On Wednesday, 25.06.2008, about noon, more than 100 students gathered in the yard of the Public University “St. Cyrillus & Methodius” at Skopje, in front of the Faculties of Law, Economics and Philosophy. The group that organized this event, in the past month has already organized five other events in a row, mainly open forums, and the event that happened on the Wednesday was the finale for this semester.

Two bands from Skopje played at the event. PMG Collective, a famous electro-punk band started the show; political speeches were delivered, and the left-wing indie punk band Fighting Windmills rocked the stage afterwards.

The event was intended to be a tribute to the global movement of 1968. But much of the attention was focused on the present.

In the speeches addressed to the students, under the motto “We are real and we demand the impossible”, it was appealed that an urgent rise up is more than necessary – the enormous tuition fee must be repealed and that the university should be returned to the students as an autonomous place in which the deans and the professors would have the role of administration instead of authority. Other issues were from the broader social context were mentioned too – a strong anti-nationalistic point was made, and a critique of the state policy on NATO and Iraq War was made as Macedonian government keeps on spending much of the budget on military purposes.

The event finished earlier than supposed because of the unexpected rain, but nevertheless, a clear statement was made that the young people do not approve the current situation. What is also important is the fact that more and more leftist activities happen in Macedonia conducted by young people.

Photos can be found here