Good morning! A census campaign has started on networks and streets. Serbian associations, DF and the Electoral Will Defense Viber group are already recruiting enumerators. One of the campaign messages has already failed.
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Who was my granddad?
The population census was postponed for a couple of years due to the fear that inter-ethnic tensions in Montenegro could destabilize the already destabilized political system in the country. Since 2019 and the “magnificent religious processions”, not a few months pass without someone trying to revive the spirit of the movement that overthrew the government on 30 August 2020. The last time, the future duke Nedjo Pekovic, with his Viber group, unsuccessfully tried to do this. But the media sponsorship of Vijesti did not help Nedjo turn 20,000 members of the group into 20,000 participants of the vehicle convoy processions. A few hundred people here and there protested against DF entering government.
People got tired. The Montenegrin protest movement was extinguished two years ago thanks to the independence-supporting bloc of parties. The fact that Montenegrins have not gathered for a long time is the reason for Abazovic to say that Montenegro’s citizens have reconciled. However, the fact that one side of the conflict has calmed down does not mean that Montenegro’s citizens have reconciled.
If we put things in chronological order, the 2019 riots sparked the independence-supporting protest movement in 2020 and 2021. Currently, Montenegrin side is organizing no campaign on the census suggesting how to declare ourselves.
The Serbian side, however, has only intensified the campaign that has been going on for years. It’s a campaign to “strengthen Serbian identity” that is openly sponsored by the Serbian state, and now by parts of the Montenegrin state, that is, the state apparatus. Media such as IN4S and Borba.me, which have lucrative marketing contracts with state-owned companies, continuously publish columns and texts promoting Serbian nationalism and mocking Montenegrin identity, Montenegrin language and symbols. There are billboards saying “it’s not Montenegrin, if it’s not Serbian” and also those with Novak Djokovic and the tricolor flag, saying “be who you are”. They all serve to encourage people to “express themselves freely in the census”.
For a couple of years, the administrators of far-right Facebook meme pages that Vesna Bratic employed in the Ministry of Education have been pushing the “we know who we are” campaign. In it, people are invited to declare themselves as Serbs, and the Montenegrin identity is belittled.
While the mainstream media in Montenegro do not fuel these stories, the Serbian media, even those not controlled by Vucic, are very interested in polarizing topics in our country. On Nova TV, from show to show, from the editor of their printed edition to guests from civil society, one hears how Montenegrins are a fictional nation, and that only those who do not deny that they are Serbs are normal.
A few days ago, the Serbian opposition Nova TV station, which has a frequency in Montenegro, discussed the census. It brought a young right-wing memer from the We Know Who We Are organization to say how Montenegrins as a nation were invented by Milo Djukanovic. They made a mistake by bringing the young scientist Alek Barovic to the show, who told them what served them right. First, he silenced the presenter, who stated that We Know Who We Are was not a marketing campaign but an encouragement campaign. Barovic answered by asking why encouragement was needed if Montenegro was “liberated” on 30 August.
Alek also gave an excellent response to the If You Don’t Know, Ask Your Granddad campaign, which promotes the narrative that once all Montenegrins were Serbs, and that Montenegro is a DPS fabrication. He mentioned the censuses where the generations of our great-grandparents, grandmothers and grandfathers were listed. In those censuses, 80-90% were Montenegrins.
So, we have no choice but to listen to the campaign of Serbian organizations in Montenegro and consult our elders who left a bequest through the censuses from 1948 and 1961. Joke aside, provocations should be avoided. Everyone has the right to write however they want. The best answer during the last census was a billboard with an inscription saying something like “I don’t need a billboard to tell me who I am”.
That’s it for today. See you tomorrow at the same place, at the same time.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(The opinions and views of the authors of the columns are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial staff)
