The dead end of authoritarianism

The often-quoted thought of the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, according to whom writing poetry after Auschwitz is pure barbarism, has led the signatory of these lines to think that any call for democratic elections in Serbia after the crime committed at the Novi Sad railway station is equally heinous behavior, as long as the perpetrators of the same crime are not prosecuted. It is clear that corruption is behind the crime, which was confirmed by the independent Inquiry Commission, but the representatives of the Serbian ruling cartel have no intention of facing their own responsibility, but rather continue to shape social and political life in Serbia with their own iniquities, and through that, they are trying to transfer the same to Montenegro.

The engagement of a half-breed from the criminal milieu as an escort for the first in the Serbian mainstream at the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Tivat is the best illustration of the Serbian ruling political tradition that wanted to be transferred to Montenegro. Outcasts from the civilized world, relying on Montenegrin political Pygmalions, they live in the belief that they are establishing standards on the political stage that the democratic world despises.

The basic premise of this text is that the fight against the Serbian political cartel is in fact a fight against the dead end of primitive authoritarianism that it represents. Precisely because there is no single term that would explain the form of the political regime in Serbia, this Serbian primitive authoritarianism will be a synecdoche for explaining every substandard behavior that wants to be imposed as a standard in political behavior.

Not so long ago, Umberto Eco coined the term “ur-fascism” or “eternal fascism” to appropriately explain the situation currently represented by the ruling political cartel in Serbia. Any presentation of facts that point to the depravity of the Serbian political cartel is rejected as a fabrication by the cartel, and instead, action is taken for the sake of action and therefore all sorts of party activities that are supposed to nullify criticism. Even a superficial knowledge of the biographies of the ruling political cartel speaks of their “individual and social frustration”. Depressed as political marginals, humiliated on the social fringes, without elementary political culture, believing that some force whose origin they do not know has conspired against them, obsessed with an international and regional conspiracy, they believe that their actions are the only form of resistance to the omnipresent enemy. It comes to him like that joke when an ignorant person enters the highway and drives the opposite way to the intended direction of the car and treats everyone who drives correctly as fools.

Members of the Serbian political cartel present themselves as the best representatives of the plebs, they know that they draw power from corrupt groups and the poor plebs, everyone despises everyone and at the same time they need each other if they want to stay in power. The announcement by the first in that hierarchy that he would say everything he needed to the people gathered at the summit in Tivat to their faces, and they would say it to him, seemed tragicomic, presenting himself as a hero, with a vocabulary that would shame those who value themselves and have significantly weaker education. Instead of pompously announcing some kind of political coup or in a politically unconventional way, after the summit he stated that in informal talks with European officials and partners from the region he spoke about "the European path of our countries, as well as the possibilities for further improving cooperation and strengthening mutual trust".

As the guru of the Serbian state, with the need to humiliate those identity beliefs that are inconsistent with his, to make matters absurd, he could have forced representatives of the Montenegrin ruling group to themselves point out the alarmingly unenviable position of Montenegrins in Serbia. I heard nothing about it. As a sociological phenomenon, it is certain, not as an expression of free will, the number of Montenegrins in Serbia has almost halved compared to a decade ago, and compared to the data from 30 years ago, it is six times smaller. I am inclined to defend the belief that this change in identity is the product of that political exclusivity, now omnipresent in the political life of Serbia, which was tragically manifested in the most recent case towards Borka Božović, an art historian, and her family by a journalist who has a problem with the standards of the journalistic profession and the code of ethics. This is an illustration of how civil liberties are perceived and how people will deprive themselves of them for the sake of satisfying lucrative needs. The primitive authoritarian is well aware of all this, whose ambition is to satisfy two parties, the local plebs and the more powerful leaders of more institutionally organized states. How much the Montenegrin ruling group will do to protect Montenegrins in Serbia, we will judge in time. Alas, life is not that simple!

The author is a doctor of political science.