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Interview with Nemanja Batrićević – Hope and pride are alternative

Nemanja Batrićević (Foto: Novak Abramović, Sirius Cetinje)

Key moments from the interview with Nemanja Batrićević – Hope and pride are alternative

Interviewed by: Ljubomir Filipović

Nemanja, an unusual name for a Montenegrin nationalist?

(Laughter!) Yes, a nice name, isn’t it? I must say that it amuses me to hear some people, who believe that nation and ideology are inherited by name, dare to call others nationalists.

Let’s get serious. Despite your brilliant academic biography, specialization at Yale, you became more interesting to the public after the speech at the so-called patriotic gathering, when your impassioned speech provoked a storm of reactions. What intention did you have to achieve with the speech?

First of all to encourage myself and others. The moment required us to rouse from that state of collective confusion and start acting. The coarse celebrations, threats of exile to our citizens in the North, calls for the abolition of Montenegro: it was not time to bow our heads, but to react. I felt that it was important to send the message that there are enough of us who are ready to fight for this country, without any personal interest in it.

It is not true that the younger generation is unworthy of their history, scared and lulled. No, we were not educated to despise our only home. We do dare, just like the generations before us did, to call things by their proper name and to make sacrifices to this end.

That is why the storm blew over. They saw in us the opponents they didn’t hope for and they do not understand. As for the specific words, I should say that they are “pretty old”. What was controversial then, is commonplace now.

Who is the “Ravna Gora scum”?

“Ravna Gora scum” is an ideological, rather than a national determinant. By this I mean everyone who in the 21st century supports the ideology of the chetnik movement, be them Montenegrins or Serbs. It’s the ideology with the radical evil at its epicenter – the idea of ethnic cleansing. This ideology claimed over 15,000 lives of Muslim people during the Second World War and who knows how many more lives of its opponents. Its resurrection in the 1990s is directly responsible for the Srebrenica genocide, and its manifestation in the 21st Century are reflected in threats with new crimes and negation of already committed ones.

You were not publicly present and active until 30 August. Does it mean that you were pleased with the previous government?

I did find the general direction they were heading – renewal of independence, NATO membership. The successes they had made were shattered by obvious nepotism, corruption, and lack of understanding for the justified dissatisfaction of the sovereign electorate.

But, more than anything, I was dissatisfied with the identity and cultural policy of the former government. And I was pointing to that over the last two years in my texts. Although formally on the trail of consolidating national and state identity, the former Government did not do enough in an essential sense. Staffing in the cultural and educational sectors was tragic. The state has literally invested millions of euros in its disappearance.

Some accuse you of dividing people in Montenegro and spreading hatred. They also say that a man who spreads hatred is not supposed to be at the university. How do you look at that?

That is absolutely absurd. To claim that someone’s place is not at the university solely on the basis of political views is a classic fascist manner. They do not dispute my scientific references and competencies. Therefore, based on disagreement with my views, they claim that I spread hatred?!

I have hundreds of students who belong to minority nations. In those days, they would go from our amphitheaters back to the cities where their families were experiencing the torture of the “liberators”. I considered it my human and professional obligation to stand up for them.

Is the new government a big threat to Montenegro and its future and why?

Of course it is. This is the Government of Religious Fundamentalists and as such poses the greatest threat to the future of civic and secular Montenegro. Fundamentalism does not tolerate diversity and they will try to realize their obsession with the ethnically homogeneous Serbian world at any cost…

The idea of the Serbian world, in the Belgrade-Banja Luka-Podgorica triangle, is only in the first phase targeted at Montenegrins, they want us Montenegrins in Montenegro, but they want us as Serbs. Here the path of assimilation is clear: using Orthodoxy to relativize the line of national demarcation. With minorities, however, there is no identity basis on which to assimilate. That is why religious minorities are threatened with exile, and sometimes with something even worse. I am afraid that in the end, however, the heaviest price will be paid by Montenegrin Muslims.

Isn’t that spreading panic?

No, it’s not. I’m just telling you what their ideologues in Belgrade are saying openly.

You said about yourself to be leftist. How come, then, that a leftist is so concerned about identity-related matters?

Simply put, one does not become a right-winger by the mere fact that he cares about the question of national and cultural identity. When it comes to national identity, left and right ideologies differ primarily in the treatment of ethnically Others. Uniformity and hierarchy are truly the ideologies of all right-wingers.

I do not think that the Montenegrin nation is better than others, but only that it is a separate nation. I do not see the value of the idea of an ethnically homogeneous Montenegro, and therefore I am fighting for a multinational and multi-religious Montenegro. For me, the Montenegrin cultural heritage is not equal only to the culture of the national Montenegrins. I equally see Crnojević’s printing house, the Annals of Pop Dukljanin, and the preserved clock towers in Montenegrin cities as my own.

In short, I am not a leftist despite my views regarding the nationality issue, but, on the contrary, because of them.

Is there any room for dialogue with the other party?

Yes, there is. However, for social dialogue to take place, there must be a minimal consensus on the character of the state we live in. Its boundaries, symbols, character? These are questions to which we as a society today do not know the answer. We can ask the Government, but we will not get an answer, except that we need to “reconcile” through assimilation. As long as the governing structure serves the imperial interests of another state, that dialogue will be pointless.

Finally, do you believe in the capacity of the Montenegrin society to defend itself against the challenges posed to it by such a government?

I absolutely do believe. I think we have the capacity to give a broader social response to the challenge before us. Civic Montenegro is the majority of Montenegro. And not only that, I am convinced that Montenegro is intellectually and in the sense of values superior. The sovereignist bloc, however, has been dormant for too long. The parties of the former government actively suppressed all kinds of non-party initiatives. Now we are paying the price of it.

We must be aware that they will take every opportunity to present us as anti-Western radical elements.

Also, no matter how much it corresponds to the current reality, we must not adopt the victim syndrome. If we want to produce action, we have to take into account what emotions we provoke in people.

What is the alternative?
Hope. Pride.

 

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