Good morning! Yesterday, two studies were published by two renowned and mutually unrelated organizations. The conclusions are similar – the West is slowly but surely losing the battle for the souls of Montenegrins/citizens of Montenegro.
Don’t forget to join our famous Viber community where we share information in real time and answer your questions directly. Look for us on this app.
Anti-Western Montenegro
What foreigners cannot grasp when it comes to Montenegro is that the majority Orthodox population of Montenegro is one ento-religious group (still) despite the identity-ideological differences, which at some point in the future will probably give rise to two distinct ethnic communities. For now, these are, in most cases, people who differ politically, but still share the same customs, holidays and attend the same rituals and gatherings. They have close family ties above all. Someone in that group thinks we are all Montenegrins, someone thinks we are all Serbs, but it is still one and the same group.
Why is this important to emphasize? Because members of the same group are equally exposed to influences, especially organized influences aimed at changing people’s thinking and actions. This was talked about a lot when Cambridge analysis was popular, at the time when the main topic of the world media was the targeting of groups of people and individuals through digital marketing techniques, all with the aim of changing political action, creating sharp polarizations in society, and ultimately destabilizing politics and social conditions in a certain country.
Montenegro is a paradise for political scientists and political anthropologists. Rather isolated and under-capacitated to communicate politically with the outside world, it offers almost laboratory conditions for field research. Montenegro is isolated and impenetrable from the inside, while external influences freely penetrate inside and influence our political processes.
Some academics and scientists like Olivera Komar have been warning about the dangers of changes in the social fabric of Montenegro for years. To the sharp turn to conservatism, which began a long time ago, and which saw its culmination during the magnificent religious processions. At the same time, conservatism in itself is not a bad phenomenon, but in Montenegro it did not have the opportunity to experience the democratic evolution that it had in the West. In Montenegro, it is still raw, patriarchal and authoritarian, like everything else in Montenegro in general.
Three years after the removal of the long-term government of the dominant party and the wandering of the entities of the new political majority, the formation of the new government consolidates the above-mentioned winning ideology while the “prophecies” that the “liberal” URA will be used and excluded from power after playing its role come true. These prophecies did not come from nowhere, they are the result of studying historical experience and recognizing the regularity of patterns of political processes.
And here are the results. Here is the empirical evidence to confirm the hypotheses and diagnoses that some have been making and warning about for a long time. Two surveys, by CEDEM and CGO, indicate the growth of nationalism, exclusivity, ethnic distance, as well as changes in thinking about foreign policy. CEDEM’s survey is presented in a slightly more sensationalist manner and indicates a rise in support for Russia, and a decline in support for the US and the West in general. CGO’s questions and methodology are set differently, the survey results are more conservative, i.e., more reduced, but they lead to the same conclusion – Montenegro is changing.
I repeat, all this did not fall from the sky. The strategic takeover of the education system by the Serbian clerical and nationalist structures three years ago, the takeover of our complete media scene – sooner or later had to result in a complete sinking into the Serbian World. And in that Serbian World, everyone hates America and the West, loves Russia and Putin, Chetniks and partisans are the same, and independent Montenegro is an unwanted necessity, which can still be used for some needs. For example, the shelling of Dubrovnik in 1991.
That’s it for today and this week. We wish you a pleasant weekend. See you again on Monday.
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)
