We have smuggled ourselves out of the nineties, we have not learned anything essential. That is why those years come back so easily. In the last half century, we have had two major mobilizations of Serbism in Montenegro, said writer and columnist Balša Brković in an interview for "Monitor".
"Both are connected to Đukanović. He politically led one of those two mobilizations, the one from 1989, the so-called AB Revolution, and he provoked the other (the Litijaški movement) with his political stupidity and poor judgment," Brković said.
Monitor: In an interview you recalled Vargas Llosa's words that in Latin America a writer cannot just be a writer and stated that in the Balkans you cannot just be a writer, you have to see certain things. What worries you the most about what you see in Montenegro today?
Brković: These are the paradoxes that the so-called interesting times bring you. And the question of morality that modernity has posed in a simple way: whether, as an artist, you should be an entertainer for some ridiculous elite, or leave a clear and accurate testimony about your time.
What is particularly worrying is the lack of responsibility. You have a whole new class that has been taught to mock the very idea of responsibility. And they can. They ignore court decisions, European recommendations, good manners, elementary education – nothing is and cannot be safe with such awareness.
Monitor: In your last column, you wrote that there are too many bizarre things, even for a country much larger than Montenegro. Why are we so full of bizarre things?
Brković: Because we have bad government. One bad government was succeeded by another bad government. Bad government as fate.
It is bizarre when a political elite cannot hide its fundamental hatred towards Montenegro. It is hard to believe in their good intentions when you see all this. It is also bizarre when you have a so-called intellectual elite that is killing itself to tie a national idea and an emancipatory movement that emerged from that idea to a single party and a single leader. Those Montenegrin intellectuals who agreed to such deception – not only participated in a huge forgery, but also showed that serving the party and the leader is more important to them than the Montenegro they swear by. But only a naive person would believe our oaths...
I have never understood the need to turn Đukanović into a symbol of Montenegrinity. Such identifications are dangerous. When a politician for whom, I believe, his own greed and enrichment were incomparably more important than Montenegro, becomes a measure, then you get a cult of personality instead of emancipation. And a political fraud of unprecedented proportions. Those who were Montenegrins, nationally and politically even before the "master's" conversion must remember how passionately and devotedly he persecuted them. So I have always seen his Montenegrinity above all as a calculation and not an act of political enlightenment... Today's young people have a hard time understanding all this, because they are given the image that everything Montenegrin begins with him.
All these bizarre things speak eloquently about the human and intellectual material that makes up and leads today's Montenegro.
Monitor: You also reminded us that one "small" piece of news carries much more weight than the listed items – the news from Nikšić about the forensic identification of the murdered Klapuh family. Why is this "small news" to this society three decades later?
Brković: The case of the murdered Klapuh family is one of the most horrifying and monstrous war stories from the "time of evil". I would place such a story in all textbooks and reading books - so that all generations of future Montenegrin citizens would remember well such a story about the suffering of a family. Instead of occasional lies, this story would scream the truth about us and a time. To be precise - there are certainly stories like this on all sides. Remember the story of the Zagreb (Serbian) Zec family. That story has been told there, in Zagreb, by Croatian writers, theater directors and artists several times. We simply must not allow stories about hellish suffering to be forgotten. Whoever the actors are, I say. But, so as not to get lost in excessive generalization - the story of the Klapuh family is one of the stories about us. The fact that the state of Serbia has not brought to justice the ordinary criminals behind this triple murder is particularly disturbing. And the president there, a caricature of a president, to be more precise, likes to give lessons in patriotism and morality. And what else is patriotism and morality than the belief that criminals must be held accountable. If the Serbian state hides them, it assumes their terrible authorship. So with such gestures, Vučić is deeply deceiving Serbia. All those farts that are being tried to be made into a worldview, an ideology in the Balkans, fall before the story of the Klapuh family. That triple spirit will stand over this society for a long time to come and remind us who we were and where we were… And it is good that it is so.
Monitor: You also state that numerous recent events show that "a similar awareness could easily be mobilized again," and that some are particularly at the forefront of this, such as Pljevlja Mayor Dario Vraneš, who recently insulted CIN CG Director Milka Tadić Mijović in the most mundane way.
Brković: We smuggled ourselves out of the nineties, we learned nothing of fundamental importance. That's why those years come back so easily. In the last half century, we have had two major mobilizations of Serbism in Montenegro. Both are connected to Đukanović. He politically led one of those two mobilizations, the one from 1989, the so-called AB revolution, and he provoked the other (the Litijaški movement) with his political stupidity and poor judgment. That's why it seems funny when, mainly from his media spies, the blame is projected onto others, often to addresses outside of politics. And when the genie is let out of the bottle, clever stories or accurate insights are in vain. On the other hand, it is sad how much the current mobilization seems like a mere rewriting of the lessons of the nineties. The consciousness that was defeated then cannot ultimately be any different today, but it can continue to torment this society for a long time. And that is never good. Instead of spending your energy on important and serious things, you have to deal with ghosts of the past forever.
Monitor: How are crows doing to us?
Brković: It seems that Montenegro has no one to defend it, at least not in the current political government. That's why Vranes can play such a tough and corrupt game. Remember Ček Dačević from the nineties? This is their Ček for the new era. But, truth be told, that government found a way to pacify Ček...
Vranesh is a caricature, but that doesn't diminish his sinister nature.
He plays like this because he sees that there is no one to oppose him politically. The so-called civic forces in this government are too calculating. They avoid dealing with serious matters – and that is why they are willing hostages of Mandić and his cronies… In a certain sense, they have been fraudsters from the beginning, from those false numbers for salaries and raises, to the Europeanism with a flaw…
Monitor: How do you view historical revisionism, which has become increasingly heated, with the ubiquitous promotion of Chetnik ideology? The top leadership of the Serbian Orthodox Church and a good part of the government claim that the Chetniks were anti-fascists, for example.
Brković: You could also claim that they were hippies or Formula One drivers, it would be equally true… That “Chetnik anti-fascism” certainly didn’t happen during the war itself – back then they were loyal servants of the occupiers, that was what worked best for them – it’s happening today, to us. It points to a world that has lost touch with truth and justice. Such concepts are perceived as ornaments from another time, as outdated categories. And when truth is no longer important, when it is not binding, then anything is possible – even if they were hippies (Draža wore Lennon shoes, as we remember) or Formula One drivers, why not?
Monitor: At the same time, as we are, we are one step away from Europe. So what about Europe?
Brković: As things stand right now, one could say that Europe is one step away from us, from the Balkans in the worst light... That's why it seems like we're close.
Montenegrin culture has too many commissars
Monitor: This year marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of your first book, Horses Eat Peaches. After four decades of fruitful creativity, unlike many, you do not have a national pension or the Thirteenth of July Award. Is the problem with you or with the authorities, past and present?
Brković: First of all, I must say that this information seems completely unreal to me – that forty years have passed since the publication of my first book. What is even more fascinating is how many historical events have happened in those four decades. In many ways, that mid-1990s in the SFRY was a different time than today, and I even think that today's young people would be surprised in many ways by that time. But what I remember for sure: it was not as easy to publish a book as it is today. My book "Horses Eat Peaches" was selected in the competition of the Serbian Literary Youth (KOS) for the famous edition of the first books "Pegasus". In 1985, 180 manuscripts from all over Yugoslavia were submitted to the competition, and only five were selected. The books published were those of a writer from Zagreb (Z. Bužek), from Belgrade (S. Ugričić), from Priština (D. Bojović), the critic Dobrivoje Stanojević, and my book, the book of a nineteen-year-old. It was a serious country, especially when it came to seriousness in culture...
I even have the impression that back then, even though it was a time of one-party rule, in some matters that government showed more feeling and good manners than their multi-party successors. This also applies to the attitude towards awards and rewards. Here, a few years ago, an influential member of the jury promised that a traitor could not be rewarded... I believe that this is a sentence that automatically disqualifies me among such national experts.
It's simple with me: those in the past were bothered by the fact that I was a "traitor", and the current ones will not reward me precisely because I did not become a traitor. There is no way to please politicians. Admittedly, I don't really try hard... In my universe, it is unthinkable for a writer to court politicians and politics. But I see that in many personal universes it works differently.
Montenegrin culture has too many commissioners and too few real creators. That is always fatal for a culture. I have been friends with some of those commissioners for decades. And I know them well. I have the impression that they cannot forgive me for that. But, let's face it: it's better this way...
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