When the state begins to forget itself

States rarely disappear suddenly. More often, they begin to disappear when they forget why they exist. Borders are not lost first. The flag is not changed first. Political language changes first. Then values. Then institutions. Eventually, citizens begin to accept what would have been unthinkable to them until yesterday.

That is why the issue of recognizing Kosovo (which is being pushed by one political entity in Montenegro, and the rest of the government supports it locally while at the national level they claim to be against such political projects) is not an issue of Kosovo. It is an issue of Montenegro. Not because decisions made by individual local governments would change the position of Kosovo. They would not. But because it would show that Montenegro is ready to redefine its own state policy towards a political project that does not originate in it. That is the essence.

In recent years, we have witnessed a series of processes that are often viewed in isolation. The changing symbolic landscape in individual municipalities. The revision of historical narratives. The increasingly strong identification of the state with a single national identity. The constant return of political life to questions of blood, origin, church and historical battles. Therefore, it is not unimportant when the civic content of public space is removed from a municipality, when identity is used as a basic political tool or when any criticism is declared an attack on the nation.

These are not unrelated events. Each of these processes may seem harmless individually. Together they are no longer. Together they produce a new cultural pattern. Together they are a political program that comes from another place. In it, the civic state is not a goal but an obstacle. Pluralism is not a value but a weakness. Compromise is not a policy but a betrayal. History becomes more important than the future. That is precisely why Kosovo is not a territory in this narrative. It is a political symbol.

A symbol around which a sense of collective sacrifice has been built for decades. A myth that turns defeat into moral victory and which constantly produces the need for new historical rightings of injustice.

The problem arises when that pattern becomes a political model. Because then it is no longer just what we think about Kosovo that matters. It begins to decide how we think about Montenegro. Who has the right to represent it. Who determines what patriotism is. Who writes history. Who belongs. Who doesn't belong.

In such politics, the citizen becomes less important than the nation. Institutions less important than identity. The constitution less important than the political moment. This is not a question of one government.

This is a question of long-term societal transformation. No state becomes less sovereign just because someone puts pressure on it from the outside. It becomes so when it starts to perceive other people's political priorities as its own. That is why today it is not important whether someone will propose recognizing Kosovo. It is much more important whether we will recognize the pattern.

Because when a political community begins to live on myths more than reality, when historical battles become more important than people's lives today, then the state slowly gives up on itself.

And a state that gives up on itself does not only lose its foreign policy direction.

It is losing its reason for existing as a community of free and equal citizens.

That's why recognizing Kosovo is not an attempt to change the status of Kosovo. It is an attempt to change the identity of Montenegro.

The author is a psychologist