about the job thing though. Pretty basic advice but I’d say if you have the mental patience for it keep sending in applications as you put up your portfolio up on youtube.
Yeah I think there’s a risk unfortunately. I feel like It’s becoming a struggle of who will lead the masses in a way. Though take this with a grain of salt. I think It was good thing that NGO lib activist groups got told to fuck off though. I fear that It this will their create a power vacuum or this protesting will lead to not much change than before. Hell the 2020 BLM protests were more radical than us.
From what I’ve seen, most of the more radical left here agreed with the rules of the students where they shall not intervene as activists but as students. Basically not promoting their ideologies so that’s a no go. Though I see an opening from workers since most people here are distrustful of unions since they are super corrupt so no actual rights or conditions get improved and are also compared to mob protection rackets. I’m not particularly sure how to approach that irl though without us looking like Jehovah’s witnesses. A lot of strikes and boycotts of big supermarket chains are happening too. Honestly I haven’t seen such a big opportunity here for us communists to act in a good while. Literal class struggle happening in front of our eye’s.
I was gonna ask for some advice either here or on Lemmygrad on what we could do. My idea for now is to get as much internet social media news portals in our favor. Maybe even starting a radio station for older folk but that’s gonna be hassle. We already got an anti-capitalist Instagram news thing that got quite popular. So cranking up propaganda as much as we can since there aren’t that many of us. Though I could use some more advice really.
Also when it comes to a job I’ll be fine hopefully. I’m mostly gonna try that storytime animation thing since I always wanted to do It but I never felt competent enough to actually do It. So I’m doing It for real now. Sorry for the long rant lol.
No worries, I loved reading it
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The risk of somone emerging and using the protests for their own gain exists, but the solution isn’t to start appointing leaders. These student protests have been organized in an anarchst manner from the very start and decisiona are made through direct democracy. The demands have been clear from the very start and haven’t changed in the past 3 months that we’ve been protesting.
The big thing outside of the immediate changes expected out of these protests (regime change and criminal responsibility for the death of 15 people) is the chance to agitate people imo. The studenta especially have now seen that organizing is possible and have seen the strength of solidarity. Now obviously turning all of them into leftists is an impossible task, even if the current organization follows an anarchist text (blockade cookbook). But the potential is certainly there and hopefully when this is all over we’ll be left with a much more politically engaged and motivated society.
That’s pretty much what the subject of the Bevins’ book I mentioned is about, it’s called “If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution”, the movements he analyzed (sometimes having been there in person) had pretty much that configuration too, and that has strenghts and weaknesses that ended up driving said movements into, for example, in Brazil, proto-bolsonarista politics, in ukraine, the maidan, in egypt, the sissi coup etc.
It’s a paradox because it’s precisely that leaderless, low comittment (dip in and dip out), directly democratic (in the essence of rejecting representation) of these movements (and I assume in serbia too) that leads MORE PEOPLE to participate, it’s just that he makes a point that because there isn’t a leader, or a representative, eventually that can develop a political vacum where people DO start looking for someone to represent them and carry their aims, because that vacum has to be filled.
It’s also a fact that most of the time there already absolutely are leaders of the movements, they’re just neither appointed not public, but there for sure are people who are well connected inside the movement (in some cases in control of the social media accounts that schedule the protests) to exercise more control over them than your average low comittment protestor, but because this hierarchy isn’t revealed, and there aren’t institutional ways to participate in it, some nasty people or nasty politics can come out on top, sometimes by just literally beating up leftists into being driven out…
So yeah it’s complicated.