Good morning! The video of Becir Vukoviv stealing a phone in a store vividly showed us what kind of person we’re dealing with. When part of the public protested against giving him the country’s highest state honour—because of his questionable character and the irregular procedure behind the award—the Democratic Front (DF) immediately jumped to say that people were protesting against Becir “only because he’s a Serb.” By constantly insisting that someone is being criticised not because they’re a proven scoundrel but because they’re Serbian, the DF crowd equates primitiveness and dishonour with Serbian identity—doing a favour to no one but the Serbophobes.
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No one has done more damage to the Serbs in Montenegro than the Democratic Front
I’ve written about this phenomenon several times before—when Biljana Vucurovic was defended on the grounds that she was dismissed not for tolerating sexual harassment, but because she’s a “refined Serbian lady”; and just the other day, when a self-proclaimed literary critic, Durutovic, defended Marko Kovacevic from criticism, claiming we criticize him not because he’s an extreme right-wing demagogue, but because he’s a Serb. And now again, with Becir.
What DF/ZBCG—or the SNS branch in Montenegro—is doing is their long-standing strategy: to reduce everything Serbian in the country to themselves, as if they hold the exclusive right to certify someone’s Serbian identity. Remember the pressure from Belgrade on Spajic to “allow Serbs” into the government—when, in reality, it was about keeping DF in the game. As if most PES officials aren’t Serbs, as if Jakov Milatovic isn’t Serbian, as if Aleksa Becic and the entire top leadership of the Democrats aren’t Serbs.
If we allow DF, together with their boss Vucic, to define what it means to be a Serb, then hard days are ahead for Serbs. Because the definition of an “exceptional Serb” that this group promotes is nothing a decent person should be proud of. Despite everything that has happened to me over the past years—the disinformation, the attacks, and the worst displays of vulgarity—the first thing that comes to mind when I think of what it means to be a Serb is not, and will never be, Becir Vukovic or Andrija Mandic. It’s not Pavle Djurisic or the drunken, unkempt, bearded primitives of the Chetnik movement and other fake “Orthodox brotherhoods.”
For me, the first association with being a Serb will always be my relatives and good neighbours, great writers and poets, scientists and artists, intellectuals and revolutionaries, my professors, colleagues, and friends.
Being of Serbian heritage myself on my mother’s side, I often feel the urge to defend Serbian identity and heritage from these “professional Serbs,” who won’t be the first or the last to forget their Serbdom once it stops being profitable—but not before causing irreparable damage.
I feel the urge to defend it, but there’s no one to stand with. It seems many have given up and allowed DF to monopolise the right to define Serbian identity. So now DF presents Becir as part of Montenegro’s Serbian intellectual elite—or Milo Lompar, a man who not only rehabilitates the Chetniks but also seeks to rehabilitate Milan Nedic.
Is there anyone among the many talented and admirable Serbs of Montenegro who will publicly say: “No, Andrija Mandic doesn’t represent me. Neither does Metodije, Becir Vukovic, Pavle Đurišić, Milan Knezevic, or any of those caricatures and insults to what is bright and sacred in the Serbian name.”
That’s all for today and this week. See you again on Monday.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, analyst and CdM columnist
(Columnists’ opinions and views are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial staff)
