A title that would more vividly describe our reality and the point of the text would be - Dear Citizens, Happy New Year 1989. When the years began in January. And when Momir Bulatović and Milo Đukanović started an uprising to defend Montenegro from reason, Europe, the multi-party system and capitalism. While SANU, CANU and SPC organized symposiums and rallies on the topic of Jasenovac and other killing sites of the Serbian people from the Second World War. As Milan Knežević, for example, is doing today with tweets and announcements, who is again counting those killed in the Ustasha camp, with the conclusion that "too many of our dead are underground to turn over their bones every day". It sounds self-critical, but unfortunately it is not - the reproach is addressed to a confused prime minister who is trying to tear away the values on which this community should be based.
The latest wave of populism with which the creators and promoters of the Serbian world are sweeping the Montenegrin public is worrying, so that it is clear even to the naive that it is a planned and joint enterprise, similar to the one from the aforementioned 1989. That is the only fortunate circumstance in this historical parallel - that we now have the experience of AB revolutions and "people's events", so it is much easier to recognize the essence of the process and see where it leads. For the sake of the younger generations, but also for the sake of today's leading figures of the "new wave", such as Milan Knežević or Dragoslav Šćekić, who were in elementary school in the aforementioned "time of evil" - we should remind you of some key moments of that time.
So, in November 1989, the Berlin Wall came down as a symbol of the iron curtain that divided communism and capitalism, the autocratic and the democratic world. Unlike all European countries of the former Eastern Bloc, the Yugoslav and Serbian-Montenegrin leadership decided to run to the past instead of the future. Under the motto "defense of the bare-handed Serbian people", the so-called The AB revolution that led the country into anarchy, and then into war, crimes and destruction, hyperinflation and sanctions, misery, the disappearance of one, then another, then a third state. The epilogue was tragic for all the former republics of the SFRY, and for the Serbian people, in the name of whose defense everything was initiated - the most tragic. Serbia lost part of its territory, part of its population, some died, others, mostly the smartest, emigrated, and instead of standing alongside Germany and France, Serbia ended up in company with Albania, at that time the most closed and poorest country of the communist empire.
Instead of facing that, the most disastrous episode in the history of the state and people, Vučić and his puppets in BiH and Montenegro try to blame others for the delusions and tragic failures of their own policy - the opposition, neighbors, Europe, the West and the whole a value system based on democracy and the free individual. Milošević, Karadžić, Mladić turn out to be heroes and heroes of Serbia in that narrative, and Đinđić, Vesna Pešić, even Koštunica, traitors and foreign mercenaries. Just like in the late 80s, we listen to the narrative about Jasenovac, injustice, Serbs as eternal winners in war and losers in peace, the CIA and the Vatican again looked down on them, while mother Russia figures as the only friend, ally and defender.
The key question that is being asked today is the same as the one in 1989, when the people and Slobodan Milošević happened to Serbia. And it reads - is the defense of the Serbian people proclaimed or the defense of a regime?! The answer is much easier to give today, precisely because of the aforementioned experience of the 90s. Rather, it will be that Vučić is much more bothered by IBAR and the accelerated path of Montenegro towards full membership in the EU than the vote of its delegation for the Resolution on Srebrenica. If it wasn't clear to anyone why AV and its propaganda supported Mandić's change of clothes and support of Spajić's government, now they can clearly see. Months of efforts to quietly and imperceptibly undermine Montenegro's pro-Western course and return it to the mirage of the Serbian world are experiencing a culmination these days. And they question the survival of this parliamentary majority.
A little recap again. In 1997, Montenegro chose Euro-Atlantic integration as its path to the future, while Serbia, two and a half decades later, is still undecided. In 1999, Podgorica avoided a total war with the NATO alliance, and in 2017 it became a full member of the most powerful military alliance, which brings together the most democratic countries in the world. Serbia still doesn't know where its borders are, who its closest partners are, and what its direction is. For Montenegro, Europe and democracy are the final choice, Serbia is still reconsidering, China and Russia are much closer to Vučić and the regime than Germany and the USA.
In the aforementioned trip, Mandić and Knežević were, unfortunately for them, on the wrong side of history, where they also pushed innocent Montenegrin Serbs, even those who voted for them, putting their wrong choices and defeats on the souls of their voters! It seemed, after August 2020 and the fall of the octopus, that Mandić and Knežević, especially the former, recognize the failures and detours they took in the past and are ready for a new policy. Which, in truth, Mandić already tried once, after the referendum, when he even proposed New Democracy as the party's original name, without adding the national attribute. But when hook, hoe and BIA came up, he didn't have the strength to resist and things went back to factory settings. Now, in this sense, history is repeating itself to some extent. The DNP has been a branch of the SNS in Montenegro for a long time, and Knežević is a liaison between one of the Vučić brothers or only Vučević, that is, Parezanović?! By accepting the position of President of the Assembly and the Agreement on the creation of a parliamentary majority on a Western course and policy, Mandić tried to make a slight departure from the Belgrade regime, but Vučić is no small child.
That is why we are watching a kind of replay of 1989, I hope with a completely different epilogue. It is clear today, as it was then, that Vučić cared as much about EU membership as Milosevic cared about the preservation of Yugoslavia. And then and now, under the guise of defending the Serbian people from an invisible enemy, in fact, autocracy and autocracy were and are being defended. Then Milosevic, now Vučić. In the Montenegrin episode, the nationalist narrative regarding the UN Resolution in Srebrenica is used to overthrow the current government and thereby slow down, if not stop, the Montenegrin path to EU membership. Catch the thief, most often shouts the one who organized the theft - and the Vučić regime makes the biggest fuss about the UN Resolution, which is by far the most deserving of such an initiative being launched within the world organization. Denial of the genocide in Srebrenica for an extended period of time, for more than a decade, glorification of convicted war criminals, nationalist narrative against neighbors, destabilization of the region, the Serbian world as a new version of the AB revolution - these are the "toponyms" of Vučić's "state-building" policy, which again brought Serbia into confrontation with the democratic countries of the world, which results in this Resolution. There are no tanks and "liberation" campaigns in which Serbia did not participate (yet), so there are no sanctions and complete isolation (yet), but one can conclude, benevolently of course, that Serbia is not on the right path.
Spajić, Bečić and the minority leaders who form the current parliamentary majority have the responsibility to defend the Euro-Atlantic path and values as the foundation of today's Montenegro. And there is no bending, trading and running away from class. In particular, there must be no pandering to daily attempts to draw this country into historical or age-old misunderstandings and conflicts between Serbs and Albanians or Serbs and Croats. Kosovo was an integral part of Serbia and then an internal issue of that country, not Montenegro. It has been an independent country for more than 15 years, and if Serbia has a reason to regret, or even better to question how it lost part of its territory, Montenegro has no reason to do so. A narrative imposed by the system who gives me from the soul take Kosovo, is a dangerous attempt to drag Montenegro into mythomania or conflicts that do not concern us. In a similar way - the possible inclusion of the Resolution on Jasenovac on the agenda of the Montenegrin parliament at least acts as an attempt to deal with the past! After all, what does CG have to do with Jasenovec?! Neither was the crime committed on our territory, nor in the name of Montenegro, nor was any Montenegrin leading the way in the executions. Jasenovac is an issue that primarily concerns Croatia and its confrontation with the crimes of the NDH, and then, in a completely different way, Serbia and Israel, because the most numerous victims were Serbs and Jews.
It seems that Mandić, whom some former party colleagues are calling out for following Kilibarda's path, does not have the strength to resist the irrational narrative, Vučić, the church and their propaganda machine. If that happens and he, like in 2007/08, succumbs, then Spajić has nothing to calculate and delay. He fairly gave the leaders of the Serbs in Montenegro a chance to be part of the winning and European majority, if they screw it up, they should say goodbye and end the experiment. Which would then mean - new elections. And not a new majority within the existing Assembly, because the first solution is democratic and with full legitimacy. If, on the other hand, Mandić finds the strength to say a historic NO to Vučić, Porfiri and their couriers in Montenegro, then the country's path towards IBAR and EU membership would be protected and preserved under the protection of the current parliamentary majority. Whether BS or Ura or SD would enter the story instead of DNP is only a technical but not fundamentally important question. Therefore, Mandić is on the move.
Bonus video:
