National Day, July 13, was spent in a non-working, festive atmosphere and was not essentially different from the previous ones.
I belong to a generation that, living in several state legal forms and titles of the country, specifically four, had different dates for the day of statehood. Namely, for a little less than a century, Montenegro was willingly or unwillingly a part of wider state communities before returning home completely, under its historical name.
The house had to be, if not rebuilt, at least repaired while striving for that ideal that was also part of the traditional Montenegrin story - to have an honest house. All with the aim of somehow anchoring the country in its main road. And with some combination of tradition and modernity. In other words - it was necessary to build a serious, decent state with rules that apply equally to all its citizens, a community capable of successfully reproducing itself, above all on the economic and cultural level.
How we fared in that construction, from the ground up, remains a topic for serious analysis.
National Day could also be a good occasion.
The importance of public debate
Other countries and peoples occasionally ask questions, from those of a broad historical scope - "where we come from, where we are, where we are going..." to the search for a balance in a specific area, in any case of an essential, therefore culturally valuable character.
It's not about leaps into the past, just for the sake of possibly contributing to the deciphering of history and its hidden sides. At the same time, it is about affirming basic and unquestionable values.
It is also a pragmatic goal to continue living together better and more harmoniously in society, while adopting civilized norms and democratic methods of public life.
France, ever since De Gola, is known for public debates that would be encouraged directly and in a democratic manner by the president of the state.
macro went further and initiated an international, European dialogue on the "future of Europe", which was supposed to end with a large European conference. This project started with the aim of finding a "strategic compass" was effectively stopped, among other things by the war in Ukraine which imposed new European priorities.
Sarkozy had started the discussion about the French identity. We know, it was not about a nation that, in Proustian terms, was searching for a lost identity, nor was it about the vocation of the French to occasionally expose themselves to some kind of national psychoanalysis. Some will say that it is easy for the French to discuss identity, even in the conditions of about six million Muslims in that country, when they are all devoted to the anthem and the flag. This is true, as well as the fact that they did not change the national anthem every twenty years, and of course it is unthinkable that they would do it without a wider consensus by voting some narrow, transient parliamentary majority.
The French chose their national anthem "Song of the Soldiers from the Rhine" - the author of the music and words, together and without a vote Claude Ruze de Lil - which was sung by the volunteers from Marseilles approaching Paris, which is why the anthem was popularly called the "Marseillaise". In any case, the anthem has become a great symbol of unity. On the contrary, it is true in very rare cases, hymns are symbols of division.
I Angela Merkel, whose state format somehow increases with the passage of time, once went public with an analysis of the state of multiculturalism in Germany.
The public intervention of the British Prime Minister was noted David Cameroon with which, similar to Merkel's, he advocated the point of view that the model of multiculturalism is quite worn out.
We are talking about France, Germany, England, about three compact nations, democracies that have been consolidated for a long time, and that is precisely why their political elites are ready to face new challenges brought by the dynamics of new social life. It is no coincidence that the integration of everyone around common values is imperative. And before it's too late.
Because a model that does not integrate, among other things, different social groups, leads to separate realities, which after the stage of state ignoring of that phenomenon, leads to distance and potential antagonisms.
In America, and according to its democratic tradition, there are public debates about the moment of the country, and often in a very critical way. By the way - if someone in our midst published critical views, i.e. similar to only a small part of what is published in the USA, including the war on Ukraine, many monitoring points for Montenegro, including some domestic institutions based on financing, would be set up here of their bosses, who, sometimes tragicomically, denunciation search for malignant and other smoky influences. We can only imagine the panic in that circle if someone here published a book entitled "Does America look like the Soviet Union in 1990" published this year by an American cultural critic J. Dianni Is America like the the Soviet Union in 1990? It feels that way".
Moving on to more relevant editions, the analysis is very interesting, and I would say healing George Friedman the distinguished founder and president of the Center for Geopolitics Geopolitical Futures in the book "America, the storm before the calm" (The storm Before the Calm).
Describing the cyclical ups and downs in American history, and also dealing with the question of American identity, Friedman expects that America will emerge stronger after the current storm.
After all, there is no topic that the American candidates in the upcoming presidential campaign will not explore in an open and critical way. In any case, the freedom of expression of opinions and views, especially of the press in America remains an example for many others, and for us, of course.
A well-known geopolitical magazine in neighboring Italy Limes devoted one issue to the topic under the indicatively critical title "Does Italy exist? It depends on us" (Does Italy exist? Depend on we.)
Even if you are used to the reproduction of the authoritarian tradition from Russia throughout history, where there is much less space for a critical word, it should be noted that one long tradition from the great Russian history is missing.
The role of the writer whose mission, according to the traditional understanding, is not limited to the literary - aesthetic dimension. Reconstructions and the direction of history, angels and demons in it, the destinies and dramas of ordinary people in the whirlwinds of history, the state of the spirit of the people, the fight for truth and justice are the primary themes of the writer in his literary work, but also in other forms of intellectual engagement for a better and fairer society.
In this sense, he is often quoted Aleksandar Hercen who, in the middle of the 19th century, saw the role of the Russian writer in this way: "For a nation that does not have social freedom, literature is the only tribune from which it forces the cry of its restlessness and conscience to be heard".
Finally, there is the obligation to answer a question that has become a classic. "What to do?"
All this great tradition is not only a testimony of a time, but enables us to understand the modern age of Russia. Solzhenitsyn and based on his own experience, touched on the topic of the "painful meeting of the Russian soul with the West". All that still looks contemporary today, because the big and complex historical topic of the relationship between the West and Russia has been reopened.
After all, the message of the final sentences of the classic Russian writer from Ukraine, the great Gogol in the novel "Dead Souls" - that Russia is like a trio running in the night looking for its own path different from the paths that other nations have taken - sounds not only contemporary, but is a serious cause for thought. Not only about the history of Russia.
Dialogue in a neglected society
Let's go back to Montenegro.
Her crisis is "organic" to use one term Antonia Gramsci.
It is necessary to explain the depth of the crisis in the long period of neglected society. And the progenitors of the formula "that it is not important what happens, but what people think is important" began to believe in this manipulative maxim.
If the construction of an honest house was unrealistic, someone will say the expectation of an anachronistic character, did it have to reach the evaluation, even if it sounded a little bare, of a distinguished American professor Moses Naima published in the prestigious Foreign Affairs 2012. that Montenegro is a "mafia country". The assessment is unpleasant even for the opponents of the then plutocratic regime.
This was followed by epithets from European and American circles about "endemic corruption", "hybrid society"... The peak of the degeneration of the system was approaching, which was characterized, on the one hand, by facade and controlled institutions, and on the other, by a parallel system that actually governed the country. It is a vertically structured network of the top of politics headed by the supreme boss (boss) and confidential operatives of advisers, police officials, secret agents, persons from the corrupt judicial system all the way to the circle of clientelistic propagandists.
Unlike the classic mafia, this system of established corruption was grotesquely "covered" with an ideological story, that is, a cult of fighting for a new, higher, historical goal.
A mythical image of the mafia (and the police) fighting for national goals.
Also in function of the duration of the government, a dynamic process of encouraging ethnic divisions, their increasing closure into geographical and spiritual ethno-fiefdoms, was opened. It is about the already advanced national fragmentation of the country. With an uncertain outcome.
The topic of Bosniakization of Montenegro, once unimaginable, is less and less taboo in public discourse.
Culture and state of consciousness followed serious disruptions of state policy and practice. The increasing contamination of public life has rather provincialized the state of mind.
Victory on August 30, 2020 was quickly defeated. Citizens' expectations were quickly disappointed.
Certain positive results remained lonely before the onslaught of pop politics and their protagonists.
The smuggling of cigarettes and narcotics, metaphorically and literally, has remained the center of gravity of events in the country, sometimes even of the state.
Politics is dominantly reduced to propaganda slogans, understood as the conquest of the party's spoils, with a steady and impressive growth of ambitions, so in this sense there is an increasing "line of frogs in front of the horseshoe", to use the title of the book Ljubomir Simović.
How to get out of a chronic crisis and stagnate, how to stop a kind of decline?
The country is tired of vain and delusional promises.
Montenegro again between new hopes and old misconceptions.
Searching for a strategic compass
It was in this spirit that the dialogue forum organized by the state president was discussed last week Jakov Milatovic, under the title "Montenegro between historical revisionism and European anti-fascism".
The meeting took place in the sign of the different composition of the participants, their autonomous opinions, despite the somewhat larger presence of a civil association, if I understood correctly.
The idea of the president of the state to start a public forum, to invite participants who do not have to share his views, even those participants who voted with their legitimate right - as he said - in the presidential elections of his rival, was a democratic act. It certainly could not have happened to a defeated rival while he was president.
The debate took place, with occasional and desirable differences in viewpoints, overall in a tolerant tone. I assume that there will be more debates, even better ones. And in other compositions.
The theme was adapted to the National Day, July 13. In truth, it is a date that marks two historical events in 1878 and 1941. And many questions were raised there.
We could easily agree on the definition of fascism and its dark role in history. We should not be confused by the transfer of the mafia and corruption groups to anti-fascism, which is a separate topic.
There was no fascism during the first July 13, historic event at the Congress of Berlin. That dark and racist ideology will arise a little later in Europe, successfully moving elsewhere, even in our area.
That year, on the eve of the Berlin Congress, Montenegro was, according to historians, an almost entirely Christian-Orthodox country. A great subject for historical study, and a useful one today, is the ability of the enlightened ruler, Prince Nikola Petrović to lead the state policy in a designed manner by successfully finding modus vivendi of all ethnic groups in the emerging, then already multi-ethnic state. All of which was increased by the Balkan wars.
And this is where the question immediately arises - how is it that right now, when the country has advanced in terms of material living conditions compared to 1878, multi-ethnic harmony is being called into question. Now that national fragmentations with different interpretations of reality and nationalized histories have gone so far. So, in conditions where the energy of ethnic factions is slowly becoming stronger than integrative - state consciousness.
It is necessary to explain the balance of the identity battles of the previous decades, with the method of "enforcement" of identity, after which the country reached a deep identity crisis. It is precisely the crisis of identity that is the dominant image of today's Montenegro from the outside. It doesn't take great state wisdom to know that identity is built, not enforced. In fact, it was not about cleverness, but about conscious manipulations of the "Divide, Divide and Rule" ruling strategy.
Now the question is the (in)ability to stop and reverse the negative social flows.
To stop the image of Montenegro as "a composition of hellish discord" (Njegos). Essential stability, internal and external freedom of the country and its citizens can only be achieved by building a serious state policy and fearlessness in the public space.
Again the question - is the lack of wider consensus an autobiographical feature of the nation or the immaturity of the political elites to initiate credible ideas behind which the authority of serious state politics would stand?
Apparently, there are more questions than answers. As with revisionism, which has its two sides. And which should be distinguished from negationism.
I don't know how far we have succeeded in disentangling the mists of the recent past on the forum. And the present. All again for the sake of the future. Those who say that the future is older than the past are right.
In any case, searching for a way out of the organic crisis, facing openly and critically with enormous problems is an act of responsibility.
All in search of our strategic compass.
And here we could be in line with Europe, which is also facing challenges, yet somewhat different, and in search of its own compass.
Bonus video:
