Filling Streets of Belgrade Becomes a Family Affair

Every afternoon about 3, Milan and Jovana pull on their ski boots, don their heaviest winter coats and wrap their heads in wool scarves. Son Mladen takes out the whistles, the coffee-can noisemaker and the flashlight.

And off they go, the Pajevic family, joining another day of protest in the streets of Belgrade.

“Our whole life is centered on these demonstrations,” the 65-year-old Jovana says. “I plan my day accordingly and have little time for anything else.”

“We run errands in the morning, do the shopping, eat lunch early and, at 3 o’clock, we’re ready,” says Milan, 68.

Indeed, to become part of the lively rallies and marches here in the Serbian capital denouncing election fraud, thousands of families have rearranged their schedules in the past month and a half and made demonstrating a centerpiece of their daily routines.

The crowds recently have dropped off in size, but the die-hard dedicated still look forward to the afternoon “walk,” as it is called; their persistence helps explain the unusual longevity of an unprecedented wave of protest against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Braving rain, snow, ice and tear gas, the Pajevices have joined the demonstrations religiously, scarcely missing a day.

“It’s the least we can do, our little contribution,” Jovana says. “We don’t have weapons. We can’t fight. All we can do is shout out loud in the streets. We want to get rid of Milosevic and the whole rotten system.”

The political motivations and backgrounds of the people filling Belgrade’s streets run the gamut, but the single unifying sentiment is condemnation of Milosevic and his autocratic rule.

For the Pajevic couple, whose parents lost their property and standing to the post-World War II communism that took control of the old Yugoslavia, the fight is against leftist rule and for free-market democracy.

They want to see their country, punished for the last few years because of its warmongering policies, restored to a normal status in the world community--so that people like the Pajevices can once again travel freely, buy any book they want, succeed without belonging to a particular political party.

“You have to go out and protest because you go out and vote and, puff, they just wipe it out,” says Mladen, 31.

Bundled up and ready for the day’s demonstrations, the Pajevices follow a well-practiced game plan. They leave their comfortable downtown apartment, decorated with Iranian carpets and trinkets collected from world tours during the 1960s and ‘70s, and walk about seven blocks to Republic Square.

There, standing in their usual spot in front of the National Theater and across from the copper-domed National Museum, they meet up with friends--old neighbors they’ve known for years, and new acquaintances formed here on the front lines of this battle for Belgrade.

“We thought that, were we younger, we would just have to leave the country because there was no chance for things to get better,” the tall, white-haired Milan says. “Now we have discovered a large group of middle-class, middle-aged people, plus all the students, wonderful people, nice to meet and full of pep.

“There is a collective therapy in [the demonstrations]; you see a process of people getting rid of their fear, feeling solidarity, coming back each day.”

“We feel good vibrations,” says Jovana, keeping warm in a wool knit cap and wool coat.

Milan, a retired chemical engineer, and Jovana hook up quickly with their usual crowd. Miki, the actor, has his trademark bicycle horn that he toots at appropriate moments. Voja, the 75-year-old economist and former jazz singer, has rubber boots for the icy slush, a miniature trumpet--and a thick copper pipe hidden up his sleeve in case the police attack.

They shake hands, kiss greetings, exchange news and rumors, and take snapshots of each other.

Several wear the latest lapel badge to emerge in the demonstrations, which says “I love you too.” It spoofs Milosevic: During a rally he staged on his behalf last month, his bused-in supporters chanted repeatedly, “We love you, Slobo”; he finally responded, “I love you too.” Ever since, it’s become a slogan of the anti-government forces.

Their demonstrations are part theater, part political discourse.

Loud music blares from a bank of speakers placed on the back of a pickup truck. One song is a satire of Milosevic’s wife, Mirjana Markovic, and the neo-Communist party she runs.

“Left, left, left!” goes the refrain. With each mention of the party’s name, the crowd emits a deafening roar of whistles, horns, tambourines and screams.

On cue, Milan and Jovana do their part, blowing their whistles and jumping up and down to the music. Around them, demonstrators wave flags: the light blue labor union flags, the red-white-and-blue Serbian flag, the orange student flags, a red Ferrari flag, a green peace flag.

Leaders of the opposition coalition Zajedno, or Together, then address the crowd.

Once the speeches are over, the walk begins. In the early days of the demonstrations, huge crowds strode a couple of miles through the city, tying up traffic and bringing downtown Belgrade to a standstill. But on Dec. 25, Milosevic banned street demonstrations and deployed cordons of heavily armed riot police to block the parades.

Now the walk is limited to a pedestrian mall, Kneza Mihaila Street, which runs into Republic Square. Shoulder to shoulder and taking baby steps, the protesters walk from the plaza and down the length of Kneza Mihaila, with more music, whistles and chants.

Opposition leader Vuk Draskovic works the crowd and shakes hands. Jovana spots him and darts over. “No compromise! No deals!” she tells the bearded politician.

At the end of the pedestrian mall, the first phalanx of police waits, and the demonstrators will be forced to turn around. Jovana and Milan position themselves among the marchers so that they will be able to walk closest to the line of police, who are holding their plastic riot shields aloft.

“We love you,” Jovana tells them, again spoofing Milosevic. “We love you.”

One or two of the policemen crack a small smile. Other demonstrators have managed to draw pink hearts on most of the riot shields.

Son Mladen, meanwhile, has split off with his own group of friends. He, too, manages to find time, day after day, for this ritual, which to an outsider might seem monotonous. It means a little less sleep and a little more work in less time, he says.

“It’s like going to a party every day,” says Mladen, a freelance translator and former rock drummer. “You chat with people. You walk. It’s not boring. It is very little to do, just a few hours, for such a big cause.”

The walk is finished, almost three hours after the demonstration started and long after Europe’s winter darkness has settled on the city. It’s time to go home, Jovana and Milan say, and recover before the evening show.

Always looking for new stunts, opposition leaders have lately encouraged supporters to make as much noise as possible from their homes between 7:30 and 8 p.m. to symbolically drown out the nightly newscast on state-controlled television.

The idea is for residents throughout the city to lean from their windows, stand on their front porches or sit in their cars and beat pots and pans or honk horns.

Milan and Jovana have been perfecting their technique. Jovana arms herself with a large iron soup pot, while Milan takes a frying pan, hangs a bell to one end, then beats it with a spatula, not a spoon, for a louder sound with a more ringing echo.

“We make fantastic noise,” he says gleefully.