I hope and assume that for any citizen of Montenegro, just knowing that there are 38 supermen living in our small country and that there will be more, would be beautiful news, more precisely news that awakens hope and brings joy. Okay, maybe not the supermen we remember from the movies, but certainly 38 supermen who have their own superpowers. While the superman we remember flies, our supermen do nothing. Also, unlike Superman who saves planet Earth completely voluntarily, our supermen are paid very well for their superpowers - to do nothing.
Our superhumans even have a special name, they are called academics.
Their superpower – to do nothing, according to President Stanković, lies in the obligation to provide "a scientifically based opinion when requested by the highest state bodies – the Parliament, the Government or the President of the country", and since the highest state bodies are not ready to face their authority and for that reason do not turn to them for a scientific opinion, as the President claims in the continuation of his speech, our superpeople do not feel an obligation or at least a human need to speak out on important social phenomena. More precisely, they do not feel the need to do anything except, for example, organizing exhibitions and concerts with which they "shape society without getting into the mud of everyday life". Thus, in 2025, they organized 4 exhibitions and 6 concerts.
On the other hand, we who live in the mud of everyday life certainly have obligations to our superhumans.
In 2026 alone, our obligations to them amount to 3 million and 100 thousand euros. Our obligations to supermen and their superpower to do nothing in the interest of the state of Montenegro have been enormous before and we have regularly fulfilled them. We built them a building worth 10 million euros. Furthermore, for more than half a century, as they themselves say, we have been regularly paying them only for belonging to an organization that has no obligation to do anything unless the highest state institutions contact them!
From this brief description of the "supermen-people from the mud" relationship, we can conclude that there is and cannot be a more obvious example of systemic corruption than the example of the relationship between the State of Montenegro and the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts. Therefore, CANU members express their annual needs to the Government of Montenegro, the Government of Montenegro presents these needs for money of CANU members through a budget proposal, and the Parliament of Montenegro adopts the budget proposal by votes of delegates. In the budget year for which money was given to CANU members, the Government and the Parliament do not ask them anything, and for that very reason they do nothing, and everyday citizens from the mud pay for all this. And unfortunately, they do not pay a little. In the CANU budget for 2026, we pay 1 million and 700 thousand euros just for the monthly salaries of 38 academicians-supermen, which amounts to 3.700 euros per month per superman. In addition to these, supermen, of course, also have their own other income - salaries, pensions, income from universities and other budget units. What is interesting is that they managed to avoid the obligation to report income and assets to the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
Although money is perhaps the smallest problem in this whole story, I demand from the president and secretary of CANU, who have addressed the public, to set a good example for other members and publicly announce their annual income. For Montenegrin society, a much bigger problem than the money they receive is actually the fact that for them, as they themselves say, events such as the unprecedented tragedy in the case of two mass murders in Cetinje, the events of September 5, 2021 also in Cetinje, the dismissal of 200 school principals in Montenegro, the Fundamental Agreement that seized cultural heritage, huge property and endangered the constitutional order of the state of Montenegro, moving mountains with the power of faith, glorifying the Chetnik movement, the revision of Montenegrin history from the beginning of the 20th century, announcements of amendments to the Constitution of Montenegro, the economic undermining of the state, are not topics that "interfere with the long-term destiny of the state, culture and science" and therefore are not a reason for any reaction. Worse still, our superhumans admit that they cannot reach a consensus on these issues, that is, they admit that even among themselves, behind closed doors, in the secrecy of the chambers that we citizens have built for them, they cannot agree whether these issues "threaten the foundations of scientific truth, historical fact, and cultural identity," as they themselves say. It is precisely this admission of the impossibility of reaching a consensus on these issues that turns our superhumans into supermanipulators.
And let me teach you something, gentlemen. In democratic countries, academics have no privileges. Membership in the academy is an honor, not a paid position. You who do nothing are paid many times better than, I won't say a heart surgeon, let's say a prime minister. Show at least a little dignity, give up sinecures, introduce project funding, transfer money to young researchers and scientists, stop paying yourself on multiple grounds. And declare that income.
The author is a cardiac surgeon, director of the Center for Cardiac Surgery and president of DANU
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