August/September - It was a long night, too long... Thirty of my years passed through it once. All this time I was imagining how I would feel when it dawned, hundreds of versions were running through my head...
Only one thing never crossed my mind - that I wouldn't feel anything. If the void in the soul is not counted in the feelings.
Now I also feel fear, but not my own, but that of Montenegro. And the greatest of all fears - fear of the unknown. Which, for the first time in its long history, she faced not with a weapon but with a pencil.
That's why he looks so confused...
I know, I should be happy because of that pen, but I can't... In the seventh decade, reason is stronger than feelings, that's why I've been looking at election numbers for days. And I'm afraid that on Sunday night, not only the sincere desire for freedom, justice and equality won.
While he was saying that he still has thirty mandates, that his party is still the strongest, that with his partners he has forty - Milo Đukanović was as black as the earth.
And just like the one she leaves us. It's so black that you wouldn't wish its management even on an executioner, let alone a born opposition... And I'm not dark to kill the voters of the winning parties.
It just seems to me that if they avoid the euphoria now, it will be easier to bear what lies ahead. An empty state coffers, to begin with...
In the end, I hope, they will see what they fought for - a normal, moral, healthy, free, just, educated and rich Montenegro.
But it is at least twenty years before that end, if the winners start building it already this Monday. Even thirty, if only two or three months late.
If they repeat the mistakes of the former regime, it may not be there. Not only Montenegro from my long-ago dreams, but - none at all.
* * *
September/October - I know, it's not professional to take away the new government's unwritten right to a hundred days of freedom in the media, but - it's stronger than me! Since the beginning of the campaign, that doubt has been on the tip of my tongue, and on the tips of my fingers since the first session of the new parliament.
In fact, it is more about a dilemma that, not from day to day, but from hour to hour, prevails from one side to the other. For years, I have been running through it in columns through the verses of Branko Miljković "Will freedom be able to sing like the slaves sang about it".
Translated into the prosaic language of politics: do all the winners of this election have enough human and democratic capacity to bear the weight of their own victory.
Depees' school of political science lasted too long. Thirty years of upside down obvious teaching could not possibly have produced a better result.
That's why, after the narrow election victory, preparations for the correction had to be started immediately. With a lot of caution when choosing professors for supplementary classes.
Will the winners master the missed material - we will know only in the next elections. Until then, at least as far as I'm concerned, all that remains is to paraphrase another poet more often:
- When something starts upside down, it ends upside down, that is, it doesn't end at all, but continues upside down.
On the contrary, above all, it was the method of work after the election.
That's why I have to quote myself now - you don't build a government through the media!
* * *
October/November - Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral died. The most hated and most loved personality in Montenegro during the past three decades. Actually, one of the two.
The dead race with President Đukanović, both in terms of the number of opponents and the number of admirers, lasted until the metropolitan's death.
Because of his merits for resurrecting the reputation of the church after the fall of communism, he was admired by the most knowledgeable experts of Orthodoxy, and the followers of the Serbian Church worshiped him.
Because of his political views, too often expressed in very harsh words, he was very hated on the Montenegrin side. Opponents did not remain indebted to him, on the public stage he was their main negative hero from enthronement to death.
However, his fate was typically Montenegrin. Like all the most influential figures in Montenegro during the last two or three centuries, he spent the second half of his mandate trying to correct himself from the first.
That was the case with Njegoš, King Nikola, Blažo Jovanović, Milovan Đilas and Milo Đukanović.
Metropolitan Amfilohi, despite the objective differences, has something else in common with them. Contemporaries mostly did not notice these changes, many of those who did did not know how to interpret them.
Now everyone who wants to can, the epitaph on the tombstone is clear and without an interpreter:
"Amfilohije/ Archbishop of Cetinje/ Metropolitan of Montenegro/ Exarch of the Sacred Throne of Pec/ 1938-2020/ on the throne of the Metropolitan of Zeta/ Montenegrin-Limitor/ 1990-2020".
* * *
November/December - 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...
Most of the speakers only confirmed the words of Josif Brodsky about the terrible consequences that totalitarian societies leave on those who have the misfortune to grow up in them, not only biologically but also politically.
It was logical that the former government would show its darkest side even in the role of the opposition... But that the future prime minister would be lashed out by those he brought to power - nobody in their right mind could have expected that.
We haven't had the chance to see it in 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. It could be that there were also those 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.
* * *
December - Attempts to force Montenegrin believers into the church of another nation are not from yesterday, they are older than centuries. That is why personnel failures in the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, after the death of Bishop Antoni, cannot be an alibi for the misinterpretation of historical documents.
The fact that there are Montenegrins who voluntarily establish their relationship with God through the Serbian Church cannot be an argument for the Minister of Education, or anyone else, for forcing everyone to accept that church as their own.
Judging by the changes that the Minister of Justice wants to make to the Law, it is better for Montenegrins to hear his opinion on their rights as soon as possible.
Otherwise, on Christmas they will also take to the streets, with the same arguments that the Serbs presented at the same time last year - that this law is discriminatory, that it is passed in the wrong way and in a more than tense atmosphere.
That is why it would be politically wise for the Prime Minister to explain some changes before they enter the parliamentary procedure.
First, how do "registered and registered" religious communities differ - essentially and not just formally?
Second, does the cut-off time for "respecting the historical duration and legal subjectivity of existing religious communities" refer to any of these three dates: June 17, 1920 and the decree of Regent Alexander, November 6, 1929 and his royal signature under the Law on SPC or November 16, 1931 and the adoption of the Constitution of the SPC.
Either "respect for the historical duration and legal subjectivity of existing religious communities" must also apply to the Montenegrin Orthodox Church since 1905, when it was included in the Constitution of Prince Nikola, since 1888, when Valtazar Bogišić introduced the CPC into the Code, or the Montenegrins will have to search for evidence. from 1485, when the seat of the metropolitans of Zeta was moved to Cetinje.
Third, how will the "property right through the cadastre" be proven. Some of the most valuable temples were built at a time when Montenegrins had no time to deal with geodesy. And some found themselves within the state borders of Montenegro only after the San Stefano Treaty, the Berlin Congress and the Constituent Assembly of Tito's Yugoslavia...
Fourth - and the most risky - which means the claim that "there are extraordinary and urgent circumstances" for changes to the Law...
The Serbian-Montenegrin church dispute has been going on for at least 101 years. Last December, the former government tried to solve it urgently and extraordinary, and after eight months it ended up in the opposition benches.
The fact that the newly enthroned can expect the same consequences - is only for her to worry about.
We don't have those worries!
We will choose a new one soon, we finally made sure that it doesn't hurt anything...
Bonus video:
