Croatian president Stjepan Mesic annonced that he supports students in their demands for free education.
What a bunch of bourgeoise crap. Now he supports them.

Ah, so now it's time for the "playing the sympathetic patron and sedate the protestors with hollow promises"-tactic.
Well, at least that shows that he doesn't underestimates their protest but hopefully they won't be conciliated with some foul compromises and a warm handshake from Mr. President but stay firm in their demands.

Police is police, but I don't think it will come to that.
However if the protests turn to violence..

Government is somewhat shaky for some time, I really don't believe it will have the guts to confront students.
The main guy that students are revolting against is the minister of education Dragan Primorac.
Since the revolt started he already made public claims that he "agrees" with students.
I doubt that there is any sincerity in that statement, but elections are just days away and the ruling party will do everything in their power to avoid confrontation.

If they play it smart, they might even attract more voters. On the other hand students must remain firm and try not to deviate from their cause.
The worst thing that could happen now is if students settle down with some half results.

In other news, the president of the country himself said yesterday that students should have the free education, backing it up by the fact that he also had it (during the socialist Yugoslavia).

If you ask me there is way too much solidarity and understanding coming from people in power. I believe they are afraid that students might join with workers for a large scale revolt.
This could easily happen as Croatia's economy has been degrading since 2000 and many many are unemployed.

Some of my friends who finished good colleges couple of years ago can not get any job because of the "over - qualification". Can you imagine that??
If you are desperate to work in Croatia, in certain circumstances you must HIDE the fact that you hold a college degree !

For years now Croatia has been labelled as haven for right wingers and alike, even I wrote about it some years ago.
However this and similar actions that are being taken prove that this is not a complete fact.

The extreme right wingers are just louder and cause more trouble.
A skinhead that kills a person fills the headlines, but still he's just one person (in fact he ain't a person, he's garbage).
There is evidence that there are many left wingers in Croatia, especially among the younger generations.
These are generations that have not been emotionally scared by a bitter war that was going on here during the 90s, I sincerely hope these new kids will come to be much better people that my generation is.

The problems of the "left" in Croatia are still numerous. We don't have a single "real" socialist party to align with. The one that comes closest are the social democrats, but they are still just a bunch of fake money grabbers who wear red from time to time.

A real socialist party would easily win in Croatia, but the fact that there ain't none speaks a lot. Basically crime rates in Croatia are low, but if you have the guts to mess with politics, you might not be so lucky.

Another thing is that catholic church has an enormous influence on population and is very closely aligned with the right centrist party in power.
These people are the loudest condemners of socialism and communism and brainwash people every day.

Anyway, let's see how this plays out.

p.s I've posted some pics n' info in the "politics" section on this topic, I hope it can be merged into this one.

any news?

occupation of university continues.
things are starting to be intense since the rectors stopped to support the protests (assholes) and announced that teaching must continue or there will be take pressure on students. also, whole this semester will maybe be frozen

Hello.

If you are interested to read, students do translations of news, articles and documents about our struggle to English and other languages. You can find them on this web site:

slobodnifilozofski.org

(Could someone edit the link, please? I can't post those yet.)

Blockade continues...

Letter of support from Slavoj Žižek

Those among us who are old enough remember “specialized further education”, the last attempt of the Communist regime in the old Yugoslavia to streamline education to “social use” and narrow the space of dissent. Western Europe is now rediscovering it – it is called the “Bologna reform of the higher education,” a new attempt to subordinate higher education to the needs of social control and regulation. We need a cultural revolution to fight this dangerous tendency with all means available, violent civic disobedience included. You, students who occupy faculties, are doing not only the right thing, but the necessary thing. Go to the end, persist – no compromise!


Letter of support from Noam Chomsky

I have learned of the struggle of Croatian students to ensure that free education will be available to all. It is a worthy goal for every society — including my own, where such rights are not honored — and I would like to wish them success in their efforts.




http://slobodnifilozofski.org/
The site contains translations to english, french, danish, german, italian, slovenian and swedish.

I was reading the Slavoj Zizek quote and I was thinking, oh I wish Chomsky had said something and then I saw the Chomsky quote, and I went Yeah!!