Once upon a time there was a small country. Everyone lived there happily and contentedly, mostly because of the flag and the national anthem. A big celebration was being prepared.
A decade of independence. Millennium of statehood. The democratic way to the European Union. Invitation to join NATO. GDP growth faster than the world - 70 percent in ten years. A huge increase in the number of livestock. A billion foreign investments, both brought in and taken out...
The subjects were especially looking forward to the Transitional Government, which will not steal votes. They were also looking forward to the plea agreements and the election results... It was nice to see the Montenegrin Prime Minister and the Serbian opposition acting as one. And then a group of uneducated politicians, from both sides, changed the ending of the fairy tale.
Milo, thief... Well done, you jerks... Come here, what are you doing... Come-come, monkey... Shut up, you idiot... One scumbag... Excavator...
* * *
This was the beginning of my first column in Vijesti. And the real picture of Montenegro on the tenth anniversary of the referendum.
Five years later, nothing much has changed. The celebration is getting ready again, the flag and the anthem are still in the foreground, only this time not in the singular. There has been a proliferation of those flags in various colors, the meaning of which is least understood by those who wear them.
The green flag flies next to the red one as a symbol of Montenegro's independence, although the original Komit movement did not fight against unification, but against forced annexation. And the latter Greens cooperated very well with the Chetniks in the fight against the Partisans. Not to spoil the holiday by reminding of the closeness with the Italian occupier.
There is no minor confusion in the tricolor either - side by side, the tricolors of Montenegrin King Nikola and Serbian King Alexander. Although it was Alexander who ruined not only Nikoli's life but also the country.
Uh, I almost forgot the hymns from the pain. And there are a lot of them, from May Dawn through Topola and Ravna Gora to Čavoglava.
* * *
Nothing important has changed even in these ten months of the new government. Only the representatives of the opponents of Montenegrin independence occupied the width of the benches of those who voted for it in 2006. And the most loyal staff sat down in cabinet armchairs by depth.
Power is still in the hands of the former regime, and the new government is acting as if the election campaign is still going on. And for eight months now, he has only offered promises. Replacing old ones with new ones at such a speed that the initial ones are long forgotten.
A day or two after assuming the mandate, it was promised - the first in line will be the laws on confiscation of property, on lustration and on the release of the prosecution. The property is in the hands of the former government, lustration is not mentioned, and only optimists can hope for the release of VDT and SDT, and that only at the end of next year.
Instead of those three secular laws, we got - a new version of the ecclesiastical one. With the same political consequences that the adoption of its first version caused - divisions, hatred and a feeling of threat from the ruling part of the opposition part of Montenegro.
* * *
Thanks to the absence of the strongest opposition party from the parliament, on the eve of this May 21, individual insults such as splat, bagra, idiot and monkey were also absent. Which is good.
It is not good, nor is it good to write for a country where, through the parliament, the two-thirds majority of its inhabitants or only their common sense is insulted:
- The Serbian Orthodox Church brought freedom. If it were not for her, there would be no democracy in this country. Without Ostrog and Đurđev Stupa, there would be no Montenegro?!
I leave it to the Serbs in Montenegro to discuss with those they sent to the legislature whether they authorized them and to publicly imply that every Serb must be a believer at the same time...
I leave it to the government ministry for education, science and culture to explain in principle how the state of Montenegro would not exist without two monasteries. In detail, were the people of Bjelopavlić and the people of Buda liberating Montenegro from the Turks or were they liberating them...
And, what is even more important, were Ostrog and Đurđevi Stupa annexed to Montenegro during the wars or did it join them in peace...
PS Publicly insulting Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Albanians and Croats by claiming that the Serbian Church brought them freedom - I will not leave that to anyone. Not because it is a church, nor because it is Serbian. But because of the evil she inflicted on them in the nineties. That, as her late patriarch Pavle would say, must not be forgotten but can be forgiven. If that forgiveness is ever asked for.
Bonus video:
