Good morning! If we were Belarus or Ukraine, and if Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church were doing to us what Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) are doing to us, maybe somewhere in the world the lights would turn on. What I am writing is not sensationalism or alarmism. Serbia and the SPC openly and daily advocate the erasure of the Montenegrin identity. Montenegrins in Serbia have been brought to the level of a statistical error by pressure in thirty years. The same fate awaits us here. Just let this last, and let Serbia start monetizing its lithium reserves. They lived and saw.
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Montenegrin Ethnocide 2
Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote about this topic. You can read the text with the same title here:
Ethnocide is different from genocide because it does not seek to exterminate and cleanse a territory of the “biological” presence of a group in a territory. Montenegrins were never the target of genocidal intentions from Belgrade. They are more treated as misguided sons of the same nation, who simply need to be ideologically and nationally re-educated. This re-education, which aims to erase the special non-Serbian identity of Montenegrins, falls under the definition of ethnocide. Ethnocide aims to change the identity of an ethnic and national community.
Many people have seen this throughout history, and Montenegro is not the only example. This topic has currently remained hot only among the Slavic peoples in Europe, especially those who belong to the Orthodox civilization circle. Why Orthodox? Because ethnic Orthodox churches have significantly contributed to the primordial understanding of nations, placing ethnicity in the place of divinity instead of Christ.
So, you will find the same nationalist narratives that Serbian nationalist circles spread about Montenegrins, among Bulgarian nationalist circles when they speak about Macedonians, and among Russian ethno-nationalists when they speak about Belarusians and Ukrainians.
Montenegrins, who do not feel a connection with the Serbian identity, are a foreign body in the idea of a Greater Serbian state, and as such, represent the main obstacle to carrying out the age-old aspiration of Greater Serbian nationalists for the unification of what they consider “Serbian Lands” in the Balkans.
With the coming of Vucic to power and the consolidation of his autocracy, this idea has become potent again, and with the development of a favourable geopolitical situation, it can very quickly become very realistic to achieve.
Montenegrins are a small nation. Only 300,000 people on the planet identify themselves as Montenegrins nationally and ethnically. When you take language as a criterion, then that number is even lower. From that position, we can consider ourselves lucky and grateful to our ancestors that today we have a sovereign state at all.
What is happening in front of our eyes and what many relativize is the fact that the Montenegrin identity is disappearing. Look at how much the number of Montenegrins in the region has decreased in the last thirty years. Then look at how much the number of Montenegrins has decreased in Montenegro itself. Those people left, but most of them changed their identity under the influence of propaganda and under pressure. They changed it from Montenegrin to Serbian identity. The last census shows it almost surgically precisely. The number of Montenegrins decreased by 4%, by almost exactly the same amount as the number of Serbs in Montenegro increased.
If it were not for membership in NATO and the presence of the EU as a factor, there would be no Montenegro as an independent state. Be convinced of it. Firstly, due to pressure from Serbia and the SPC, and secondly due to corrupt elites within Montenegro, who do not care or understand the importance of creating cultural and national institutions.
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(The opinions and views of the authors of the columns are not necessarily those of CdM)
