By Andrej Nikolaidis, CdM columnist
Vucic’s pathetic propaganda brain-fart about Montenegro wraps up with the words: we are coming back to reclaim what is ours.
They will come back just as they came back to Kosovo and Knin. That is the way of the world: even victories lead to defeat. And a defeat that is lied about as a victory is no less of a defeat than one accepted with humility. Hubris only accelerates ruin and makes it more obvious. No matter how grand—everything will fall. What little considers itself big falls even faster: it is closer to the ground. But that’s how it goes: nobody ever won, except in dreams.
Not only will they not come back, but since entering Montenegro will mean entering the EU, they will be subjected to additional border delays, biometric screening, and detailed tracking of their entry counts and duration of stay. The exact same way they enter Croatia or Germany is how they will enter Montenegro. Those who work here will face stricter and more convoluted procedures than they are used to, because the EU has rigid policies toward migrants—including those from Belgrade and Banja Luka who migrate as cheap labour to work in Montenegro. Those who own real estate here will be paying more for it than ever before.
Both Knezevic and Mandic know this perfectly well when they go to Banja Luka and Belgrade to preach about how no one is dearer to them and how Europeans will never be closer to them than their own kin. We’re going to strip-search you at the border, but we love you the most. Love, as should be well known, takes many—often bizarre—shapes.
Ah, it looked different at first… But internal Montenegrin resistance and wise EU policies did their part. Today, the children of 30 August are celebrating 21 May.
The red lines have been drawn, and Vucic didn’t dare cross them. All that remains is barking, which has no power to stop anything. Nor comfort anyone.
Here is my thesis for today: history from 1989 onward teaches us that while it is possible to take power in Montenegro on the ideology of Greater Serbian nationalism, you can only maintain it on a platform of Montenegrin patriotism. Both the previous regime and this current government rode into power on Greater Serbian might. And both tried to exploit Montenegrin patriotism for their own consolidation.
What Vucic and the Belgrade deep state are projecting toward Montenegro is a sign of immense weakness.
Zizek has a joke that perfectly explains Vucic’s little movies and gibberish about Montenegro in this context.
A husband and wife are walking down a village road. A highwayman intercepts them. He threatens to kill the husband if he tries anything while he rapes his wife. The husband obeys and silently watches the bandit on top of his wife. Then, to humiliate the husband even further, the bandit forces him to hold his balls while he rapes the wife, so they don’t touch the dusty road.
The bandit finishes up and leaves. The wife lies there in tears. The husband is smirking with smug, triumphant satisfaction. Furious, the wife asks him: “What are you laughing at? What on earth are you proud of?” And the husband replies: “While he was raping you, I pulled my hand away a few times and he didn’t even notice: he left with dusty balls.”
Somnambulist fairy tales about a country entering the EU while they are, supposedly, “coming back to reclaim what is theirs”; the delusions of a Balkan tragicomic wannabe-empire about a “colony” that is lightyears more developed than the “motherland”—all of it is identical to the strategy of turning defeat into victory and finding pride in absolute humiliation, chosen by the husband in this joke.
We are off to the EU. We are returning to our own.
Truth be told, credit where credit is due: we are heading to a place where people live with dusty balls.
(Columnists’ opinions and views do not necessarily reflect the views of the CdM editorial board)
