It's Wednesday, December 2, 2020. A historic day for my homeland where half of the population - those under the age of forty - do not know life without Milo Đukanović. And a third of adults - those who voted for him - still live in disbelief that life is even possible without him in power.
After thirty years, for the first time, a representative who is not from the Depees will take the floor of the Parliament of Montenegro. I'm looking forward to it, but there's no need to listen. Because it was the first time that a candidate for prime minister behaved decently towards the citizens, giving an exposé to them in advance, and not just to the members of parliament.
While I'm waiting for the burst of fire from the depees to start, I'm flipping through some essays and interviews by Josif Brodski. I read that my favorite poet's favorite poet was Vistan Hugh Orn. He liked to quote him, and he often reminded of his verse at literary evenings and political forums: "Children who have been harmed become evil themselves."
He used that verse as the shortest explanation for the consequences that totalitarian societies leave in people who have the misfortune to be born and live in them!
For the correctness of the interpretation, he could vouch with his life before the exile. Decades spent in the West guarantee that he was right when he described democracy as "a halfway house between nightmare and utopia".
***
To prove that Brodsky was right, that this democracy of ours is really halfway there and that a historic victory over an autocratic regime can turn into a nightmare, a dozen of the first speakers from the Democratic Party of Socialists and the Democratic Front were enough.
MPs Boris Bogdanović, Miloš Konatar and Momo Koprivica convinced me that we are not even halfway to freedom, justice and equality, but that these goals are not a total utopia. And they denied Vistana Odno that all children who have been harmed become evil themselves.
Thank them for that, we'll talk about fame in four years.
Unfortunately, they are still in the minority, both in the parliament and in Montenegro. But the Montenegrin past still gives hope, all the good ideas were beginning to be spread by a minority...
The picture that most of the speakers sent of themselves and their version of Montenegro only confirmed the words of Josif Brodski about the terrible consequences that totalitarian societies leave on those who have the misfortune of growing up in them, not only biologically but also politically.
***
Some dates become historical and shameful events, and December 2 fulfilled that condition. It was logical to expect from a political point of view that the opposition would show its darkest side. From a human point of view, the public would not be surprised by insults against the opponent. Bitanga is one of the most polite words used by her leaders while she was in power.
But no one in their right mind could have expected that the future prime minister would be lashed out by those whom he brought to power.
He didn't bring us to power, he will scream now on fb pages. In vain, mathematics denies them, you just need to compare the sum of votes from 2016 and 2020.
Even if they find some way to prove that they would have won the same number of votes in the elections even without the professor of mechanical engineering, they would be obliged to politeness by home education and the rules of behavior in public life.
Of course, they were also bound by respect for those citizens who, on August 30, overwhelmingly decided that there was still hope for their children.
If none of that concerns them, they were bound by their own word that it is normal for the new government to get their support.
However, it is not normal in any country that support for the government only lasts as long as a button is pressed. At least because the support of citizens for parties and MPs does not last as long as rounding the number on the ballot.
***
We haven't had the chance to see it in these three long decades, but it could be that some government representative didn't like the exposé of a representative. It could be that some of the ministers were not to the liking of a deputy from the same party. Maybe there were some who wanted to see someone else from their list as prime minister...
But I don't believe that anyone in the world had the opportunity to watch how the majority of the legislative branch publicly despises both the prime minister and his exposé and the members of his cabinet. And a day or two later, in the same room, in front of the cameras, he votes for the same prime minister, the same exposé and the same ministers.
Nor has ever, ever since the first modern democracy was established in 1789, a single government has been overthrown in parliament before it was elected.
Why the Democratic Front is suited to an unstable government - only its MPs know that. They also have the answer to the question of whether, after it was essentially and fiercely defeated before the vote, they will formally overthrow it in thirty or only in three hundred days...
Neither term will surprise me, but I was, to put it mildly, surprised by the terms Nebojša Medojević used in his offensive against the incumbent.
Where did he get the idea that a respected university professor and convinced believer should shout "Milo, thief" in the Assembly?!
That the first democrat among all Montenegrin prime ministers in history introduces a state of emergency?!
That the institution of the system that is supposed to protect national security - or any - should be disbanded because its leaders were servants of the former regime?!
To ban the work of DPS, or any other party, because its top is connected with crime?!...
If everyone in the DPS is a thief, and everyone in the ANB is a criminal, then why open the file? Those who managed to manage the country for thirty years can be said anything, but certainly not that they are ghosts. They had three months to erase their tracks and construct new ones that would present innocent and honorable citizens to the public as spies and liars.
Despite my disappointment, not so much because of the words as because of that threatening leaning and aggressive gesticulation towards the expert mandate holder, Medojević must be admitted that he was honest and open. In contrast to colleagues from the coalition, whose facial expressions showed that they thought the same but did not have the guts to say it.
***
The members of the opposition did not lack the guts to support positional attacks on the still unpositioned executive power.
- We completely agree with the position of the parliamentary majority, which gave us another reason not to vote for this government. I call on the parliamentary majority to explain why they used the will of the voters to form the first self-proclaimed and non-democratic government - Dragutin Papović happily joined the front members on behalf of the (still) entire depees.
He is known for his consistency, not only in Montenegro but also in the wider region, since the time when he exposed Depees' criminal past in Monitor.
Ivan Brajović strongly warned colleagues from the government:
- If you vote for this government, you are hitting the foundations of Montenegro! I invite colleagues from the opposition to form an alliance to preserve its values.
He didn't have time to say which ones, and there are a lot of them - from autocratic, mafia and corruption ones, to land ones, all the way to Limenka, Ramada, Petlja...
***
Oh, I was carried away by memories, I almost forgot about gender sensitivity and Aleksandra Vuković:
- The government's intention is to make Montenegro weak. Whenever Greater Serbia spread in Montenegro, the question of the chapel on Lovcen would become topical.
She got it right the first time, but thirty years too late.
Not that it was the intention, but the strengthening of Montenegro was the first successfully completed task of the first government of Milo Đukanović. And the campaign to demolish the Mausoleum was the first successful task of his Victory, whose editors were then appointed by the Government.
The fact that instead of the Mausoleum, Montenegro was demolished - "the state of Montenegrins and other peoples who live in it" - only raised Đukanović's achievements to the heights of hunting. I will not credit him with the tripling of the number of Serbs, changing the nation is still a personal choice.
Andrija Popović's choice to constantly confuse his liberal party with the large Liberal Alliance is also personal. In which he barely entered after our activists chased him around Barcelona.
That's probably why, invoking the help of the greatest living Montenegrin poet, he doesn't remember how Jevrem Brković formed the "Hunting Guard" to defend Montenegro from - Milo Đukanović.
PS I didn't get to hear the speakers on Thursday, except for Andrija Nikolić's two-minute reply. I'm not capable of verifying Junoša's allusions about the (im)potentiality of Dritan Abazović, but I am a reliable witness of how big Depees's lie is about his love for refugees from Kosovo. In 1999, hundreds of thousands of Albanians were made refugees by (i) the Montenegrin government. By aiding the terror of the Serbian authorities for a full decade. Not only politically, but also very concretely - in manpower and weapons.
Bonus video:
