"Here are those monsters with two heads that never stop biting and devouring, it is the monster of the democratic nationalist and the nationalist democrat, it is the monster of Kleronazism, the Christian Nazi in the guise of a TV monk, who plays with children's skulls and carries a hawthorn stake instead of a cross. Or he prays to God on television." (Radomir Konstantinović at the founding session of the Belgrade Circle on February 15, 1992)
The geopolitical concept of Southeast Europe is difficult to understand without considering the past of the former Yugoslavia! During its 70 years and more, Yugoslavia has left an indelible civilizational mark through its various ideological and organizational forms, but, unfortunately, it is also recognizable through its complex and conflicting experience, which is full of often forgotten or hushed up facts. Since both Yugoslavias came into existence and disappeared during the events of the war, even today's phrase Western Balkans, which emphasizes the process of "waiting for the EU", does not promise that this area, without the tutelage of Brussels, will move beyond the modus vivendi - some kind of regional cooperation in which there will often be disagreements and be accentuated differences.
The second Yugoslavia, as a political phenomenon of the second half of the 29th century, gave birth to an incredible socio-economic transformation of a very backward area and at the same time managed to produce an original global initiative such as the Non-Aligned Movement. Nevertheless, the most significant characteristic of the state creation created in Jajce on November 1943, XNUMX was, in addition to the still living cultural identity, anti-fascism!
Anti-fascism as a term first appeared in the mid-1920s in Italy and represented opposition to the right-wing regime of Benito Mussolini. The anti-fascist struggle for 20 years opposed Italian fascism and German Nazism to achieve its first significant victory on May 9, 1945. That victory over extreme right-wing terror in Europe did not end segregation, racism, homophobia, and hatred for the different, but it built strong foundations for humanitarian action and the beginnings of today's EU. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said in his speech from Zurich in 1946: "We must build a kind of United States of Europe."
Today, anti-fascist freedom and equality are systematically tried to be destroyed by all those who object that modern societies and democratic states cannot develop if they insist on renouncing worldviews that are by their very nature exclusive. In Montenegro, even from academic circles, we have blatant claims that "constitution of political activity around the idea of 'anti-fascism' leads to divisions", as well as that advocacy of anti-fascism "endangers the culture of tolerant and mutually harmonious relationship with diversity". How should you build principled and open relations in society if you do not criticize those who challenge equality among citizens and those who advocate banning the right to freedom of thought and speech?
It should be remembered that during the 90s, the advocates of anti-fascism were the biggest rivals of the autocratic and chauvinistic elites of these areas. The intellectuals of the time, preoccupied with the ideas of freedom and democracy, had a critical attitude towards the former SFRY, but in their anti-war engagements they strongly attacked nationalism, which they claimed was turning into fascism, that is, Nazism. That is why today, due to the unfulfilled lustration, we have a repetition of hatred and intolerance like the one that marked the bloody breakup of ex-Yu. What's more, a kind of denazification of our region must be done in parallel with the process of European integration. The echoes of aggression against Ukraine and the cruelty of comparisons with it frightfully confirm that among the public figures of Montenegro there are those who call for a repeat of the war events of the 90s.
Since anti-fascism is a universal moral duty that strives to achieve social equality, it is obvious that it is a value that is also expressed as a collective identity. Since its inception, anti-fascism has had a fear of losing freedom and respected identity heterogeneity, i.e. individual differences in community. That is why people very easily identified with anti-fascism and that is why Montenegrin sons, brought up in the libertarian tradition, fought in the Spanish War.
Anti-fascism is not only one of the valuable heritages of Montenegro, but it is also an ideological orientation according to which generations of free-thinkers were educated in institutions, that is, in most of our families, generations of free-thinkers were raised. That is why it can truly be stated that anti-fascism is among the clearly structured and very long-lasting collective characteristics of Montenegro. In today's Montenegro, anti-fascism is also recognized in the form of an active commitment against anti-intellectualism and all types of beliefs far from free and critical thought. He is also against clero-nationalism, which, as the English satirist Jonathan Swift claims, "makes us have just enough faith to hate each other, but not enough to love each other." Or, as they would say in Bosnia: "Do what the priests say, and don't do what they do."
The fight against fascism is continuous and, unfortunately, in addition to the tragic mark it left in our past, it is also present in the present with its challenges and new threats. Because fascism is also hidden in the absence of tolerance between political entities, in the hypocritical attitude of both the government and the opposition towards extreme forms of behavior, in the non-recognition of committed war crimes and the public rehabilitation of criminals, as well as in the promotion of conspiracy theories and efforts to give myths the status of historical truth.
Those national identities that renounce anti-fascism and base their identification on exclusivity and emphasis on differences are tragic, because in doing so they remain without free citizens and become prisoners of their autocratic regimes.
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