Ivan Marovic, founder and leader of “Otpor!” student movement that overthrew Milosevic, speaks to Chinese people and sends off a strong message to Chinese authorities through the young organizers engaging in the Jasmine Revolution in China.
出生于1973年的伊万·马洛维奇和出生于1941年的米洛舍维奇同是贝尔格莱德大学的校友。伊万在25岁时创建Otpor学生组织，开展非暴力运动，并于2000年成功推翻米洛舍维奇的集权政府。
伊万非常支持中国茉莉花革命，并于中共建党90周年之际接受茉莉花革命者们的专访，对中国人民和中国政府发表讲话。在详细讲述自己在塞尔维亚的成功经历后，伊万正告中国政府：想要阻止人民追求自由是不可能行得通的。因为你只能不断地增加维稳的能量，但最终人民也还是会胜利。
以下是视频和演讲全文：
嗨，我是伊万·马洛维奇，我来自塞尔维亚的贝尔格莱德。我和朋友们一起组织了Otpor!学生运动，我是的创立者和领导者之一。Otpor!在2000年的时候推翻了专制的米洛什维克政权。
我的故事开始于我还是个很小的孩子的时候。当时我还在读高中，而米洛什维克还在掌权。在1991年的时候在塞尔维亚发生了第一次对米洛什维克的抗议运动。很巧的是，这正好是在天安门运动两年之后。但是这次抗议运动和天安门运动以同样的方式结束。米洛什维克政权派出军队和坦克镇压了抗议。
在我逐渐长大的过程中国家的状况日益变得糟糕。我们的国家迎来了内战，极度通货膨胀，经济萧条，贫困，等等。所以推翻米洛什维克政权的必要越来越突显。但是问题是我们一尝试反抗，政权就用武力和坦克来镇压。因此我们慢慢开始用当局不容易察觉的方法进行联络。我们尝试着，并最终建立起一个地下的反抗组织。我们叫它为“otpor”，就是塞尔维亚语中“反抗”的意思。Otpor！通过一个一个的小规模胜利逐渐壮大起来。最先大学开始试着制约校方的权力，然后学生们在小一些的市镇开始上街游行，最终这种小游行转变成大游行，并在2000年时推翻了米洛什维克政权。
如果要让我谈谈塞尔维亚和中国的区别，我得说这个区别是相当大的。因此我也不确定我所说的是否会对你们产生帮助。不过我还是要传达我的信息：我们在对抗米洛什维克政权的时候学到了一些东西。
第一点，在斗争中依赖年轻人的力量十分重要。我们能够胜利的原因就是我们是一个青年运动。青年运动不单单指它的成员很年轻，它同时也拥有年轻的领导力量。它相比较起老方式的政治组织有很多好处。比如说年轻人没有结婚，他们不用关心事业，不用抚养孩子，因此恐吓或敲诈对他们的作用有限，而年长一代的人就会容易屈从这些困难。因此年轻人要比年长一代的人勇敢很多很多。他们也因此能做很多年长一代的人不能做的事情。
另外一个好处就是年轻人和年轻人交流起来容易很多。比如说让我们去和一个高级军官或政府的高级官员交流起来会很不方便，但是然我们去和他们的儿女交流就会容易很多。我们就这样深入政权内部并逐渐把它拉拢过来。所以说我们实际上是从他们的孩子那里下手的。这就是我们在斗争中学会的第一件事。
第二件事是我们在斗争中一直保持这非暴力的抗争手法。我们没有恐吓我们的敌人。我们没有恐吓那些逮捕我们的欺压者。我们在被警察抓捕的时候保持着热情和礼貌。有段时间米洛什维克说我们是恐怖组织，下令迅速逮捕我们的所有成员。警察来逮捕我们。但是因为我们没有恐吓过警察，因此虽然我们也被抓进了监狱，但我们却没有像一些其它组织一样受到酷刑，因为我们和警察有着良好的关系。这一点十分重要。这一点给了我们另一课，那就是你的人民安全非常重要。不要让他们承担不必要的危险。不要为了不重要的事情浪费他们的能量甚至生命。
不要让人民为不能等同他们所付出的代价的东西所困，（因为 ）他们所承担的风险要大大高于行动所带来的利益。因此慢慢地成长非常重要。不要一下子成长地太快，使得你们不能应对当权者意识到你们存在的威胁时所使用的压迫。这就是另外一点。
我们在这些年中学到的第三件事是要建立一个团结统一的战线。你的团队里面会有许多不同的人，他们会有不同的意识背景，不同的世界观，不同的社会地位。必须把他们统一起来才能保证行动的胜利。在塞尔维亚有一句谚语说道，两个塞尔维亚人就有三个政党。人们会分成不同的派系。所以慢慢地建立起不同派系之间的人的关系和把他们统一到同一条战线对成功起到非常重要的作用。
当米洛什维克面对起义的人群的时候，他发现是如此大的一个来自全国各地的人群，于是就叫来警察去驱散人群。但是人们不单单聚集在一个广场上面。他们布满了首都的每一条大街小巷。因此警察那人民没办法。后来米洛什维克叫来了军队。但是这次的军队和以往不一样。他们当中的许多军人是从人民中召集上来的，是和街道上面的人站在一边的。再说聚集的人多得连军队也没有办法驱散了。因此最终米洛什维克意识到没人帮得了他，就只好下台了。他没有放一声枪就下了台。这一幕在我们塞尔维亚历史中是非常重要的一幕，因为在塞尔维亚两百年的现代史中没有那个总统或国王不是被杀死或逃离国家的。我们经历了一系列的血腥战争和过度。因此这第一次用非暴力、用人民力量使一个总统下台，没有什么伤亡，甚至使总统自己也保全了性命，这是非常真实的成功。
问：你曾经被一个警察暴打，而且你还记得住他的名字。这是一个什么样的故事？
有一回我被抓了起来。当然我被抓了许多次，但是这一次他们想要取我的手印并给我拍照。那个给我拍照的警察扇了我很多下。后来在米洛什维奇下台之后我又碰见了他。因为当时我的公寓被盗了，我需要一个警察协助我办案。这时我碰见了那个扇了我耳光的警察。当时的场景挺有趣的。但是同时这个警察表达了对我的歉意，我却没有想要报复的意愿。因为我们最终赢得了胜利，而且我们不光是为自己赢得了胜利，我们同时也帮助了那些警察们，因为警察们现在不用违心地打自己的人民了。所以对警察们来说今天的境况也比在当年米洛什维奇的统治下面要好。
问：你有没有一条给中国当权者的信息？比如说，当年你们有没有一条给米洛什维奇的信息？
有。我觉得这条给米洛什维奇的信息也同样可以说给中国当权者听。那就是，想要阻止人民追求自由是不可能行得通的。因为你只能不断地增加维稳的能量，但最终人民也还是会胜利。这就是当年塞尔维亚发生的情况。米洛什维奇最终被迫下台。他没有办法保住自己的政权。这就是我要传递给中国政府的信息！
问：谢谢你！
好的。
Ok. Hi, my name is Ivan Marovic. I’m from Serbia, and together with my friends I was one of the founders and leaders of Otpor!, the resistance movement that brought down Slobodan Milosevic, our dictator, back in 2000.
My story begins when I was a very young kid. I was still in high school, and Milosevic was in power. There was a first demonstration against Milosevic. This was in 1991. It was interesting. It was two years up to Tiananmen Square, but it ended the same way Tiananmen ended. The Milosevic regime sent armies and tanks and destroyed the demonstration—the pro-democracy demonstrations in the metro powers.
As I was growing up the situation was becoming worse and worse—you know we had the civil war, and hyperinflation, and economy sanction, and poverty, and all that. So there was a need to bring down the regime because it was making the situation worse and worse every day. But the problem was when we tried to do it it ended up with military intervention and tanks in the streets. So slowly we started connecting in the way that was not so obvious to the authorities and getting together and trying to build, which we finally did, an underground resistance movement, which we called “otpor”, which is the Serbian word for resistance. Otpor was slowly building its strength through small victories. First the universities tried to limit the power of the deans and school principals then slowly came out to the streets in some smaller towns and cities, and finally turned into a mass movement that managed to bring down Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
So if I recall the differences between Serbia and China, [they are]enormous. So I don’t know if any of the things that I would say would be of help…may be not. But nevertheless, here is my message: there are certain things that we learned over the time that we were fighting against Milosevic.
The first thing was, it was important to rely on young people, and the reason why we succeeded was because we organized as a youth movement. And youth movement doesn’t only mean members were young, but the leadership was also young. It got some benefits over old style political organizing because young people…they are not married, they don’t care about careers, and they don’t care about children, so they cannot be easily blackmailed or threatened, or bullied as older people, so they are much much braver. For instance, they can do things that older people can never do, because of that.
Another thing is that young people can meet other young people much more easily than older people. So for instance it is very difficult for us to meet in person a high ranking officer of the army or to meet in person some high ranking bureaucrats form the government, but to meet his son or daughter in person was easy. So this is how we reached to the elements of the regime and slowly worked on bringing them closer to our side. We worked actually on their children. So that was the way we reached them. That was the first thing that we actually discovered through our struggle.
The second thing is we always tried and succeeded in remaining non-violent in our actions. We didn’t threaten the other side. We didn’t threaten the bullies when they were arresting us. We were cordial and we were polite to the police officers when we were arrested. At one point Milosevic declared us as a terrorist organization so ordered swift arrest of all the Otpor! activists and members of the organization. And we were arrested by the police. But because we didn’t threaten the police in any way, we actually…we were of course arrested and put in jail but we weren’t suffering cases of torture like other political groups because we managed to establish relationship with the police. And that was important.
And that leads me to another lesson that we learned from struggle that is it is important to keep your people, your members safe, not to put them at risk if it is not necessary, not to waste their energy and to waste their lives on things that are not very important or things that don’t create certain effect. I have to stop here because I’m distracted. So let me go back. So that leads me to another lesson that is you have to keep your people safe, you have to keep your members safe, from harm, as much as possible, and not to risk their lives.. And they are held for something that is not going to match the investment. The risk that they are going to take is going to be just too high for the benefit of the action. So it is important to grow slowly, not to grow too fast so that you can not handle the crackdown that is going to come when the authority realize that you pose a threat. To grow slowly means to create the capacity to withstand that crackdown when it happens. So that’s another thing.
The third thing that we learned over the course of the years is it is important to create the unified front. There are many different people, different ideological backgrounds, different world views, different social status. They all needed to be united in one front in order for the movement to be victorious. We have a saying in Serbia: you have two Serbs, you have three political parties. The people are very factionalized than…how should I say…they are very big political—this is another difference about people.
So working slowly in building these relationships within people and bringing them together in the united front, that actually was what I think crucial for the success because when Milosevic confronted the whole population, it was such a huge crowd of people from all parts the country so that he couldn’t do anything, so he called in the police to disperse the demonstrations, but there weren’t just demonstrations in one square. They were all over the capital, in every street, everywhere, so the police couldn’t disperse the demonstrations. And then he called in the army, but the army was, this time, unlike the previous demonstrations. The army understood that the people who are in the army are recruits, so they belong to the same people that are in the street. There are so many people that they cannot actually disperse them either because they are all over the city. So finally Milosevic realized that nobody was going to help, so he decided to step down. So he stepped down without a single shot fire. And that was an important moment in our history because if you look at the two hundred years of modern Serbian history, every president or king of Serbia was either assassinated or had to run away to save his life. So we had a series of bloody wars and transitions, so to have for the first time somebody stepped down with the use of non-violent method, and public pressure, and to step down without casualties and without even him being killed, that was a…
There was once an encounter of a policeman who beat you up and you still remember his name. So what’s the story?
Yes. Well, I was at one point arrested. I mean many times I was arrested, but I mean at one point I was arrested and they wanted to take my finger prints and my photo. So the guy who was taking the photo he slapped my several times. Then later, I ran into him. You know, after Milosevic was overthrown. And I found him, and because my apartment was broken into and there was burglary, I needed a police to help me to investigate that. So I encountered the same person who beat me up. That was a funny encounter. But on the other hand, you know, he felt sorry for what he did, and I felt no desire for revenge, because in the end we won, and we didn’t win just for ourselves, but we also win for that policeman, because he now works in the police force that he is not forced to beat his citizens. So even it’s better for him today than when Milosevic was in the past.
Do you have a message to the Chinese authorities who are still in power? Did you have a message for Milosevic when he was in power?
Yes we had a message for Milosevic was in power, and I think the same message can work for the Chinese authorities. That is, is it impossible to prevent people when they wish to be free. That is just not going to work because you can only spend more and more effort, more and more energy in preventing them, but eventually they will pervade. And this was what happened in Serbia. He had finally to step down. There was no way he could avoid that. So that would be my message.
Thank you very much.
Ok.
http://www.molihua.org/2011/06/ivan-marovicotpor.html
