The following is a letter of protest sent by fax to the New York Tims from the Philosophy Faculty of Belgrade but not published.
BY PROFESSOR MILOS ARSENIJEVIC:
Dear Editor, I am writing to you on behalf of the whole Faculty of Philosophy which comprises ten
departments and not only the Department of Philosophy, as it was stated in the article written by Mr.
Chris Hodges, published in your respectable newspaper on December 9, 1996, under the headline
'Fierce Serb Nationalism Pervades Student Foes of Belgrade Leader'. Shocked by the description of the
student protest and the role of the Faculty of Philosophy in it, we feel urge to provide you with facts
which explain the true character of the protest, and we kindly ask you to publish the text in full. Mr. Chris
Hedges characterises the student movement as nationalistic in the very headline of his article. It is
hardly understandable that 'a growing number of Serbian flags' (we have seen four of them) is taken as
an indication of the nationalist character of student demonstrations. It is unbelievable that at the time
when American flags are energetically waved by Belgrade demonstrators every day, your reporter is
worried about our own flags! More absurdly, it is claimed that 'student organizers are calling on women
to march in traditional Serbian costumes'. Being with students every day, we have seen none of those
costumes (they are unfashionable and unavailable). Being under the impression of a few Serbian flages
(waved in Serbia!) and strange costumes (worn by who?), your reporter misidentified very kind young
men and women, in plain clothes, at the front door of our faculty building, as people doing fatigue duties,
who 'frequently turn away visitors and at times verbally abuse them as "liars" or "American scum"'.
Actually, they have to do an uneasy job of keeping order in the crowd and watching out for (expected)
provokers. The rule which students introduced in order to keep their protest autonomous and deteched
from politicians' influence led to a regrettable incident with Mr. Jacque Lang. However, this does not
mean that Mr. Lang would not be a wellcome guest at an appointment with our faculty staff. The
completely untrue and most dangerous characterization or the student movement and the role of our
colleagues as supporters of its alleged nationalist character is the statement that 'student
leaders...attack President Slobodan Milosevic, not for starting the war in Croatia and Bosnia, but for
failing to win it', as well as the claim that 'Serbian philosophers, who espoused theory of racial
superiority, including the idea that Serbs were the oldest human race, dominated university
classrooms'(!!). These bizarre qoalifications are similar to (or perhaps based on) those claimed by
Belgrade intellesctuals Obrad Savic and Miladin Zivotic (quated in the article), but they are quite
opposite to the opinion of a l l members of our faculty and seriously distort the real picture of the
democratic movement. Contributing to the status quo, it is no wonder that such misrepresentations are
endorsed by Milosevic's media. They can be extremely harmful in the situation in which the democratic
movement in Serbia needs support from the whole democratic international community.