Good morning! This is not an ethnic labeling of the new government constituents, but a dangerous perceptual framework served by dark ideologues and unknowingly consumed by the naive. Both when they support it and when they criticize it.
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Serbian and Albanian coalition
I don’t know if you have noticed the sudden outpourings of Albano-philia among Serbian fringe nationalists in the last two years. Fringe is the ultimate limit, the margin. When talking about ideologies, this term is used to describe an individual or group of people who espouse ideas and attitudes that are not widely accepted within that same ideology or group. Sometimes because these ideas and attitudes are too extreme, and sometimes because they are simply stupid or foolish.
In Serbia and Montenegro, with the explosion of YouTube channels, vlogs and video podcasts, a whole collection of such people and organizations have come to light: Miroljub Petrovic, Aleksandar Rakovic, Jovanka Jolic, Pavle Bihalji and leviathans Dr. Jovana, Dr. Nestorovic, Dr. Danica and many others. Along with them, popular figures like Vlado Georgiev were encouraged and started to express their crazy thoughts about politics and the world around them.
Some time passed and many of them received so much support from the public that SNS decided to exploit that popularity. During the pandemic, Doctor Nestorovic became the official spokesperson of the Serbian government, Doctor Danica became the Minister of Health after that, and Miroljub Petrovic is now being seriously talked about as a candidate for ambassador to Israel. Historian Aleksandar Rakovic became a frequent guest of RTS, where he comments on political reality, and he experienced global fame, recently visiting the Valdai discussion club, where he exchanged a few words with “God” personally. He also ended up on the official page of the Russian president.
Let’s go back to the explosion of Albano-philia. Suddenly, the Albanian flag, which for years was a symbol of evil in those circles, became a trend. Marko Milacic toasted with the late Metropolitan using glasses with the Albanian coat of arms, Miroljub Petrovic in his podcast studio behind him holds the Serbian flag as well as the Albanian flag and the above-mentioned ideologue of the latest Serbian revival, Mr. Rakovic, was the first to “strategically” articulate the newfound love for Albanians, advocating the thesis of the reconciliation of Serbs and Albanians through the final territorial demarcation. The ethnic one – in Kosovo and Montenegro. This is the same Rakovic who said that Montenegrin ethnicity is an enemy of Serbia in itself and that the separatists should be dealt with physically.
The problem is that fringe ideologies globally are less and less fringe, and more and more a threat to national and global security. Authoritarian regimes enjoy the appearance of such misinformers, and it’s as if they are auditioning the worst and choosing the most horrible ones to give them the most visible platform to spread their ideology.
Montenegro has become a playground where these types strongly influence politics and political processes. We should not go further than the fact that our government was formed by a Viber group led by criminals and thugs.
And now, just when a government cleansed of all civil-state features was formed, two Albanian coalitions enter it. Even though we heard from Abazovic from Tirana that that government is bad, even though we heard warnings from America that that government is bad, Gjeloshaj, Gjeka and Nimanbegu agreed to participate in it. Together with Filip Ivanovic as head of diplomacy. Imagine a man with such a dark ideology and deep contempt for modernity at the head of Montenegrin foreign affairs. The man who deviates from his anti-Western attitude only when the West means the restoration of the l’ancien regime.
The Open Balkans is dead. Long live the Open Balkans – in some new iteration and some new form. Let’s wait and see in which.
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 the CdM editorial staff)
