Friday, May 9 - Victory Day over Fascism and Europe Day in all decent countries of the Old Continent and beyond...
In Montenegro, just one of the days in which we are in every way increasingly clear that today's divisions are not based (only) on historical Chetnik-Partisan, Bjelaško-Zelenačko and Kluba-Pravska...
That these are fundamental differences between two not only opposing but also irreconcilable worldviews was more than obvious in last night's show on TV Vijesti...
And even more so in the subsequent, for now only virtual, massive war on social media...
In terms of cruelty, the youth of the "anti-fascist" Chetnik movement had a drastic advantage after several days of fighting...
Despite the fact that, in the TV studio, two advocates of a creative interpretation of anti-fascism without quotation marks suffered defeat. For defending indefensible ideas and (in)actions, and especially for replacing theses as a key tool of defensive tactics...
However, all of this would remain within the framework of the necessary dialogue on disputes regarding Montenegro's past, if the same views were not held by the majority of the current legislative and executive authorities...
Therefore, let's not lie to ourselves anymore, it is precisely this government that swears by the values of the European Union that should insist on adding an additional Chapter 36 during the accession negotiations...
That the great contribution of the "great hero of invincible character" be officially inscribed in the European legal acquis...
Not because their official name - acquis communautaire - comes from his favorite French language...
But because of his war achievements, which in Montenegrin are called - killing the weak...
* * *
How could you kill millions in gulags... and what did you do to black people... These were the answers to Petar Komnenić's key questions...
All three were very clear:
What is the mission of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro?
Why do church dignitaries continuously glorify convicted war criminals like Pavle Đurišić?
Is the Serbian Orthodox Church spreading Christian values or is it inflaming divisions in Montenegro by revising the past?
And the answers?
- The St. Mark's Day procession continues to the house of the Muslim Đečević family...
Which is true - yes, but that doesn't change the fact that just a week earlier, the Metropolitan of the MCP/SPC was glorifying a war criminal who was killing Muslims...
- The church is trying to find a balance between heroes on the communist and royalist sides, as well as criminals on both sides...
Well, it is precisely this attempt at balancing that is a sin before God and a crime before the people.
The creation of an ethnically pure Greater Serbia by killing non-Serb peoples, as stated in the Chetnik Leader's Instruction, cannot be balanced with the liberation and anti-fascist resistance and the struggle for the national, class and social liberation of all peoples and nationalities, as written in the commands of the partisan detachments, which were not only made up of communists...
- But in the US presidential library it says that "Draža Mihailović is a pure hero"...
I believe it, but it also says that he "carried out the extermination of national minorities"...
- The Chetnik movement was a freedom movement...
If so, why would he shoot Ljubo Čupić and does that mean he was a traitor...
- Why not show a film about Partisan criminals, but rather a photograph of Metropolitan Joanikije Lipovac with Italian General Pircio Biroli...
Because there is no such film... And because the show was dedicated to the Serbian Orthodox Church's relationship with the Chetnik movement and its program, and the Partisans had neither close relations nor similar programs with it...
- If the topic is the mission of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, why doesn't the show deal with the church's care for monasteries and its charitable work...
For the reason that even the Serbian Orthodox Church, since it entered Montenegrin public discourse thirty-odd years ago, has not spoken about it...
* * *
Saturday, May 10 - The President of the Municipality of Ulcinj, Genci Nimanbegu, was a guest on A Plus Television...
And, when you add it all up, he spent almost an hour talking about the Big Beach and the big lie...
About the violation of at least three laws and the only Constitution we have (for now)...
And about the fact that Alabard doesn't bring us thirty billion, but we initially treat him to at least twenty...
And that neither the city nor the state will make money from building apartments for the market, but rather the builders and owners...
And that inherited property is not given to someone else for a hundred years because of trash in season and illegal construction out of season...
The builders of the new grandeur and the heirs of the idea of building a more beautiful and older Dubrovnik did not want to hear any of that...
It is only important that Nimanbegu's letter to the president of the neighboring country is used for chauvinistic marketing that "Albanians in Montenegro are not giving up Velika Plaža because of the plan to create Greater Albania."
A plan that failed to take root among Albanians even in the last century... And in this one, it has been rendered completely meaningless by the plans of Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro to join the great community of European states...
- I wrote to the President of Albania, Bajram Begaj, and the ambassador. They have a constitutional obligation to know what is happening with the minority community. I am fulfilling my institutional role, and let them do the same. If they do not, that is a signal to us - Nimanbegu explained.
In fluent Montenegrin, which he speaks better than most Montenegrin politicians...
In vain, social networks have been turned into vehicles of hatred...
Reminders that, two months ago, the mayor of Ulcinj addressed the Italian state through Ambassador Andrea Marcello, not in writing but orally, were also in vain.
And Germany, during a meeting with her colleague Peter Felten.
And to all European Union countries, going to the Head of the EU Delegation, Johan Sattler...
And that in the meantime he sent about twenty more letters, and eventually to the President of Albania...
And that was the end of my hopes that, under such a government and with those who voted for it, honest coexistence in Montenegro was even possible...
* * *
Sunday, May 11 - There is still hope for the Supreme State Prosecutor Milorad Marković... It seems to me, despite my claims from the previous column that he will not speak out about hate speech and inciting interethnic disputes, nor will he professionally supplement my amateur factual description on the subject of these criminal (mis)deeds...
A day later, albeit with great delay, he issued a binding instruction to state prosecutors:
- to ensure effective and uniform treatment and implementation of international recommendations on equal treatment of all persons and the fight against racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and intolerance...
- to commit to acting in accordance with the European Commission's criteria against racism and intolerance...
- in cases involving elements of hate speech, they particularly value any public expression or incitement of hatred towards a particular group or individual because of some of its characteristics, for the purpose of creating intolerance, discord, discrimination and violence...
- to assess whether there has been incitement to existing hatred, taking into account whether hatred is developed, strengthened and deepened through public speech...
Without further ado with this stilted language of the profession, just one more prosecutorial obligation:
- in cases of criminal offenses committed via the internet, use international legal assistance as soon as possible, in order to collect the necessary data...
And I really liked this part of the instructions, about hate speech on social media...
Because of the messages from the anti-fascist Chetnik youth that were sent to Petar Komnenić and me for three days...
So many senseless that I can't even think of quoting them...
I can only quote myself, from 2017, when I was first faced with the comments of shameless anonymous people...
And she wrote that "those who hate under the protection of social media are ready to carry out that hatred at work, on the streets, and in homes"...
And now I wouldn't have anything to add to that, but I wouldn't have anything to take away either...
* * *
Monday, May 12 - There is still no binding instruction for respecting the Ostrog Monastery... Not from the state prosecutor, it was said, but from the metropolitan.
And it would be necessary...
If he could, I believe that Saint Basil would also send him because of (not only) last night's pictures in front of the shrine...
With bags, blankets and other bedding... With all the bottles, temporary tables, permanent anodized kitsch and identical souvenirs...
And, perhaps, he would bury himself again in Vražegrmci, even if Zeta carried away his bones again like those years when the Montenegrins saved him from Numan Pasha Ćuprilić...
And he wouldn't come back even dead, not just after a year like 1715, but not for the next five, ten, twenty... Until both the hosts and those who come to pay their respects learn to distinguish the Monastery under Ostrog from the camp in Buljarica and the council in Guča...
These pilgrimages are not from yesterday, they began in the aforementioned year when monks found the saint's undamaged relics and returned them to the Monastery.
And people always came in large numbers, there were once precisely defined routes for pilgrims' journeys, but those who considered the monastery a sanctuary did not build a fairground in front of it...
Nor was the smell of the barbecue spreading around him, instead of incense...
It must be, people come from far away?
No need, they traveled before and farther and longer, so they somehow managed to stand up and wait for dawn without burgers and bow to Saint Basil...
Glory and grace to him, but not because I suddenly started believing in his miracles, but because of the miracles I have endured for decades...
If he had taken my advice, he would have fled to Numan Pasha at dawn...
Wherever he is buried...
Bonus video:
