There was a lot of fuss about who would sit where. It was like a play, because the club's centennial celebration was overshadowed by a heated argument about who had the right to sit in which row. Where are the politicians, and where are the sports workers, businessmen, and where are those who most deserve to be there, the players and legends of the club. Basically, it all came down to "a hundred faces looking for the guilty party", the organizer covered his ears and pretended to be invisible, the city claims it had nothing to do with it, and no one wants to say who compiled the list and according to what criteria. Was it some event manager, producer or a person who proclaims himself to be an all-rounder in the field of event organization.
Nothing like this argument about seating proves the absence of an elite and criteria. But not the elite that sits in cafes with a famous name, we are not referring to the upstarts, but the elite of Montenegro has never been less valued than today, meaningless even to the point that it is no longer even decor. The elite is treated as "losers of transition" because professors have lower salaries than others, and directors of theaters and publishing houses have to go to cafes and beg the so-called elite (politicians and businessmen) to give them some money for projects.
This is a society of pushing. Elbowing. Anyone with even the slightest self-awareness and a touch of dignity will not push themselves, they will let others take precedence. Because pushing can only happen in a society without criteria and clear rules, who is who, who deserves it and who doesn't, who is really important and who is essentially irrelevant in the long run. Nušić served time for a poem he wrote on a similar topic, he was criticized for criticizing such social anomalies, but he was mostly guilty because he detected petty bourgeoisie in the ranks of the self-proclaimed elite.
It's the same with us. People who are aware that it doesn't belong to them have risen to unimaginable heights, so they use what they can to take advantage of it. It's not a modern disease, since 1990 many have fallen into the trap of entering parliament without even knowing how to speak. That's why parliament is like a circus, helpless people want to be important but don't know how to put three sentences together into a meaningful structure.
Someone gave them a seat as a pilot, but they don't know how to fly. They have desire and ambition, that's all. But there is another key image of contemporary Montenegro, and that is the image in the parliament that Ranko Krivokapić has created to give himself even more importance and scratch the surface of the referendum for the umpteenth time. Ranko presides, gives a speech, and the others listen to him, Milo in the front row. But there is another wonderful detail, Vesna Medenica is also in the picture. All of them as if painted! The elite that brought the state. That's how they perceive themselves, that's how they imagined that image to remain in the parliament for eternity, so that citizens would bow to them like Churchill or Roosevelt.
But none of that. “This didn't age well” as they would say. The time has come for people to look at that picture and laugh when they recognize the new character, when they wonder where he is today, what he has embezzled, how much he has lied and cheated. And that picture from parliament is proof, testimony of the attempt to create a turbo elite. Testimony that it didn't last long because the elite had no grounding, within themselves. They embarrassed themselves with their own incompetence.
Mark Twain put it nicely: “Order is a matter of discipline and respect, not just physical place.”
These are all our pictures, our lines and pushes. It's all fine, if it's fine with us.
Bonus video:
