Interview with Rastko Mocnik*, by Lucien Perpette
On September 12-13, 2009 a Forum of Resistances took place in Sarajevo, on the initiative of DOSTA. The DOSTA movement was started by young people in Sarajevo who had organized two radical demonstrations protesting against the inertia of the government in the face of criminality and the assassination of a teenager by petty criminals. The participants who were invited to the Forum of Resistances came from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia, as well as from France, Greece and Poland. Activists in Croatia, involved at the same time in a demonstration against the government, sent a message of sympathy.
Lucien Perpette: Can you indicate the reasons for becoming involved and participating in the Forum?
Rastko Mocnik: In recent years, there have been demonstrations of students and young people in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb and Ljubljana. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, these young people have established a resistance network which covers the whole country – quite an exploit in this republic, which is torn apart by nationalist politics. In April-May 2009, students occupied several faculties in the big cities of Croatia [1]. In the Faculty of Arts of Zagreb, capital of the country, the “blockade”, during which the students organized an alternative university, lasted more than a month. In Ljubljana, in autumn 2007, young global justice campaigners took part in the big trade-union demonstration against the neoliberal policies of the government and for a wages policy indexed on the evolution of profits [2] At that time, the economy was experiencing considerable growth, whereas wages were stagnating. In addition, young people are among the groups in society who are most affected by the neo-liberal restoration of peripheral capitalism: sociologists speak about “discriminatory flexibilisation of young people”. In Slovenia, 37.2 per cent of the jobs occupied by young people between 14 and 29 years old were precarious in 2001 (as against 10.1 per cent for those aged 30 and above) 3]. The situation is particularly unfavourable for university graduates of the Universities: in Slovenia, the demand for jobs requiring a university degree is almost double of that of the number of jobs on offer.
The youth of ex-Yugoslavia have responded to the deterioration of their situation by a growing politicization. In Ljubljana, last April, young people organized an antifascist demonstration on the anniversary of the foundation of the antifascist front in 1941: this very successful demonstration targeted local neo-fascism as well as the attempts at historical revisionism which are being conducted in Slovenia by the bourgeois political establishment.
The revolt of youth in Greece opened new perspectives for questions that concern the whole of Europe. In ex-Yugoslavia, there is a strong convergence between movements: they defend the gains of the socialist Welfare State and demand their reintroduction, as in Croatia where the slogan of the students still remains: “Free Education for All!”
The exchange of information and points of view between those involved in these initiatives was thus an event not to be missed. Especially since the problems which they confront cannot be dealt with within the framework of one only country.
Lucien Perpette: What do you think of the emergence and the activities of the movement DOSTA in Sarajevo?
Rastko Mocnik: This movement is impressive: whereas at the beginning, it seemed to be just a quasi spontaneous movement of street riots, it was very quickly organized into a network which links together the most important cities in the country. At this point in time, it is probably the only politicized network which breaks through the barriers imposed by nationalist politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Although it is recent and composed of young people of whom the majority did not have any previous political experience, it is a politically mature movement, and one which thinks in a strategic way: their demands are radical (re-establishment of the social state), but they have succeeded in avoiding any kind of adventurous extremism.
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