It's not a turn.

The President of the Parliament of Montenegro says that Montenegro is “ours too.” Good morning.

He also says that “our brothers and relatives who define themselves as national Montenegrins” live there, and then “our neighbors, Albanians, Bosniaks, Muslims and Croats.” And there is reconciliation.

At least that's how we read the Speaker of the Parliament these days: he has matured, changed, understood the function, accepted the state, reconciled himself with its independence, and moved towards the political center. We're about to believe that this is a different man, and not the same politician whose vocabulary has just changed. Because the question here is not whether the Speaker of the Parliament has learned to speak calmer. He has. The question is what he says when he no longer has to shout. And he speaks quite precisely.

First there is mi.

Then there are "our brothers and relatives" who, well, "define themselves" as national Montenegrins.

It doesn't say: Montenegrins.

He says: people who define themselves that way.

A small difference in words, a big difference in politics. Because a man can define himself however he wants, I guess. We will respect that. Even when we may know better who he is, where he comes from and who he actually belongs to.

And then come the neighbors. Albanians. Bosniaks. Muslims. Croats. So: us, our brothers who call themselves Montenegrins, and our neighbors. All of Montenegro neatly arranged in one sentence.

Only citizens nowhere. The President of the Assembly then says that we cannot build the future by convincing some "that they must disappear so that others can exist."

A serious accusation. Who asked for the Serbs in Montenegro to disappear? Who forbade them from being Serbs?

Who banned them from having a church, language, political parties, cultural institutions, media, national symbols, political organization? What right does a Serb in Montenegro today not have, but a Montenegrin, Albanian, Bosniak or Croat has? The President of the Assembly does not say. It is not necessary.

Because here the fact is not particularly important. What matters is the feeling. And the feeling should be simple: we were threatened. After that, everything goes easier.

We are not asking for more - we are taking back what is ours.

We are not expanding political space - we are correcting injustice.

We are not looking for privileges - we are looking for equality.

We are not endangering the state - we are finally becoming its equal owners.

Old goods in new packaging.

That's why I find it strange the persistence with which evidence of the political transformation of the Speaker of the Parliament has been sought in recent years. Perhaps there is none.

Maybe man hasn't changed politics. Maybe politics just got smarter.

Because Belgrade has long since ceased to need to pursue a policy of the 1990s towards Montenegro. Nor could it. Montenegro is an independent state, a member of NATO and a candidate for membership in the European Union. Borders are much more difficult to change today.

Meanings - much easier. And hegemony is not just a tank, a border and a flag. Hegemony is also the right to determine who is who. Which language is whose. Whose church is it. Whose history is it. Who are the heroes and who are the traitors. Which victims will we remember and which will we relativize. Who is the people in Montenegro, who "defines themselves" as the people, and who is a neighbor. That is why the President of the Parliament no longer has to deny Montenegro. That would be politically stupid. It is much more useful to accept it - and then change its content.

You don't have to tell Montenegrins that they don't exist. It's enough to respect their right to "define themselves" as Montenegrins. You don't have to ask for privileges for Serbs. It's enough to produce the belief every day that something has been taken away from them. You don't have to say that Belgrade should govern Montenegro. It's enough to establish Serbia as the political, cultural and identity center of Serbs regardless of the borders of the countries in which they live. Nationalists of all colors think and do the same thing - ideas about mother countries to which we are especially grateful and inclined. Washing nationalism. Patent leather shoes over mud. And then call it reconciliation.

This is, in my opinion, the mistake of analysts of all stripes, who see a turn in the new tone of the Speaker of the Parliament. A turn would mean a change in the political goal. Here we see something else: an adjustment of means. A policy that was once too loud to be acceptable is now institutional. He sits in the highest state offices. He talks about Europe. He talks about peace. He talks about equality. He talks about not taking away anyone's rights. And he is very careful not to say anything that would upset his European partners. Why would he? For hegemony, it is not necessary to abolish the state. It is enough to gradually win the right to determine its meaning.

That's why I would pay much less attention to how moderate the President of the Assembly has become, and much more to what is happening during his moderation with institutions, the culture of memory, anti-fascism, language, church, education and the way Montenegro speaks about itself. That's where change is measured. That's where results count. Not in the color of the tie and the temperature of the speech. In the end, the President of the Assembly says that the rights of the Serbian people "will not be won by taking away theirs from others."

Nice.

But no one authorized him to distribute our rights, nor to determine how much of Montenegro belongs to whom.

Montenegro is not a family home after an inheritance dispute, so we have to determine whose floor it is, whose tavern it is, and who is the neighbor who can drop by. It should be a state of its citizens.

Everyone. Without “ours”, theirs, brothers, relatives and neighbors. That is why this is not a turn. A turn would be giving up on the policy according to which Montenegro is understood as part of the wider Serbian national space and accepting Montenegro as a sovereign civil community whose political center is nowhere outside it. Everything else can only be better diction.

And a nationalism that has learned to speak politely has not ceased to be nationalism because of that.

It just became harder to recognize.

The author is a psychologist