It would be truly spectacular: at the moment when it turns out that extraterrestrial civilizations exist, we have the following situation in Montenegro: Amfilohije is practicing witchcraft and swearing, DPS is in power, and the opposition cannot agree on anything.
This equation is not so simple. First of all, a radio signal "caught" from an unimaginable distance of a billion and a half light years, could be something else, despite the repetition that points to artificiality. But all this rest cannot be anything other than an indicator of the delay, or better said of the civilizational backwardness, of the Montenegrin society. And this is not only a problem for the innocent, but for everyone. This is actually a problem where even aliens, even if they have good will, can be of little help to us. The moment when we have a clear confirmation of the existence of other, extraterrestrial civilizations will certainly be one of the most significant moments in some ten thousand years of documented human history in one way or another. In the end, it is not certain that such a moment will ever happen. That (hypothetical) moment will be the gateway to a truly new, globally new world. That realization will have to color all other realizations with a special shade.
Imagine if that happens, and we are where we are. What shall we do then? What kind of debates would that initiate in this kind of Montenegrin society? Would the main questions about aliens be - Are they Montenegrins or Serbs? Do they recognize the decisions of the Podgorica Assembly? Their attitude towards independent Kosovo? What do they think of the fiddle? Did they know about the Russians first, then about us, everyone else?
This kind of anachronism seems scary, doesn't it?
And by the way, those cosmic distances can produce interesting effects. Let's say, if there is an extraterrestrial civilization thirty light years away from us, and everything is possible in the cosmos, it occurs to them to observe the Earth right now, specifically a piece of it known as Montenegro, what will they see? They will see Đukanović fighting for Slob, how he cruelly dethrones politicians whom he now speaks of as important statesmen, how he persecutes Montenegrin independent intellectuals and promises eternity to Slob's federation, as it would be, modern and functional... What would gentlemen aliens think about the present moment of Montenegrin history?
If they were just a few light years closer, they would also see the "guys from the nineties", happy, playful and singing, as if they were Tony Montana's friends and had just realized that "the world is theirs".
There, the government team behaves as if they are aliens. Maybe that's why there is no reaction, they haven't even heard what Duško Knežević is saying, since they are light years away from the Montenegrin reality, so the information can't reach them yet. This interesting "private gallery" gives a real picture of a pandemonium of banality that decisively shaped our lives. Although, that sentence "Milo is behind everything" is really ambiguous: and the majority of Montenegrins believe that it is correct - whether you are talking about banking, judicial spectacles, sports or media chases... Admittedly, Knežević is currently "saved" by the fact that he is an extraterrestrial.
Or, from a distance of one hundred light years, what will our friends, the hypothetical aliens, see? The just concluded Podgorica Assembly. How then to explain to them that this did not actually happen. At least for us today. The struggles with aliens and the Montenegrin reality seem to be not at all simple. The world is changing, aliens are like Beckett's Godot, there is no doubt that they will always be waiting. But, with or without them, the world will be different, day by day, year by year. And here, will the same choruses continue to ring out here?
Only we see ourselves at this very moment... And I don't know if what we see is any consolation. "People see what they want to see, and what they want to see is never in accordance with reality," wrote the great Roberto Bolaño in the monumental novel "2666".
Bonus video:
