A New Status Quo Comes to the Balkans: Born by Its People, Not Its Regime

Benjamin Selimotic | May 2, 2025

A tragedy turned scandal. 

Photo by @Mihajlo Srdjevic | April 22, 2025 | Arrival of the heroes in Novi Sad, Serbia

The newly renovated train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, was supposed to show the world that Serbia was modernizing and moving forward with the rest of Europe. For a regime that celebrates every accomplishment with fanfare—ceremonies, ribbon cuttings, and headlines —this was meant to be yet another triumphant. The renovated building stood gleaming—a symbol of progress, national pride, and political promises of a brighter tomorrow. 

Then, on November 1, 2024, the roof of that celebrated station collapsed without warning. Sixteen people died as a result—the victims of a corrupt government that promised modernization, a better tomorrow, and most of all, to protect its citizens. This collapse could have been prevented. But once the rubble was cleared, it became less and less about how the infrastructure crumbled on innocent bystanders and more and more about the regime’s long track record of failing its people.  

A tragedy, too many.

The rail station collapse came on the heels of an already shaken nation. In May 2023, a mass shooting occurred at Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School in Belgrade. It was carried out by a 13-year-old who killed nine classmates and a security guard. Then, within a week,  another mass shooting occurred in Mladenovac, claiming eight more lives.

In both instances, the regime’s response was predictable: a calculated political performance instead of real anti-gun violence reform—the announcement of a one-month amnesty for citizens who wished to relinquish their illegal weapons. The game of blame-shifting and cosmetic change was meant to hide the government’s protection racket for war criminals and organized crime bosses. 

But just as the regime promised a future devoid of corruption for its people while stoking populism to grow its authoritarianism, the Jovanjica scandal broke out–the discovery of one of Europe’s largest illegal cannabis farms allegedly operating with the protection of Serbia’s state security and its political elites.

Rail Station Tragedy: The Tipping Point

While multiple events served as a warning sign that the regime was corrupt, the tragedy at Novi Sad cut deep. The regime had promoted the new station as safe, functional, and something to be proud of – and then on a seemingly ordinary day, people, simply waiting for a train, were struck down, old and young alike. 

The scandal couldn’t be covered up with new promises of a better tomorrow, like the others that came just before it. Corruption could no longer hide behind patriotic speeches and gleaming façades, where shortcuts were rewarded and political image mattered more than lives. Something inside the people finally shifted, something unexpected but long overdue.

People poured into the streets in mass: students, mothers, workers. They came out not just in anger but with shared emotions of grief and compassion, emotions that had seemed long suppressed by fear, ideology, and division. They walked, cycled, held candles, and carried signs demanding accountability. Unrelenting solidarity became more important than party slogans, political flags, and endless empty political speeches of national pride and unity. 

The protests that followed are now the largest in modern Serbian history. 

Photo by @Mihajlo Srdjevic | April 22, 2025 | Arrival of the heroes in Novi Sad, Serbia

A New Brotherhood and Unity

What began on the streets in November six months ago was something different. It was honest, real, and sometimes even messy, but fostered by the pain and hopes of a united people. 

The old type of nationalism, which was meant to secure authoritarianism, has suddenly become quiet. Its slogans echo now in empty government and party rooms. In its stead has emerged something softer—but stronger.

It may not have a name yet. But we know what it feels like.

It was no longer about the regime’s stronghold.

This was something else.

A new status quo.

A new kind of power.

A brotherhood and unity born from truth.

From grief.

From compassion.

For a better tomorrow.

Za nas sve (eng. for all of us).

Photo by @Mihajlo Srdjevic | April 22, 2025 | Arrival of the heroes in Novi Sad, Serbia

*The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Conflict Awareness Project.