“WE WILL NOT LET YOU POUR CONCRETE OVER TRUTH”: Students in blockade sent a sharp message to the authorities regarding the construction of a monument to victims in Novi Sad!

Students participating in the blockade of higher education institutions in Belgrade stated, regarding the conceptual design for the monument to those who perished in the collapse of the Railway Station canopy, that they “will not allow the authorities to concrete the truth.”

While those responsible for the tragedy on November 1, 2024, walk free, the students assess that the regime continues with the “most base mockery of the victims: awarding multi-million jobs to its loyal staff for the creation of ‘memorials’.”

“The knowledge that the former dean of the Faculty of Applied Arts, Goran Čpajak—a man who openly stood with the SNS list with his signature—along with architectural engineer Zoran Tucić, was awarded two million dinars to artistically shape the memory of the tragedy caused by that same regime, represents the pinnacle of immorality. A monument to those killed by systemic corruption cannot be made by a man who legitimized that system, nor by engineers who serve as a professional screen for projects built on secret contracts,” the students state.

They also point out that criticism from the public and the profession clearly indicates that this project was designed without any public debate, without a competition, and without the participation of the victims’ families.

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“It is not a place of piety, but an architectural screen intended to physically hide the crime scene and prevent people from asking questions about responsibility. The fact that the chosen solution, a massive stone slab, brutally resembles the concrete block that killed the citizens is particularly defeating, representing an unprecedented act of aesthetic cynicism toward the victims,” they add.

The students assess that art and professions that serve the regime cease to be in the service of society and become accomplices.

“In a state where canopies fall because material was stolen, that same budget is now being used to reward sycophants with the task of ‘beautifying’ the consequences of your negligence. A fee of two million dinars for people who remained silent while the profession was humiliated, and simultaneously supported the party that signed the death warrants in Novi Sad, is an insult to every honest citizen of this country,” the students say.

They also state that those who remained silent while “the safety of citizens was sacrificed for profit” have no moral right to carve stone today in the name of those who are no longer here.

“Your monuments are empty because they are built on lies, secret contracts, and blood. While you build monuments worth two million dinars to soothe your conscience, we remind you that hands remain bloody regardless of how much expensive art you use to cover them. We will not allow you to concrete the truth,” the students conclude.