Corruption takes its toll in blood

Friday, March 14 - I watch students on foot entering Zemun and the citizens who greet them with admiration, disturbed by the frightening announcements that the government is also organizing a welcome for them.

Because of this reception scheduled for tomorrow, the admiration for the participants of the peacetime version of the Igman March is giving way to fear of the wrath of the already wounded autocrat. Whose power is inversely proportional to his incompetence...

Part of my fear is because I know that some of my old friends, younger relatives, and colleagues from the anti-war nineties are also welcoming them.

Secondly, and much more so, because of the memory of the chaos that ended many mass gatherings (not only) in Belgrade...

Vučić won't do it, he can't do it this time, I've been reading comforting words on Facebook from the children of my friends since before the nineties.

And I try to believe them, almost half of their lives were spent under the rule of the self-proclaimed leader of all Serbs and master of Serbia.

I know they don't lack rebel experience, they've been protesting since they were adults... Despite that, I'm thinking about whether to write them off based on my own experience...

Let me warn them that they will, and they will, Vučić is not the first dictator who is ready to turn off the lights in the Balkan tavern the moment he counts that there is a critical mass of candles on the streets to put an end to his rule...

And that dictators always lie when they count out loud, they only admit the true numbers (in) themselves...

* * *

Saturday, March 15 - However, I didn't warn them not to be dark... I've been dark enough on home turf for three and a half decades now...

And I lost all hope that I had made even a little mistake...

Not now, but back in the spring of 2019, at the end of the Resist protests. Which, just like the ones in Belgrade, were initiated because of corruption, except that our cause only cost 97.000 euros, while this one was paid for with the lives of 15 people from Novi Sad...

Since that spring, I know that there is no hope for a true Montenegrin spring even in the next decade...

For those who ran onto the Belgrade field today, there may be, if nothing else - they are more numerous...

- Every dictator, even the last one in the Balkans, must fall at some point... Tonight or in the fall, let him see that with these lecturers of Nada who are teaching 111 classes today - that's how I wrote to my kid Brian...

And copied my father's Dictator Blues...

* * *

Sunday, March 16 - And only when I finished this second transcription did I notice another symbolic detail.

Balša put the dictator into verse 13 years ago, and that's exactly how long the dictatorship has been going on, which has kept students and hundreds of thousands of farmers, professors, cattle breeders, doctors, metalworkers, artists, and other rebels on the streets for 111 days.

And, to be fair, everyone graduated today...

From Sloboda, with a capital letter because that's how all subjects are written, especially this one for which children spend months organizing obvious classes for adults.

And that's why I'm deleting myself from Facebook again, I don't like that network but I couldn't wait for Friday.

#oduprisehajcinastudente: The children have done something that no one has managed to do before. They woke up Serbia and helped it to rise as human, just and honest. It is up to the parents whether they will return it to dictatorial, corrupt and criminal settings tomorrow.

Well, that's what the ruling part of the former opposition in Montenegro doesn't want to or doesn't know how to see.

Not a hashtag, but Serbia after these thirteen years under Aleksandar Vučić.

And those first thirteen under Slobodan Milošević.

* * *

Monday, March 17 - I know theirs is now going to start with that #whatyoudon'twriteaboutthirteenyearsbetween...

Because I won't, because - whatever I think about the October 5th government - Serbia was free enough to choose at that time.

And because that government - whatever it thought about Montenegro - did not decide on the fate of Montenegro.

He decides now.

And that's crucial, just like in the nineties, except that the circumstances are peacetime...

And directly, through at least three parties that - both once as the opposition and now as the government - consciously support Vučić and everything he does for his country and its citizens...

Indirectly, through at least two who - due to corruption or ignorance, therefore consciously or unconsciously - support the aforementioned in order to remain in power.

This performance with the signing of a ceasefire in the extraterritorial zone should serve that purpose.

I'll be brief, so as not to rewrite that farce of a press release.

So, PES and DPS have reached an agreement that NSD, DNP and SNP will no longer say a word about the Serbian language and script, the Serbian chapel on Lovćen, dual Serbian-Montenegrin citizenship...

What is the logic that, instead of following their own programs, these parties will act according to someone else's Barometer - I don't know, but I didn't expect anything smarter.

This is what happens when the five ruling parties, between each red date on the church calendar, violate the secular Constitution at least once.

And in the same slipper, they declare a secular anathema to a stupid conclusion of one of the futile parliamentary committees as an unforgivable sin.

And every job they do is like that, the best guys of the allegedly hated former president Milo Đukanović can't do it any better...

Of which the two older ones regularly attended extended classes...

The two younger ones are half as long, but with extra classes...

And the last one - and only formally the strongest one - started studying online...

* * *

Tuesday, March 18 - And that's why, after everything, and especially after these two hundred/three hundred thousand slaps that the one they cheer for - their role model - Delija, who is actually the Gravedigger - received from the street, they have no choice but to enthrone another Đukanović as the honorary president of the ruling coalition...

The one who, because of the actors' support for students, said that they were "a totally snobbish, irrelevant part of society"...

- When I hear about those cultural workers, those actors, I cheer, please people, strike until you faint - the brotherly representative was at least honest.

All that was missing was Goebbels's habit of reaching for a gun whenever he heard the word culture...

Even then, I fear, fans of the Serbian autocrat would not admit that those who wish well for Serbia should take a Serbian actor as a role model.

- I have come to bow to you, to applaud you and to kiss your hands if I could. Thank you, I have endured this shame for 50 years and was not as brave as you and not as wise as you. Thank you, children, thank you very much - this is how Bata Stojković addressed and ultimately paid tribute to the rebellious students in 1991.

Because he already knew then what awaited the entire Balkans if the older generation did not support the younger generation and all those who supported it at the time. On all the streets of all the republics and provinces, from Slovenia to Macedonia...

Instead of hearing the actor, the majority of Montenegro got into the role of Ilija Čvorović...

And after everything she's been through over the decades, she hasn't moved much further from his anthological one: "Come on, admit it, and Đura will forgive you for beating you"...

* * *

Wednesday, March 19 - He's not an actor, but he was the main character of the Montenegrin branch of social media on the day of the protest.

And DPS MP Ivan Vuković is to blame for that. He has not been on the public scene since yesterday and he must have known what consequences his support for students in Belgrade from - Belgrade would cause...

But if he had the right to do it - yes...

It's understandable that many useful idiots on the internet don't understand this...

If the Prime Minister doesn't understand - well, I have no understanding for that...

- Also, we do not support the interference of our officials in the internal politics of other countries, first MP Knežević and now Vuković, because we expect the same attitude towards Montenegro - this is how Milojko Spajić reacted.

Unknown and unnecessary, like too many times before...

Because the right to speak publicly about any public event anywhere must not be denied to anyone, not even the members and leadership of DPS.

And because the position of the opposition cannot be interpreted as the position of a state official, nor as interference in the internal affairs of another state.

There was this kind of "interference" before Vuković.

What the Prime Minister doesn't know, he just happened to be little at the time and was only nine years old...

He's big now and it's unforgivable that he pretends not to see what his stronger partner is doing...

And not only did he work, but he went beyond every measure by interfering - as the President of the Assembly - in the internal affairs of neighboring countries...

And all of them, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo...

And, despite the consequences it causes, the Prime Minister is not allowed to write his name, and it is clear why...

I won't either, but not for the same reason...

* * *

Thursday, March 20 - Macedonian students also called for a protest. Because there, like in Novi Sad, corruption took its toll in blood, except that the "canopy" in Kočani was paid for four times more expensively...

A day or two after the tragedy, about twenty suspects were detained, including police officers, civil servants, discotheque owners, and program organizers.

An inspection raid is also underway in all cabarets, discos and nightclubs throughout the country...

Late and insufficient, said the Student Plenum and sent the proclamation "Site to the plenum"...

- This student plenum epidemic has also infected neighboring Macedonia - reported a colleague from a Belgrade newspaper...

Just as inaccurate, shameless and malicious as all the patriotic defenders of the corrupt regime reported from the Serbian capital a few days ago...

Because the latest(?) tragedy is just one reason for the rebellion, and there are many more causes and they are at least three decades old...

At that time, an epidemic of war for money, power and territory was spreading from Serbia. Not everywhere in that order, but corruption - as a consequence of that epidemic - affected all territories that the mother country still treats as part of the Serbian world...

Montenegro chose this present itself. Unlike Macedonia, which in the most dangerous times had the courage, knowledge and wisdom to resist evil...

Unfortunately, although she was neither guilty nor responsible, she was neither able nor willing to deal with its consequences...

Macedonia - like Montenegro - was sinking into corruption, incompetence and hopelessness.

And accepted injustice of all kinds as a normal thing.

And waited for someone else to do something.

And, unfortunately, she met with a terrible tragedy...

And what's the difference? Well, there's still hope for Macedonia...