On progress in Montenegro

(Monitor)

While dealing with the topic of this column over the past few months, I finally came to one thing, in addition to the more or less well-known, not to say generally known, and even generally accepted things, which was quite a surprise, even for me. I believe that it will be the same for those who read this column.

But let me start in order. I'll start with the first one. With two things that are more or less indisputable. The first is the restoration of the multi-party system and the first multi-party elections held in Montenegro after that restoration on December 9, 1990. Even the most terrible pandemonium of the 1990s, which will soon follow, cannot call into question, or rather deny, that that restoration was a great legal, political and civilizational advance, or progress.

The same can be said for another thing. For the first democratic change of government in the entire history of Montenegro, which, as we know, took place on August 30, 2020. A full thirty years later. What slow progress. But progress nonetheless. Which, likewise, cannot be called into question, or rather denied, even by all those numerous unfulfilled expectations, not to mention disappointments, that followed in the years that followed 2020-2026.

One step forward, two steps back? Maybe. But I will not deal with this question here any longer. I continue with the thing that I already pointed out in the announcement, which was quite a surprise to me as well. And that is, that Montenegro in the 1990s, in the midst of that most terrible pandemonium, had more truly progressive forces within itself, to put it in a slightly old-fashioned way, than it does today, in the 2020s, a full twenty years later. Which, of course, further questions and even completely refutes the dogma of progress.

Here's how. First, quantitatively. In the most terrible possible conditions, progressive, and these were, at that time, primarily anti-war and pro-independence forces in Montenegro, in the elections of the 1990s, won about twenty percent of the votes cast. And in the 2020s? In any case, less, much less. Even below the census. How is that? Easy. In the past thirty years, a not small, actually (the) largest part of the anti-war independentists, was absorbed and annulled in a coalition by the mafia-like DPS, and one part, disappointed, withdrew from all politics.

And then qualitatively. With heroic resistance and struggle in the 1990s, anti-war independentists wrote the brightest pages of Montenegrin history, and today, in the 2020s, they are almost gone. But that's why there are certainly others. Both in power, in the opposition, in the parliament, in the government, and in the entire Montenegrin government in the 2020s, a stable and secure majority, from fifty to seventy percent, is made up of (innumerable) isotopes of the same war-mongering and war-criminal and mafia-like DPS and its Greater Serbian competitors and collaborators from the 1990s. Only rhetorically disguised. But, with the help of Trumpism, that mask will soon be completely removed. That's it.

The described deterioration of our 2020s, compared to our 1990s, represents the surprise from the very beginning of this column. And this surprise alone is just one more proof of the incredible spread and power of the dogma of progress. When this dogma, at least for a moment, in the form of the described surprise, managed to deceive, stun and seduce even the author of this column, who critically dealt with this dogma, nineteen years ago, in the book Belle Epoque: Critique of the Dogma of Progress.

That is why, at the very end of this column, dedicated to the problematic progress in Montenegro, in the last thirty-seven years, I will once again repeat the most important thing from that book. That progress is always only possible, and never guaranteed. That progress can never be without struggle, including sacrifices. When necessary, even the greatest ones. That was the case in our 1990s. That is the case in our 2020s. That will be the case in the future. Especially when one considers the great international, or rather global, deterioration that is currently taking place.