Good morning! As long as the Montenegrin public is not educated about the concepts of nation, ethnicity, citizenship, and as long as we wander in the corridors of identity, we will be condemned to constantly return the ethnic to where it does not belong – in the sphere of daily politics.
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Who is a Montenegrin?
I found the inspiration for the title in one of the most complicated ethno-national questions in the world, which is the question of confession, ethnicity and identity, which the Jewish community asks again and again – “Who is a Jew?”.
What is a nation, what is an ethnicity? Where do ethnic borders end and where do national borders begin? Is Montenegro a civil state? Are Montenegrins a nation, is it possible that Montenegro is a nation?
With the answers to these questions, we may be able to untie the most complicated knot of Montenegrin politics, which lies in the fact that ethnicity has completely captured the politics in Montenegro, and that the Montenegrin political scene today is divided dominantly along ethnic lines. Whether we want to admit it or not, all parties in Montenegro today can be categorized according to the dominant ethnic groups whose interests they represent. Bosniaks, Albanians, Serbs, and those that we still call civil by their diminutives, but in essence they are mostly ethnically Montenegrin.
This was mostly contributed by the unclear and nebulous border between ethnic and national, that is, the insistence that national and ethnic are one and the same. While in English nationality and citizenship are synonyms, in our country ethnicity and nation are equivalent terms.
Ethnicity and nationality are largely objective categories, while national identity is a more or less subjective category. Ethnicity is inherited through the family, whether we are born or adopted into the family. We inherit it from our parents, in language, customs, and ultimately in our first and last name. One person’s ethnicity can be divided, or rather multiple. If our parents or grandparents are members of different ethnic groups, we can feel belonging to two or more ethnic communities. The case with nationality is a little different, because in countries that build identity according to the civil principle, it can be proven by documents – i.e. you prove your nationality with your passport. That’s why today, when you go to the Wikipedia page of Taksin Shinawatra, or the recently awarded crypto-millionaire Vitalik Butarina with a Montenegrin passport, you will see that under their nationality it is written that they are also Montenegrins.
Montenegro has autochthonous ethnic communities, of which the Albanians, who are the cultural and linguistic heirs of the Illyrians, have been present here for the longest period of time, and then the Slavic ethnic groups – Montenegrins, Serbs, Bosniaks, Muslims and Croats. People must understand that ethnic communities are not determined by “blood and soil”, that is, that even in ethnicity we are not defined by hardware but by software – the feeling of belonging to a certain community through language, culture and customs. That is why I deliberately say that Albanians are the cultural and linguistic heirs of the Illyrians, because “genetically” Illyrians are also present among ethnic Montenegrins, Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. And because among the Albanians, there are surely genetic descendants of former Slavs, Greeks, Vlachs.
And it’s nice to deal with it, who is interested in it. Take ethnographic and historical books and read. We can talk and talk about it until tomorrow, but it should not be a means of political mobilization.
Bulgaria is an extreme example of normative action in this field, because ethnic parties there are not allowed by the constitution. Article 11 of the Bulgarian Constitution says “Political parties may not be founded along ethnic, racial and religious lines, nor parties seeking a violent takeover of power”. This controversial article of the Constitution was under the scrutiny of the European Court of Human Rights, and it is not even practically effective, because there are parties that bring together ethnic communities like the opposition DPS, a party that brings together members of Turkish ethnic minorities.
This would be a very controversial issue in Montenegro, and it is not recommended, because it would ban the New Serbian Democracy, Bosniak Party, HGI, and all Albanian parties, and that would be, as Rasko Konjevic says, a “flagrant” violation of human and minority rights.
What to do then, how to fight against the ethnic cartelization of Montenegro, that is, turning Montenegro into Bosnia? Are we late?
Some people will say that we should build an inclusive state identity based on the Montenegrin constitution and statehood. Replace Cetinje’s Montenegro with Podgorica’s Montenegro. Set broad boundaries of identity that everyone will be comfortable with.
There are several problems with this. The first concerns the national, as we have defined it in this text, and deals with symbols. Shall we have this flag or that flag? A tricolor flag, or a coat of arms without a cross? Anthem with or without “Sekula’s stanzas”. This issue is marginal and not serious. There is a consensus relating to the symbol, and it is questioned only by extreme Serbian nationalists from the Democratic Front.
The second problem is much bigger, because it encroaches on the ethnic, and through the demands for the flexibility of the Montenegrin ethnic identity, it actually seeks its negation in favor of consensus and “Orthodox reconciliation”. This is a big trap that many so-called neutral and civil thinkers fall into. They seek uniformity and the rejection of a special Montenegrin identity, which does not include the Serbian identity.
Under the guise of defense and concern for Montenegro and its community, they are afraid of Katunska district desendants who would impose their ethno-national myth on the rest of Montenegro. And not only are they afraid, but they also want us to be forbidden to fight for our special identity, which we have inherited or adopted. This is a perfidious attempt to establish, under the guise of concern for the common good, Serbian ethnic identity as the exclusive objective identity of Montenegrins.
In July, I wrote about the resolution of the conflict between Montenegrins and Serbs in Montenegro, which could very easily end with mutual recognition and giving up ethnic proselytism. Simply put, by giving up convincing Montenegrins that they are Serbs, and Serbs that they are Montenegrins. Both have formed their own identity. Science says that the members of one ethnic group in Montenegro were divided over this, their attitude towards the statehood of Montenegro, and that daily politics deepened and defined it.
In politics, this is remedied by creating true civil political parties. Which do not go for a blessing for the establishment either in the Montenegrin Orthodox Church (CPC) or the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), or the Islamic Community of Montenegro, the archbishops or bishops. But whose leaders can go privately wherever and however they want. There are many parties that are on track to become that. DPS, SDP, SD can do that. Some parties founded by young pro-Serbian leaders can also do that. If only they would get off the SPC trough.
Civic parties should also be open to Albanians who address their electorate in the parliament in Albanian and fight for the rights of their electorate, for example. So civil does not mean assimilation and monolithic “now we are all Montenegrins with the same national costumes and moustaches”, but mosaic in which there is room for all of us, whether we are ethnically Montenegrins, Serbs, Albanians, Croats, Bosniaks, Muslims, Jews, Ukrainians, Russians and Greeks like Nikolaidis.
A thousand characters isn’t enough for this issue. This text does not close the issue, but opens up questions. It is polemical in nature. By pushing identity issues under the carpet, we do not solve them. We are only postponing the conflict that is inevitable if we do not seriously address the issues of the cohesion of our community and if we do not discuss them first.
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst
