Protests that began in response to the fatal collapse of a train station roof in Novi Sad last November have mushroomed into something much bigger. Because Serbia’s population is less than 7 million, the fact that upwards of 300,000 people may have participated in the 15 March event is remarkable.
Fifteen people died at the scene of the Novi Sad tragedy, which has been blamed on shoddy workmanship and a corrupt government inspection process. Protesters have since held demonstrations throughout Serbia featuring a fifteen-minute silent vigil. That’s what was happening in the capital, Belgrade, a little after seven in the evening, when panic struck the crowd.
The story about the sonic cannon – known in technical circles as an LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) – interests people who otherwise don’t pay much attention to Serbia because it can be used to make a point about the role technology seems destined to play in the suppression of dissent.
The logic of nonviolent protest, identified with Mahatma Gandhi and his disciple Martin Luther King Jr., is predicated on the belief that public image matters.
To kill large numbers of protesters, as famously happened in the 1919 massacre of peaceful Indian protesters by British soldiers in Amritsar, is to risk losing the political legitimacy necessary to keep society running smoothly.
But if it were possible to make protesters disperse by force without causing them permanent injury or creating an unseemly spectacle – as Bull Connor’s famous use of fire hoses against African Americans did – non-violent actions on a mass scale would become less effective.
What makes the sonic cannon so insidious is its deniability. In footage of the Belgrade protest where it was reportedly used, the crowd suddenly scrambles. Something drove people to run. However, it’s hard to prove that an LRAD was to blame since the injuries left in its wake are invisible.
Vučić has imperiously dismissed the allegation, declaring, “If there was a single piece of evidence that a sound cannon was used against demonstrators, then I would no longer be president.”
That’s why the protest movement has created a website to collect the testimony of people there on 15 March. As of today, more than 3500 individuals have shared their experiences.
“I heard a roar like a strong wind that came down the street,” reads one account. Another calls it an “engine of a vehicle coming towards us to trample us”. And another refers to the sound as “an explosion, a bomb that split the crowd, as if something very strong blew by, and we saw nothing. Strong wind speed, as if you could hear glass falling and breaking”.
The protest movement is calling Vučić’s bluff. Recently, it submitted a petition to the United Nations with nearly 600,000 signatures demanding an investigation.
A thorough report on what happened in Belgrade could make a powerful impact.
Widespread use of an LRAD like the one described in the eyewitness accounts on the website could lead protesters to shift from mass actions to non-violent guerrilla warfare, with small groups making targeted strikes instead of everyone coming together to overwhelm by sheer force of numbers.
While there might be logistical advantages to adopting a decentralised approach, the legacy of new social movements around the world suggests that governments would find it easier to discredit actions undertaken in this manner. That’s why preserving the right to non-violent public protest on a mass scale is so important.
Ironically, had it not been for this incident, the protesters in Serbia would have received far less international coverage than they deserve.
None of the major foreign players in the Balkans seems capable of understanding that the movement does not neatly fit into their preconceived notions.
Russia has a vested interest in keeping Vučić in power because his populist regime has strengthened ties with Moscow. The European Union does as well since he is a known quantity willing to permit the lithium mining operation that Brussels desires. The Trump Administration also seems to regard Vučić as useful since he is open to the sort of business deals that the president is always trying to make.
But the protesters, spearheaded by university students who have been able to spend time on the movement that people in the workforce cannot, aren’t targeting Vučić’s regime on behalf of foreign powers. Their war on corruption proceeds from the realisation that they are being exploited by outside forces conspiring with Vučić’s government.
While Serbian protestors are not marching or holding vigils for anyone other than themselves, their example should inspire people around the world who are trying to figure out how to mount resistance to authoritarian regimes in our high-tech era.
The website full of testimonies is precisely the sort of action that insurgent groups should undertake, creating an archive of shared experience to counterbalance the gaslighting perpetrated by state-run media and the supposedly independent news organisations that give the rich and powerful a disproportionately large say.
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Photograph courtesy of Dejan Krsmanovic. Published under a Creative Commons license.
