(Continued from last Saturday)
The semiotic potential of the divine instance is enormous because it is supported by a large number of texts: religious, philosophical and artistic, and church institutions have been depositing meanings and perfecting manipulative strategies based on the abuse of divine, otherworldly power for centuries. The church as an institution is the greatest manipulator of divine power; it creates, explains and distributes it according to its interests and ruling narratives, while directing the "wrath of God" towards infidels and traitors, which it often proclaims in agreement with the political centers of power. Therefore, God's representatives on earth activate numerous manipulative strategies, which they have mastered very well, also in the identity narrative. And since they are simultaneously connected to a transcendent source of truth, their ideologues, especially if they are aggressive and polemical, can be very dangerous, because the pragmatic aspect of the messages coming from the church is specific. Namely, the recipient-believer receives with special respect the messages that come from the church and from church dignitaries, who aspire to the maxim of quality because, allegedly, in constant communication with a higher power, they have learned the truth, and now they generously pass it on to their subjects. In such a communication channel, an inferior position is imposed on the believer, which decisively affects the reception of the message, because he does not question the truths that are served to him from the sacred space of the church. Mentioned manipulative strategies, combined with significant rhetorical capacities, can best be seen on the example of the identity narrative of Amfilohi Radović who, from his situationally superior position as a high-ranking priest, interprets the "secret" of language:
A language that forgets and hates the bones and ethos of its ancestors, which grows out of the conscious or unconscious cancellation of the parliamentary memory of its own people - is a sign of the resulting impoverishment of the spirit and darkening of the mind, heart and soul. Such a language is inevitably a sign of extinction, death and nothingness of man and nation. Thus, from a language that is called to give life, light and enlightenment through the miracle of love, it becomes a language of hatred both towards the true self and towards its people, a language of confusion, both on the vertical plane of existence, and on the horizontal plane of living (Dr. Amfilohije Radović, Metropolitan of Montenegrin and Littoral 2003: 5).
Thus, the message is organized with the activation of significant stylistic-semantic potential and biblical axiology, and it is perlocutionally oriented, that is, aimed at the emotional engagement of the interlocutor, whereby the diabolical mystification of language acts as a strong polemical strategy, which challenges the Montenegrin language. The seductive unity of religious platitudes, biblical citations and rhetorical devices seems powerful, almost performative, and the perlocutionary effect is enhanced by the dress codes (mantle and camel coat), as well as the interactive context, because the discourse is broadcast by the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral - the highest church authority that inherited the chair Peter I and Peter II, which is enough to affect the masses more impressively than any scientific truth. Relying on dualistic archetypal ideas about light and darkness, god and demons, good and evil, life and death, love and hate, truth and lies, Amphilochius arrives at an ethical conception of language - language is transformed in this terrifying religious manipulation into a moral, i.e. immoral category. Biblical citation and axiology count on a strong perlocutionary effect and a high degree of manipulativeness, because they activate a sacred text towards which the believer already has an illustrative, affirmative relationship.
Attitudes about language in Montenegro, as a basic identity structure, are articulated within four discourses: clerical, poetic, political and scientific (linguistic), of which the scientific discourse has the weakest reception and perlocutionary effect. At the same time, mythologizing appears as a process that affects all four discourses, and is especially fatal in the case of a scientifically based identity narrative. Religious and poetic logic are fed by the semiotic energy of the biblical prototext, so they overpower scientific argumentation in defining identity models, whereby the mythological nationalist discourse irresistibly penetrates the scientific one, which results in numerous sociocultural anomalies, especially in the sphere of communication. In such a disturbed interactive framework, the poetic truth about the Montenegrin language is articulated, so extremely aggressive identity messages come from the poetic discourse, which tie the Montenegrin identity to communist ideology, and some writers, in not very poetic language, pour out their hatred towards Montenegrins, towards communists:
It should be said simply, clearly and truthfully: the attempt by the newly composed "Montenegros" to rename the Serbian language to the "Montenegrin" language is a terrible and ridiculous machination, over sixty years old. It is a dangerous and comical political game started by Josip Broz and his communists sixty years ago. And it is continued by the cloned communist students of the Kumrovec and Dukljan schools... The creepy communist cloning of Montenegrins, visible and invisible, continues even today. (Komanin, 2003: 37).
However, Montenegrin nationalists are no less aggressive in their confrontations with those who threaten the far-famed harmony of their equally sublime national being. The clerical demagoguery that is promoted by the Montenegrin Orthodox Church is extremely threatening and fundamentally non-Christian, and the church has given itself the right to deal with even narrowly linguistic problems of the standardization of the Montenegrin language:
The name of the Montenegrin language must cover its own, not someone else's, language content, and we hope that all members of the Council for the Standardization of the Montenegrin Language are aware of this. The intention of those who would completely depersonalize us spiritually and linguistically in an independent Montenegro is incomprehensible. The CPC tells them not to undermine the fundamental Montenegrin values, because "all forces are weak and null for the one who thinks right". (Montenegro Orthodox Church 2008: 24).
Together with "worldly" nationalists, church dignitaries participate in building the cult of Vojislav P. Nikčević, declaring him a linguistic genius and mythologizing the Montenegrin language using the same strategies used by Serbian nationalism:
That the language is the work of God and as such is eternal is confirmed by the Montenegrin language, which despite persecutions, bans, suppressions remained alive in the Montenegrin people, and thanks to the late scientist Vojislav Nikčević and his collaborators and like-minded people, became the official language in our independent to the state (Mihailo 2008: 86).
Invoking their right to individuality, Montenegrin poets for children are involved in the process of "beatification", but their main goal is still the hunt for traitors and Serbian spies, because in Montenegrin identity engineering, the connection with Serbian identity units is intolerable, unacceptable and very dangerous. by uniqueness:
With condescension and sarcasm, the professor (This refers to Professor Tatjana Bečanović, the author of this text, who called Montenegrin nationalists in the polemic about standardization, Montenegrins) looks back on the powerful, mythical haloed deceased and their language', alluding to the greatest Montenegrin linguist and historian of the Montenegrin language, Vojislav Nikčević. Not funny at all, even less humane!
,A rounded and plump platitude about the pure Montenegrin language, beyond all other languages in the world - Ms. Bečanović continues, sometimes in Ekavian, sometimes in Ijekavian (when she wants to make fun of herself) - if it was intentional, it would look like a parody, but unfortunately it is spoken from pure and unadulterated ignorance, so we cannot state that a sin was committed against language, against truth, honor, morality and other mythical beasts'. That's what the Montenegrins are using, Mrs. Bečanović points out, to make it impossible for "the only linguists and doctors of literature with some degree and scientific title" (Đurišić 2008: 76).
Unfortunately, any attempt to deconstruct nationalist platitudes results in the stigmatization of critics, which comes from nationalist-clerical and political power centers. The nationalist model of thought does not tolerate mockery as a key interactive strategy of polemical discourse, and its semiotic activity is limited to the production of ephemeral sanctuaries, which they proclaim in collusion with the church, the faithful "guardian" of order. Precisely because of this strong drive to preserve and stop the movement, the current Montenegrin regime is very cooperative with the churches (Montenegrin, Serbian and Islamic), and by feeding their antagonism, it provides itself with weak allies, whose power cannot threaten it at any moment. Therefore, clerical demagoguery is very harmful to both the Montenegrin and Serbian identity models, because it distances them from the civil, liberal and democratic concept, and brings them closer to the clero-nationalist one, which is extremely rigid and averse to dialogue, especially when it comes to the rights of minority groups. However, to the mutual satisfaction of priests and politicians, religion flourishes in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and the "broad masses" are burdened by the weight of holy places and mythical monsters, which devour their every desire to question and reevaluate the order, and thus to a possible rebellion. The preservation of Milo Đukanović's regime is based on constant identity conflicts that weaken the citizens of Montenegro and take away their political power, because with the help of this or that church, the regime turns them into slaves of national sanctuaries, this or that language, Kosovo or Dukla mythology.
And to conclude, the language issue is the number one identity issue in the former Serbo-Croatian area, because other elements of the identity tree are derived from language. If the signal in the basic, linguistic base is "wrong", a wrong or alien identity model grows from there, which like a mythical monster devours the identity units of the Other. In the South Slavic semiosphere, Vuk's "truth" that all Štokavci are Serbs is still valid, and Serbian nationalists in Montenegro draw a "logical" conclusion - since Montenegrins speak Serbian, they are not Montenegrins but Serbs. Hence the necessity of naming languages in Montenegro according to the name of the country, in order to stop the further collapse of the Montenegrin identity tree. The flexibility of identity boundaries increases in the case of one and the same language, which has a decisive influence on the formation of identity models in the South Slavic semiosphere, where writers belonging to two or more literary canons form the point of intersection of national cultures.
Between the religious and nationalist codes in the Balkans, extremely strong connections were established, and the communist discourse, since it was organized as a distinctly anti-nationalist and atheistic one, with the key ideology of brotherhood and unity, is being dismantled with equal ferocity from all nationalist-clerical power centers. Self-identification processes in Montenegro take place under the great pressure of the narrative about Serbia, which is articulated within numerous discourses, and the semiotic power of Serbian culture enables it to have a very wide radius of influence. The semioticity of Serbia is built in the most diverse types of discourse: religious, literary, political, folkloric, ideological, media, and in the Montenegrin semiosphere a large number of texts are broadcast in which Serbia is raised to the level of a holy place and propagated as the only possible identity model, which significantly complicates the coexistence of Montenegrin and Serbian identity.
The government's perfidious games about identity
All political programs of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists begin and end with the story of identity, that is, the strengthening of the Montenegrin identity model in the middle of Montenegro. However, it was this regime that weakened the Montenegrin identity in a very perfidious way by adopting the ultra-nationalist Spelling System in 2008 and forcibly introducing the language reform in schools.
Thus, the Montenegrin identity model was split into Jotovans and non-Jotovans, and a fierce conflict was caused between them, with the regime wisely supporting the intellectually and semiotically weaker - the Jotovans, who are also carriers of a retrograde cultural model, based on conservative clerical, nationalist, rural, tribal and masculine - chauvinist or misogynist ideologues.
In this way, an extremely strong regime preservative is produced, which launches my Homeland into the very top of extremely fierce South Slavic competition. However, in the field of regime preservation, Montenegro is the leader in the region - no South Slavic leader is as old and yet as young as Milo Đukanović.
Nationalism, culture of immaturity
The sacred function of the Serbian Orthodox Church as the "guardian" of patriotism is confirmed again by the clerical discourse:
"On the other side are those who love their own Serbian family more than their Montenegrin home, and through that family, you will hear them loving the Holy of God, and you will meet church people there, and in their midst, as the highest guardian of the above-described patriotism in Montenegro, you will recognize The Orthodox Church with its holy ascetics and martyrs" (priest Gojko Perović 2003: 25).
Therefore, in the nationalist-clerical interactive context, a very powerful discourse is produced that denies the Montenegrin identity, which makes the coexistence of Montenegrin and Serbian identity models extremely difficult in the semiotic space of Montenegro. Unfortunately, nationalist strategies and rhetoric are clearly visible in the identity narrative, which are most reflected in the language situation, from where they affect all other cultural units. Nationalism is the key ideology of immature sociocultural communities, whose infantility is reflected in the need for increased mythologizing, which becomes the basic strategy of interpretation and representation of reality, identity, collective memory and culture as a whole. That process is necessarily accompanied by biblical citations, and when Christian holy places are activated in the Balkans and sacred signs are manipulated, it always has a more or less hidden post-colonial connotation, because resistance to Islam is still one of the basic ideologies.
(The end)
Bonus video:
