“What’s the problem?” is the most common line people use to defend themselves against the indefensible. There’s another shorter version, an overpowering defense, where someone just says one letter, and that’s “I?” That i is actually short for “And what do we do now?” But the tone is important, you have to get that defiance, that confession and at the same time, that cocksucker, when you say that single letter i!
This is that case. It never occurred to me that it would Djukanovic to be right. Because all eyes are on what Milo Đukanović bought in Dubai. Everyone is curious about which boutiques he went to, whether he bought watches, handbags, brooches, everyone is poking their noses where they don't belong. Because who cares what he bought and where. Other things are important, who he bought money from, with which card, whether it was all in order legally, or whether he reported those expenses properly and when they were due while he was performing his official duties.
Because if we start to get hung up on what he bought and what brands, nothing will happen. They took so many photos Lydia Milova with handbags and jewelry that cost a whopping ten thousand Montenegrin consumer baskets, and nothing happened. Now it turns out that in addition to the many houses, bills, privatizations, siblings, hydroelectric power plants, tenders, affairs, envelopes and rich friends, Đukanović is being accused of liking expensive things. A man likes expensive things, that's obvious, it's been evident for decades. He's not a modest guy. He flaunts himself, he behaves not like the owner of a boutique but like the owner of a state. So why is anyone surprised that he traded in Dubai? And? And?
Djukanovic is not like the president of Uruguay Jose Muhique. These are extremes, two completely different images. Đukanović branded himself as a big-spender character. The one who has and can have. That is common knowledge. That is why no one is surprised by that famous card or even the shopping list. That was probably understood. Splurge is part of that (non)culture that sprang from nothing, the offshoots of transition, those who called themselves “winners of transition” in order to emphasize that everyone else is actually “loser of transition”.
It's in the book. Slobodan Selenić a key question that burdens the attempt at a class society in the Balkans. The scene when Jelena has to answer the question “Is there anything more terrible than death”, and she, as a member of the upper class, answers that there is, “Poverty”. For her, poverty is more terrible than death.
Our politicians are upstarts, the vast majority of them. It's not like they have leeks sticking out of their asses, but their eyes shine and roll around like when a newly minted thief gets off the ferry and starts practicing medicine in Bari. It's simple, the upstart can't resist buying everything he sees. He has two hands but ten watches, he has two legs but thirty pairs of overpriced shoes. And so on, buying because he didn't have any, buying to make up for it, buying because he doesn't know how long it will last. That's why he wants to enjoy what he can as soon as possible. He buys, buys and buys.
But we should forgive Đukanović for this, in the hope that one day everything big and real that has been waiting to surface for decades will be revealed. This is as big as a house for someone, too many people from Montenegro have never left the Balkans and have never seen Dubai, let alone shop there. But we started from the wrong side. Nothing new has been discovered, the situation is only trivialized and given the opportunity to declare himself a victim again and to whine about how his privacy is being violated.
Someone is making the wrong moves in prosecuting Djukanovic. Either he is very stupid or he is pretending to be stupid, or something worse than both.
Bonus video:
