(or The Man in the Mirror)
While the World Cup is going on, on the occasion of everything, the optics are somewhat different. Even the traditionally irresistible "hooks" like the right and the left do not have their usual power. These few weeks will also be marked by the same words - but "killer right" and "magical left", here they mean something completely different, they are part of another, exciting and important story.
One research and a journalistic text, instead of serving as a reason for (desperately needed) social dialogue, with all its shortcomings and contradictions, served as a training ground for new hatreds and divisions. A new wave of irrationalization of the public scene.
We have repeatedly heard, in this context, from different sides the invitation to look in the mirror. I myself, in the considerations of Montenegrin everyday life, often choose that stylistic figure, because it suggests a kind of self-confrontation. I'm not sure how much that can help us, that is, how appropriate that figure is. Or it is, it depends on the angle of view.
The man in the mirror? It is not such a simple story. What you see in the mirror, in fact, is not really - the real image.
OK. Someone will immediately say - again some poetic mystification. How is it not a real picture? Where is he if he is not in the mirror, the mirror cannot lie...
Think about it though. Why are you in the mirror - always the same, always to your liking? That has to be suspicious.
One of the most mundane routines of life - and looking in the mirror certainly is - in essence, there is very little need to analyze it. What remains from our childhood is an intriguing story about a mirror that cannot lie, and in front of which that evil queen started every day with a question Mirror, my mirrors, tell me... It could also be an interesting clue, but let's stay on home soil.
A man, in over ninety percent of such situations, has a ready expression, a smart look, a real smile... And it's mostly like that, whenever he looks in the mirror.
The essence could be the following: the goal of that viewing is not any "real picture" (if such a thing exists), but to present yourself to yourself as more beautiful (and better) than you really are. Maybe it's just easier to start the day that way.
It is the same with Montenegrin intellectuals today, in fact, with many of them.
When they look in the mirror, they have no doubt that they see an exemplary anti-fascist, liberal or leftist, but, as we said, it is an image for their own ego, it does not have to have anything to do with reality. And mostly - there is none. The man is a master at deceiving everything, including the mirror. And the most important thing - yourself.
Right-wing impulses are all around us, so it is unusual to be surprised when someone addresses it. Listen: the judge publicly wonders "how would I, like Montenegrin mother”… What does that mean? How is a Montenegrin mother different from a Bolivian or Canadian mother in her motherhood? Or that strenuous positive absolutization of one's nation, at every step. That doesn't help any people, that's for sure. Quite the opposite.
When we stop registering this "everyday fascism" of ours, let's ask ourselves if we haven't caught the virus as well.
The problem of public perception of national extremism is that Montenegrins are relatively new to this. (Unfortunately, this does not diminish the banality of the discourse.) And they can hardly compare with those who established the standards of the genre, and were struck by just such an "other". They haven't even thought of amoeba and a world conspiracy against us yet, but they're on that path. And it should be said on time.
Such an attitude, and it is important to note, completely deviates from the emancipatory spirit of the "comita" story from the nineties, its authentic multicultural nature - the "comitas" of that time went to defend the members of the so-called of minority peoples from the Montenegrin police and the authorities, which was then, miraculously, personified by Djukanovic.
After this genesis of the Montenegrin idea, i.e. one of its branches, it is clear that Đukanović never fundamentally understood the emancipatory Montenegrin story of the nineties.
And he became her master. And there is the reason for all Montenegrin problems today.
Bonus video:
