Rivers

"All rivers flow" was the name of the TV series that was extremely popular here in the second half of the eighties, if I remember correctly. It was a time when series were not a better part of the film industry, like today, but there were also great works then. I remembered this Australian title with an addition from the title of another, also at the time popular TV series, but domestic - All rivers flow, and we don't know until when... At least that's how things are in Montenegro.

The whole story with the illegal exploitation of river gravel in Montenegro is illustrative not only because of the act itself, but also because of the interesting context.

Who is doing it and since when it started - "rampage". It is not easy to navigate the whole scheme from the newspaper articles, but it is clear that there are many actors - small businessmen, large concessionaires, old, new... Perhaps all this is just one logical consistency in the "private state". That is why this concept was chosen by those who today legitimize themselves as the only "defenders" of the civil nature of this society.

Whose responsibility is it? This is always the most difficult question in Montenegro. Everything else is easier to answer than such a simple question.

Even just a basic cultured attitude towards rivers would have to be reason enough to do something. Not only because all civilizations were created not by rivers, but this could also be an important clue. When you were a child, looking at the first atlases and maps, didn't you perceive the continents as gigantic bodies whose blood flow was rivers? If only because of that irresistibly infantile vision, rivers should be listened to differently. Especially in a city that prides itself on its rivers…

And the context is also telling: as if all that with the gravel is not enough - you read in the newspaper that a big businessman is angry that he has to pay the eco-tax (and for a true patriot that would be a real pleasure, for a patriot the eco-tax would have to be a matter of honor ), and that (some) Montenegrin municipalities have spent money from European grants for river cleaning, and that the rivers are equally polluted and dirty. It would have to be a fraud, even according to the extremely flexible Montenegrin sense of justice.

Then - in the harmony of several such events in just two days - you realize that the situation with the rivers in Montenegro is much worse than you thought.

Because we all sometimes naively believe that rivers are untouchable - they are part of the relief and geography, and that should not change often... That's it: we have on the scene greed that changes the relief and geography. A robbery after which new maps have to be drawn... It's like you feed yourself by eating your own body. And nothing unusual for anyone.

In the normal world, jobs like this are done with maximum supervision and a clear professional opinion on what and how much can be taken from which location. In our country, everything works most "normally" when there is a naked thief. What kind of supervision and what coppers... Do you know who I am? And so on.

Nevertheless, it would be important to clear up this whole operetta with the Montenegrin river killer. Because, by all accounts, the exploitation of gravel is carried out recklessly and wildly, without any control.

Debunking such stories is a way for the public to gain an insight into the mechanisms of devastation and rampant looting, and how all this can be dressed up in the appearance of a functional system...

Due to the short-sightedness of the natives, the forests have been suffering for a long time, now the rivers have come to their turn, and if they can - they will reduce the mountains, repack the lakes, export the color of the sky - because, as we know: the sky is not blue anywhere...

Of course, the title of the TV series from the beginning of the text evoked that wonderful Old Testament poetry of the Book of Ecclesiastes: All rivers flow into the sea, and the sea never overflows... From where the rivers flow, there they go to flow again, what has been will be and there is nothing new under the sun...