My people, is this possible... The new government rose collectively to Žabljak to, at the scene of the crime, certify the greatest fraud of the former regime - the declaration of Montenegro as an ecological state.
Uh, it's a good thing that we are bare-handed this time, otherwise in ten days we would have celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the attack on Vitaljina and Brgat.
In everything else, this September in Žabljak looked the same as the one three decades ago.
The same parade of formal suits, the same populist empty speeches, the same piles of official cars on green areas, even though it is prohibited by the very ecological state they celebrate...
Everything was the same except for the meadow where it was celebrated. They had to look for a new one because our country is so ecological that it failed to cut the thicket where the old one had grown...
So much for the ecological awareness of the government, the opposition, and, by God, those who elected them.
* * *
I don't need to explain at what level the ecological savvy of the authorities could have been at the time of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986, which is considered a turning point in the mass awakening of global environmental awareness. Just a detail is enough that I was assigned to write about ecology that spring - as a punishment.
When I asked the Minister of Economy what he knew about the consequences of that disaster, I received a written answer that showed that the character does not distinguish between ecology and ethnology.
My colleague Predrag Vulović saved me from a personal disaster, which would have followed because the editor would not have believed me if I had not been able to fulfill the prison assignment but if I had not wanted to.
From international agencies, which were not available to me at the time, he collected a lot of data for me for an excellent text.
After that, he was not just an older colleague helping a younger one, but one of the very few friends from Pobjeda who stayed by my side during decades of fighting windmills.
When I learned to deal with environmentalism, decades of fighting journalistic and political windmills followed.
Both Peđa and I lost all those battles, and bankruptcy saved us from continuing the futile struggle.
We also retired together, the amount differed by a few euros in his favor. And several hundred euros in favor of colleagues who forced the demolition of the Mausoleum, the burning of Konavle, the bombing of Dubrovnik, etc. Unlike them, he was also deprived of his right to an apartment.
So much for respecting the national Victory according to one of the most honorable journalists - Predrag Vulović.
* * *
When the AB-horror started, we saved face together, with our own professionalism. We grieved together during the night of 10/11. January 1989, watching from the window how most colleagues "break their heads" and go to the Assembly carrying the banner "Victory is with you".
They made themselves available to the coup plotters only an hour or two after they swore at the party meeting that they would preserve the achievements of brotherhood, unity and the former leadership.
Unlike that cold night, we laughed heartily at the summer drama of 1997.
While we were working on the editorial comment - an ode to the head of state and party and admiration for how "our president Momir Bulatović is Montenegrin lucid", Peđa said:
- This swearing won't hold them for long either, in a few days they will all fly over to Milo!
They are not for the day, but they are for the month.
* * *
From the beginning, the two of us shared the same views on the profession, but we differed in the methods of fighting for free journalism.
Peđa, in accordance with his character, adhered to the principle that quiet water makes a mountain dive and talked to his colleagues calmly and patiently. And I, furious and noisy, was not only not still water, but more like a torrent that threatens to collapse everything in front of me.
It was not my intention, nor was I inclined to quarrel with my colleagues until the beginning of '90. no heavy insulting started. Peđa would keep me on the course for hours, explaining that I wouldn't achieve anything by being nervous.
- Okay, and what would you do if the night shift chanted "Ustaša garbage" at your door every morning?
- Nothing, I would calmly pass with my head held high!
I obeyed him and the insults subsided day by day, until it stopped.
* * *
As friends, we were further brought closer by the ideas that led us to the Liberal Alliance. At the end of January 1990, when I brought him a copy of the founding act of LSCG and showed Momir M. Marković's name and mine, he said he already knew.
- How - I was surprised - they only registered us yesterday, I took a copy this morning.
- Easy - he smiled as if it was nothing special - I saw him last night at Peđa Vulikić's, I took the application form.
Not that it wasn't easy, but joining the Liberal Alliance was more dangerous than founding a criminal group, especially for those from state-owned companies.
Ex-colleagues can whitewash as much as they want and publicly write fake "first-time" names, but Peđa Vulović is the first Pobjeda journalist who entered that sovereignist alliance of free people. Only three others joined.
I know, he'd be mad that I'm stressing that, but I have to. Because today joining an opposition party is a natural phenomenon, the only obstacle is the journalistic code. Which is mostly referred to by those who do not take a passbook from the party but euros and, in accordance with their amount, lie and subvert party opponents...
At that time, the biggest obstacle to entering the LSCG was the Udba code. Respecting him zealously, she not only ruined the life of the members of that party and all the sovereignists, but also all the members of their immediate and extended families. And to all those who did not sell themselves or bowed down, they remained behind their necks until today.
* * *
I go far, I lose control of both the text and myself, this furious because of the collective amnesia. To return to ecology and the biggest fraudulent enterprise of depees, if we exclude the so-called war for peace, due to the camouflage of which the performance was performed since the declaration of Montenegro as an ecological state.
It was an attempt by the coup plotters to at least temporarily camouflage the departure of 30.000 Montenegrin reservists to the occupation of Croatia and BiH, and at least briefly confuse and pacify the anti-war Montenegrin movement on the domestic scene.
In vain, both of these countries are now blatantly presenting the outgoing President as the leader of that movement, both Croats and Bosniaks know very well that Milo Đukanović led their suffering, and Slavko Perović their defense.
* * *
The truth about the ecological state as a fraud is now obvious, it was not easy to recognize that September 1991.
When the editor-in-chief, on the eve of the Žabljak grotesque, brought me back from the obituary to the editorial office one day and asked me to renew my pre-war column "Ekološki nedjeljnik" once for the cover of Pobjeda, my friend Peđa begged me not to do it.
- They will hang you with butchering the text, this is all a big scam!
- They're not allowed, I'll wear them down in Liberal and Monitor...
It was pure spite to Momir Bulatović, that my signature appears in Pobjeda despite his command that while he is in power, my name can only be in Pobjeda - obituaries.
I wrote an editorial, half ecological and half anti-war. And in the postscript, Peđa za merak, wrote that in an ecological state, the army and heavy weapons are not allowed to go to war, but they are not allowed to exist.
He insisted that we go to the boss together.
- It's good to have a witness on occasions like this - he explained to me with an eternal smile.
And it was. A figure in a black suit was sitting by the boss.
- I thought you were following Kosovo's problems, not environmental ones - Peđa addressed him, looking at me, so that I could understand more quickly what it was about - the Official.
The boss, after reading it, sighed. He asked that the anti-war half of the text be deleted and that I add a neutral end.
I refused, Peđa grabbed the column from the table and walked with me out of the building.
That night I walked away from Pobjeda's journalism forever...
P.S. Peđa and I broke up forever seven days ago... He deserved more than this column, but it's not up to me...
Bonus video:
