The ceremonial closing of the Mimosa Festival is being held tonight in Herceg Novi, and the announced burning of a doll symbolizing the writer and columnist Andrej Nikolaidis caused sharp reactions from some of the public.
Nikolaidis said that he has no problem with the fact that his doll will be burned at the Herzegovinian carnival, adding that it is the cowardice of the organizers who are "burning" him, and not one of the decision makers.
Nikolaidis told TV E that he will not change anything in the way he writes.
“No, I can only be sharper. I react badly to pressure. I'm not a person to be pressured. Whatever bothers you about me, when you press me there will be more of it. And I promise them that," Nikolaidis said.
He said that it is about the carnival and that only an ignorant or vain person has a problem with the carnival.
"I don't have any problem with them burning my doll and I think the carnival festivities work as a kind of catharsis. To put it simply, they will burn me at the carnival so that they don't burn me in real life, and that's good, it's a much better option," Nikolaidis said.
According to him, the problem is that he is not a politician, and his doll will be burned because he is guilty of something to the citizens of Herceg Novi.
"However, since I was never in the place of the decision makers, I was not in a position to do them any harm, even if I wanted to, and I absolutely did not," Nikolaidis added.
He assessed that one can talk about a kind of cowardice on the part of the organizers.
"Who, obviously having a problem choosing one of the politicians, and not wanting to hold a grudge against any of them, chose him who cannot do anything to them, unlike the politicians," said Nikolaidis.
He added that "it is a very bad message for a community when you burn a writer".
"And if there was a rational person among the people who decide something, he would say don't, because we will do more harm to ourselves than the public burning and public humiliation of Nikolaidis will do us any good," Nikolaidis said.
He said that the "worst and most dangerous" thing is that he is an opposition independent journalist.
"It is possible that the message about burning an opposition journalist is even worse than the message about burning a writer. So I think that the people who did it did not do well for Herceg Novi", believes Nikolaidis.
Officials, representatives of parties and non-governmental organizations also spoke.
"According to tradition, on the last night of the festival, the carnival procession passed from the Square under the Clock Tower along Njegoševa Street towards Igalo, where the performance of all the carnival groups will be held, and then the trial of this year's redneck, the culprit for all the misfortunes that the people of Novalja went through during the previous year - Androser Nikolaidesratis," the announcement of the event on the RTHN portal states.
Prime Minister Milojko Spajić said that freedom of speech must be nurtured and protected "even when we don't like an attitude".
The Minister of Culture and Media, Tamara Vujović, says that with masks and carnivals, "the question is always exactly how far the border is".
"The doll has caused a lot of attention and we all know that today is the final day of the carnival festivities when the carneva, i.e. the doll, is usually burned. Indeed, the doll only appeared this morning, that is, the doll is always a surprise until the last day, because it always represents, shall we say, some kind of shock or some surprise in the closest sense. What I can say is that it is always the result of deliberation by local organizations that deal with the organization and ideas around the festival, and that this year they felt that it should be a doll that resembles or bears the name of Andrej Nikolaidis," said Vujović for TVCG.
She said, as Portal RTCG reports, that the question arises whether the suppression of this initiative would be an attack on freedom of expression.
"If we had known or if someone had known who the puppet was before, and if we had banned it, if we had suppressed this initiative, whatever it was, would that have been censorship or something that speaks of the prohibition of freedom of speech or freedom of expression "With masks, and with carnivals, the question is exactly how far the limit is and what the mask can do and how far it can go," concluded Vujović in her statement.
Then she made an official statement.
"My position is clear that freedom of speech and freedom of artistic expression are inviolable, and I believe that we still have to do a lot as a society in order to express dissenting views in all acceptable ways. As the Minister of Culture, it is not clear to me how the creators of the idea were not aware that burning the doll which symbolizes the Montenegrin writer, we can also see it as a symbolic burning of free and critical thought, manuscripts, and books," Vujović stated in the announcement.
He points out that the carnival is part of the customs, while reminding that dolls with the image of the Prime Minister were also burned.
"The negative attitudes of the writer about Herceg Novi are known, which may have been the reason for the writer to become Krnevo. For the carnival and for masks, the question is always how far one can go in satire, criticism and whether 'masks are all allowed' as the customs say" , concluded Vujović.
The vice-president of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), Aleksandra Vuković Kuč, recalled that "Heine warned that where they burn books, they will soon burn people."
"We are familiar with the Nazi burning of books. In Herceg Novi, under the guise of a carnival, they burn the writer Andrej Nikolaidis, who with satire destroys the chauvinism and nationalism of the current creators of public policies in Montenegro, a masquerade from the first rank of the petty bourgeoisie. We would say, terrible! But burning on pyres of the most primitive Mandić and Dodik's 'Serbian world', the circumstance is desirable for the biography of every noble and educated man. Therefore, for Andrej Nikolaidis, this act of unspiritual and unspiritual people should be a fiery incentive for a devastating criticism of the tycoons who are seriously regressing Montenegrin society," Vuković said. Kuch.
The president of the Social Democrats, Damir Šehović, also spoke.
"Andrej Nikolaidis represents everything that they are not, nor will they ever be: shrewdness, depth and freedom of thought. His work remains an unquenchable light in the darkness of ignorance, primitivism and lack of culture, which unfortunately we have been witnessing for some time in 'liberated' Montenegro," wrote is Šehović on the Iks network.
The Center for Civic Education (CEO) stated that "we are witnessing the consequences of wrong policies that cannot bring the much-needed democratic principles and freedoms to Montenegro."
"Today, those policies have their image in the carnival 'burning' of Andrej Nikolaidis, one of the most regionally and internationally awarded writers, because of his critical words towards the new authorities. How many more such images do we need to understand that we are slipping into the society of non-democratic states that do not tolerate or tolerate criticism diversity," they announced on Iks.
The Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS) announced that when they fought for freedom of speech during the previous regime, they had no idea that the time would come to "burn" a writer because they disagreed with his words. "Terrible," said a post on the same social network.
The mayor of Cetinje and SDP official Nikola Đurašković said on Facebook that "the petty bourgeoisie can never burn and silence a word that is valid".
Croatian philosopher, writer and political activist Srećko Horvat said that, "when the greatest Montenegrin writer of today" is burned at the stake, "you know that neither Montenegro - nor the rest of the Balkans - is doing much better." "All support to my dear friend and tireless critic of everything in existence, Andrej Nikolaidis," wrote Horvat on IX.
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