Serbia’s Mass Protests Against a Crony-Capitalist Government
Serbia’s prime minister has resigned after months of protests over the deadly rail-station roof collapse in Novi Sad. No isolated incident, the disaster has become the latest symbol of government subservience to unscrupulous multinational developers.
Two student protesters with the Serbian flag on their backs walk through Belgrade, Serbia, on January 28, 2025. (Filip Stevanovic / Anadolu via Getty Images)
Soon after the roof canopy of Novi Sad’s central train station collapsed last November 1, killing fifteen people, a TV reporter asked local journalist Igor Mihaljević to respond to the event. With devastating and incisive judgement, he offered the context missing in Western media coverage of the incident and the protests of the last few months.
For one, Mihaljević noted, this was the latest incident in the often tragic history of Serbia’s second-largest city. In its past, Novi Sad suffered the genocidal Hungarian army campaign that massacred Jews, Serbs, and Romani across the region. That was in the same era as the devastating military occupation of Yugoslavia by Nazi Germany and its client states. More recently, there was the seventy-eight-day NATO bombing campaign in 1999, which killed 527 Yugoslavs and hobbling major cities like Novi Sad by taking out key infrastructure. But this time, Mihaljević argued, was different — for now it was the Serbian state itself killing its people.
The train station collapse has left both the city and the nation in shock, triggering primal fears of the sky falling overhead. Many Serbs, especially in Novi Sad, now regard overhead structures with suspicion, with some even avoiding the newly constructed, Chinese-funded high-speed railway. However, the aftermath has also sparked a powerful wave of protests, so intense that they threaten to topple President Aleksandar Vučić, sending shock waves through his corrupt Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
Student Protests
Led by student organizers from over thirty universities and faculties — most notably the faculty of dramatic arts in Belgrade, which began the call to action in late November — the movement has rallied around four key demands. One is the release of all internal documents related to renovations at the Novi Sad railway station, carried out by Serbian Railway Infrastructure, the Serbian state, China Railway International Co. Ltd., and China Communications Construction Company Ltd., which began the station’s construction in 2021. The other demands are the dismissal of all charges against arrested and detained students and young protesters who have been demonstrating since the canopy collapsed; the filing of criminal charges and the prosecution of those responsible for the attacks on students and professors; and a 20 percent increase in budget allocations for public higher-education institutions in Serbia to cover material expenses.
Since November, students have organized massive strikes, with such protests as a gathering of over 100,000 people at Belgrade’s Slavija Square on December 22. The protests continued into the New Year, with demonstrators declaring there was nothing to “celebrate” until justice was achieved. They demonstrations are still ongoing, having recently forced the resignations of prime minister Milos Vučević and Novi Sad’s mayor Milan Đurić on January 28.
Students have held assemblies and effectively conveyed their message to the media. With a keen sense for Instagramable moments, they have gracefully steered social media campaigns, often featuring overhead drone footage of the protests and eye-catching visuals. Their actions have not only challenged state power, but their demands — particularly for criminal charges and prosecution — offer a stark critique of the deeper systemic rot: a corrupt judicial system that upholds a mafia state and a government that not only fails its people but is complicit in their deaths.
What began as a response in Serbia’s major cities has now evolved into a nationwide movement, spreading to smaller towns as well. As noted by Novi Sad activist and scholar Aleksandar Matković on X/Twitter, a map of Serbia showing protests happening across almost all municipalities nationwide shows that the situation is likely to escalate into either a government crisis or more conflict.
The events have also sparked deep cultural anxieties tied to national identity. This Monday, the Serbian Orthodox Church published an article damning the student protests, asserting that they were pushing an “anti-Saint Sava, anti-Christian and anti-Serbian narrative and way of life.” This claim that students live in a “parallel universe” was walked back in a statement on Tuesday, which clarified that the text did not reflect the stance of the Church’s top cleric, Patriarch Porfirije.
Recently, the protests have intensified into violence, with protesters engaging in fierce clashes with supporters of the ruling SNS party. On Tuesday night at around 3:00 a.m., a group of SNS supporters launched an attack on students in Novi Sad. Many Serbians were especially shocked by a series of interviews widely covered in media in which SNS supporters from the city of Jagodina denounced the students. One older man even said that he would welcome attacks on his daughter if she were protesting.
Nationalists and Multinationals
This is a moment of growing interest in the power of mass movements to drive political change. Following Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency, obsessive media coverage often frames one man’s corruption and venality as redeemed by his inauguration as head of state. The parallels to Vučić are striking, particularly since Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner recently finalized a business deal to build a Trump-branded luxury hotel on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense in Belgrade. This site, bombed by NATO in 1999, long stood as a symbol of the bombing and the dangers represented by this alliance.
Today the Kushner deal, brokered with real estate agents in Abu Dhabi, reflects a broader picture around the Balkans: real estate developments treated as megadeals between state and business leaders from the United States, European Union, China, and beyond. Such arrangements ultimately benefit only very few but are covered by judicial protection. In stark contrast, the student demands — focused on strengthening education and creating institutions that genuinely serve the people, as well as restoring legitimacy to the state prosecutor — directly challenge the interests of autocrats and the capitalist developers whom they protect.
Much Western media coverage of the Novi Sad deaths and resulting protests has been inaccurate, emphasizing Serbia’s strong ties to Russia and implying that the student protests follow a Maidan-like, anti-Russian tradition. While this framing may be intended to attract attention to the protests, it is misleading about what is really at stake. The concern here isn’t foreign interference in another state’s affairs but rather domestic corruption, crime, and the fundamental question of what and whom the state is truly serving.
Analysts like political scientist Florian Bieber, who emphasizes the need to align the resistance with Serbia’s opposition parties, overlook the fact that such challenges are not unique to Serbia but are part of a broader global crisis of governance in which capturing electoral victory cannot be the only aim of politics. As the late theorist Fredric Jameson noted, we are witnessing a global erosion of state power. Jameson instead called for a “dual power” in which alternative structures emerge to fulfill essential functions that the state has failed to provide. The student protests reflect this idea in practice, through soup kitchens, self-defense networks, and other forms of collective support. They are not just demanding change but actively demonstrating what a self-sustaining, community-driven alternative could look like.
Collapse
Many outcomes were possible after this incident. The business dealings between the Serbian state and China risked fueling xenophobia toward Serbia’s significant Chinese population. The collapse could have been forgotten as an isolated tragedy. Instead, Serbian students have demonstrated that it is possible to challenge corrupt systems. Success depends on our ability to embrace the potential of new and emerging forms of social cohesion.
Serbian student movements have led change before. In 1968, they won concessions from Josip Broz Tito, who acknowledged the validity of many of their economic and political demands. President Vučić may sometimes present himself as Tito’s successor, but he only offers empty promises, failing to implementing real changes. In 2000, president Slobodan Milosević was overthrown after a three-year internal struggle sparked by the student-led Otpor! movement.
More recently, protests against the Serbian government’s support for the British-based multinational Rio Tinto’s lithium mining project — ignoring well-documented environmental risks — have highlighted the growing resistance to state-backed corporate exploitation. In 2022, widespread public pressure ultimately forced a U-turn on allowing the company into the country. This incident further underscores how nationalist rhetoric often masks collusion with foreign corporate interests, prioritizing economic deals over public welfare. The current student protests have built on this momentum, digging deeper into these contradictions and challenging entrenched networks of political and economic power.
The Novi Sad station canopy is a grotesque metaphor for the uncertainty facing Serbia. First created in 1964, it symbolizes a time when the Yugoslav state was thriving and modernizing — an era of ambitious infrastructure projects and social progress. But its neglectful maintenance and ultimate collapse serve as stark reminders of Vučić’s inability to carry on such a legacy in substance. While he postures as a strong leader, his governance has been marked by economic inequality, political repression, and a failure to invest in the institutions and public goods that once defined Yugoslavia’s vision of collective progress.
The students in the streets today are not just protesting an isolated incident; they are confronting a system that has long prioritized political survival over public well-being. If they succeed, they may finally break this cycle and push Serbia toward a future where the state truly works for its people. If they fail, the collapse of the canopy may serve as a chilling warning of further decay to come. Now we can only hope that they succeed.