The census is not just statistics. This administrative procedure determined by a dedicated law does not only provide individual information about each member of the population of a certain territory, but to a considerable extent determines the future behavior of social subjects on certain issues (determination of voting rights, changes in economic policy, new strategies of political subjects, constitutional-legal or constitutive initiatives ethnic or national communities that make up more than half of the population of a given country, etc.).
Therefore, for the sake of a more objective assessment of certain social parameters and the correct use of appropriate census instruments, one of the four phases of this process - the preparation of the census, in addition to the appropriate legislation, includes technical-preparatory activities and the determination of questions that will be included in the census.
International practice shows us that there are no clear rules when choosing questions for the census, but those that do not have a consensus of the relevant factors regarding their purpose or content were often avoided (eg racial affiliation in the Republic of South Africa, the amount of personal income in the USA and religion as a constitutionally guaranteed category in democratic countries). It should be pointed out that questions about mother tongue, citizenship and national affiliation were omitted in certain periods of some civically developed societies due to their political problems.
It does not need to be reminded that the above-mentioned issues are a thematic feature of our everyday life and one of the most important segments of our political scene. In our case, the fire is not only fueled by a poorly executed preparatory phase.
What more! A country in which we have electoral legislation that is not harmonized with the Constitution and in which the Minister of Justice reasons the non-implementation of a legally binding decision on the removal of an illegally built/placed object by saying that it is necessary to "take into account the application and consequences of the application of the law" does not provide a valid legal guarantee for the implementation of the census.
This lawless state began with the unsanctioned splitting of the Constitution by the deputies of the constitutional convocation and extends, for example, through the frequent autocracy of a religious organization whose archbishop, with a spiritual name with a militant connotation, in his performances satisfies all emerging forms of hate speech. Furthermore, the recent violent demolition of the monument that embodies our thousand-year existence, which the Minister of Defense himself says is a terrorist act, and whose location still remembers a similar, bomb and anti-civic attack on the local mosque from the beginning of the 90s, does not reflect the environment in which a citizen can freely answer the census questions.
If the state cannot influence the strategic documents of countries in the region that almost explicitly announce possible constitutional changes in our country (a euphemism for interference in our internal affairs) and, due to good neighborly relations, object to the content of their textbooks, in which the majority of its citizens are denied their historical right on the existence of their nation, then at least provide a valid environment for holding the census - security and freedom of expression. Of course, these demands are invoked by those who have been collapsing them for over 20 years.
The census of population, households and apartments in 2011, although compliant with UN recommendations and EU regulations, will obviously not only bring us the much-needed data for pre-accession negotiations with the EU (data on the calculation of indicators that have an impact on the allocation of financial resources, the use of new types of electronic communication, analysis of the reasons for migration and emigration, the state of health of the nation, the degree of development of the culture of housing and living, the appropriate approach to the development of human resources, etc.), but also new and old ambiguities and again, in a way, distance us from socio-economic topics. Civil state and open society will be questioned again.
Finally, in addition to those who will look for the answer to the question about their national identity and mother tongue on one of the billboards, I would like to use the opportunity to get answers to the following questions from the readers: how is it possible that the least numerous nation in the region (with a population of less than half million members, which also ranks it among the smallest in the world), which does not have an absolute majority in its home country according to the latest census, can carry out the process of the so-called "black bitterness"?
Why its national institutions (Dukljan Academy of Sciences and Arts, Matica Montenegrin, PEN Center and others with the designation "Montenegro"), which otherwise do not have a serious approach to any state project and react only in sporadic cases regarding hegemonic statements from Belgrade ( similar actions from other neighboring "headquarters" are mostly not recognized), do they not adequately react to such continuous, meaningless labeling?
Does the Montenegrin ruling political elite have the intention to, in addition to defending exclusively their own interests, until the start of the census, somehow, without harming them, defend the civil and national rights guaranteed by the constitution?
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