Blagoje Grahovac, a retired general and geopolitical analyst, gives his opinion on the current situation in Montenegro in an interview for Monitor, as well as what steps are needed to get Montenegro back on track.
DISPLAY: Where is geopolitics in our case, and where is politics?
GRAHOVAC:It is a failure, and I would say a tragedy, of the domestic policy that allowed Montenegro to become a training ground for the biggest geopolitical players – the USA and the Russian Federation. Official US policy formally supports Montenegro, but actually supports Milo Đukanović. I understand their mutual obligations, but the problem lies in the fact that US officials do not want to see that it is Milo Đukanović through his party that is generating all the divisions and all the quarrels in Montenegro. On the other hand, the RF policy strongly supports not only Serbian, but Orthodox fundamentalism. It is precisely this fundamentalism that will dissolve the Montenegrin ethnic being.
When such two geopolitical players run into a small and mutually disputed area, then it does not go well for the people. There have been several such cases in history, but the most characteristic is the one in Iran in 1979. The Americans supported the secular state of Iran led by Shah Reza Pahlavi, but at least three major powers (under the pretext of religious freedom) supported Ayatollah Khomeini. The epilogue is known – Iranian secularism was destroyed, Reza Pahlavi went into exile, Ayatollah Khomeini strengthened Islamic fundamentalism, and the people are still suffering today.
DISPLAY: Could it be an allusion to something that can happen in Montenegro?
GRAHOVAC: Historia magistra vitae esto, meini Khomeinija
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MONITOR: You stated after the adoption of the Law on Religious Communities, that it was only a reason for fascism, which has been growing in Montenegro for a long time. You also said that the security situation is very dangerous. How does she look to you now? What exactly is it that we should be afraid of?
GRAHOVAC: Two weeks ago, your newspaper published my author's text about the collision of two fascisms in Montenegro - the Serbian clerofascism whose genesis is nationalism and chauvinism and the Montenegrin one whose genesis is in crime and corruption. The citizens who succumbed to these plagues are lacking in education and in excess of petty-bourgeois petty-proprietary-interest psychology. It is a great public concern when fascism appears anywhere, even in the smallest form, and when two appear in the same country, it is not only dangerous, but also terrifying. I am afraid that it will be very difficult to get rid of this evil without an anti-fascist uprising of the people.
DISPLAY:Although Metropolitan Amfilohije and the Government announce talks, national passions and hatred are growing. Where is Montenegro going?
GRAHOVAC:Divisions in Montenegro are now profiled in two groups. The first is made up of the government with a part of its interested supporters, while the second group is made up of the people. From a sociological-psychological point of view, both groups have moved from the zone of strong emotions to the zone of strong passions, but at the same time fear that an excess will happen. Then passions quickly pass into the zone of frustration, and then...
In the conflict between the government and the people throughout history, the government has always had the upper hand in the beginning, but this does not last long. The government that does not recognize such risks in Montenegro is blind in front of its own eyes. The misfortune of Montenegro lies in the fact that there are no intellectuals in the leadership structures of the DPS. Because, after all, at least one would publicly warn the citizens about the danger that the DPS government has led the citizens into. The passions of the conflicting parties have just not entered the next zone - the zone of frustration.
DISPLAY: What is the solution?
GRAHOVAC: The solution is for the SDP and the URA to start joint political activities, to publicly invite healthy tissue in the DPS (and there is some), politically healthy tissue in the Serbian ethnos (and there is some) and free-thinking people in Montenegro (and there are some) to start a joint fight against Serbian klerofascism and Montenegrin fascism that grew not on ideology but on crime for personal interests.
The SDP-URA group should publicly announce that it will free Montenegro from all the influence of Milo Đukanović and Amfilohi Radović without calling into question its Euro-Atlantic path with democracy, the rule of law and social justice appropriate to a Man in civil Montenegro.
DISPLAY: How do you comment on Metropolitan Amfilohi's assessment that the Government will negotiate the Law with him and not with the Patriarch and that the Montenegrin Church was autonomous and independent?
GRAHOVAC: Regardless of whether this attitude of Amfilohi Radović is an expression of his personal vanity or perhaps personal ambitions, given that he is in great disagreement with Aleksandar Vučić and some high officials of the SPC, this attitude could this time be a contribution to abandoning religious mythomania and recognition of the reality that Montenegro is an independent and internationally recognized state, and that, at least according to the Constitution, it is the state of all its citizens. His attitude could contribute to the acceptance of such a reality in Serbia as well.
DISPLAY: The authorities are increasingly reacting with repression to newspaper articles and views on social networks. What does that tell you?
GRAHOVAC: When the "baton-policeman" starts giving political assessments, and when instead of the Minister of Internal Affairs, he gives assessments about the state of security in the country, and when instead of the minister in charge of relations with religious communities, he gives recognition to the Metropolitan, and when he has such a need arrests journalists, then it is a sure indicator that the government has entered the phase of self-destruction.
DISPLAY: The Ministry of Defense is increasingly using the term "hybrid war" to justify the government's repression of the media. How do you comment on that?
GRAHOVAC:The frog heard that the horses were being shod, so it raised its leg itself." The current Minister of Defense received his military education in a military school of a certain Ček Dačević, so he could not have known that the doctrine of neocortical warfare was adopted by the military theories of many developed countries in the early seventies of the last century. "Cortex" is a word of Latin origin and means the bark of the brain. A simplified explanation is that through propaganda, pressure is exerted on the human brain, thereby manipulating the opinion of the populus. Hybrid warfare is only one part of a wide range from the doctrine of neocortical warfare. As a rule, DPS ministers are very talkative in what is often fog.
DISPLAY: How do you see the fact that the Law on Religion and the situation that followed it is commented by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense. Why the Minister of Defense?
GRAHOVAC: And that is one of the indicators that the DPS government does not have a policy, because if it had one, then that same government, embodied primarily through the ministry in charge of human and minority rights and the ministry of justice, would make an effort to make almost everything clear to the majority of citizens regarding that matter and before passing the law. The Montenegrin government ambushes and waits for citizens in the process of passing important decisions and laws. Isn't the fact that the law was passed at night, that the president of the state announced it the next day, that it was published in the official gazette on the eve of the New Year, and that it came into force on the day of the Orthodox Christmas, is not a real surprise. And finally, the law is commented on and defended by the Minister of Defense because, apparently, the citizens should be intimidated by that "great military power".
DISPLAY: What is the current social situation in Montenegro?
GRAHOVAC: Multi-level divisions in the state are fatal. The government ignores what is immanent in the historical duration of Montenegro. For example, the tricolor was a symbol for the liberation and unification of the South Slavic peoples, which was led by the young bourgeoisie and advanced intelligentsia of that time. The French bourgeois revolution, which also had the tricolor as its symbol, was their inspiration. France never rejected that sign, and we... If only the tricolor remained as the national flag next to the official national flag. In the current solutions, there is a mixture of monarchist and republican, which heraldically is not allowed. In one period, this government glorified the role of the Petrović dynasty, while now the regime's "intellectuals" are preparing the media to show all kinds of flaws of that same dynasty. It is as if the establishment of a new one is called for! Social life in Montenegro was destroyed. The clan gathering of powerful people who, in addition to the interest connection, are also connected by family is strikingly noticeable. Marriages today in Montenegro resemble oligarchic-clan ties. But man is still a social being, he has a natural need to socialize. Lithia should not be seen only as one's religious or one's political need. There are both. They should also be seen as a human need to see to be seen. When there is no other way to socialize, then this kind of party comes in handy.
DISPLAY: How do events in Montenegro affect the region?
GRAHOVAC: In the SFRY, Montenegro was everyone's favorite member of the federation. We know what the narrative of the officials who give an assessment of Montenegro today looks like. The real truth is that these same officials in closed or private gatherings express fear of Montenegro, express concern for Montenegro, and some even express contempt for Montenegro. Decades of unchangeable power and crime, as a recognizable export product from Montenegro, are the reasons for such evaluations. The good side in relation to Montenegro are the memories of a large number of living witnesses from the time of the SFRY, and its unique natural beauty. For years, I have qualified DPS as a criminal, criminal and neo-fascist party. It is precisely this party that has recently conspicuously emphasized how it will preserve anti-fascism as a fundamental European value. It is cynical and hypocritical, but in these troubled times, even their fog can sometimes be sold.
DISPLAY: And how does the situation in the region affect us?
GRAHOVAC: Those up-and-coming Montenegrins can't hide their sometimes lower value complex than the Serbs and Belgrade, sometimes their higher value complex over them. No way to balance their identity. This is exactly the real mecca for DPS governance technologists who, according to the party's need, stir up emotions, passions and frustration that Serbia wants to run over us again. Since Serbia is in the process of fascisization of both society and the state, I am sure that there are those in Serbia who do not have good intentions towards Montenegro. But it is forgotten that the state of civic spirit in Serbia is such that no government can mobilize the citizens of Serbia for any nefarious undertaking, because they have learned a lesson from the past. More than once they were abused, deceived, impoverished and disgraced! Wars and conquests in the Balkans are over!
DISPLAY: What about the European path of Montenegro?
GRAHOVAC: If the citizens of Montenegro fight against the two fascisms, those two cancers that are destroying the Montenegrin state and social being, then Montenegro will once again be the favorite of both the region and Europe. The new political subjects should publicly ask the US administration and the RF administration to take all their wards on time. The citizens of Montenegro will forever remember them fondly.
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