By Andrej Nikolaidis, CdM columnist
A husband and over twenty members of Fata Orlovic’s family from Konjevic Polje near Bratunci were killed.
She and her seven children were exiled.
Municipal authorities seized her property and constructed a church in her yard.
After the war, the municipality was obliged to return her property. But they refused to remove the illegally constructed church on Fata’s land.
Fata sued them and sought justice: to remove the church from her property.
They threatened her, intimidated her, tried to bribe her.
She didn’t want to give up.
Several days ago, authorities in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina were forced to ruin the illegally-built facility in Fata’s courtyard.
After that, MP in the Montenegrin parliament, Marko Milacic, wrote: “We won’t forgive and forget”.
He won’t forgive and forget things to an old woman whose husband and twenty members of the family were killed by his idols.
He won’t forgive and forget an old woman who was exiled from her home by his idols – alone, with seven children – and then seized her house and constructed the church.
He won’t forgive and forget her.
For you, dear readers, dear people, I have several simple questions.
What kind of church is it that is building a place of worship on the land seized from the exiled mother, whose army, blessed by that same church, investigated her family?
What kind of church is it when it has already built a place of worship on her land, did not ask forgiveness from that woman and removed the building herself? What kind of church is that, when it didn’t do the same as the Islamic Community of B&H in Bradina? Namely, a horrible crime was committed against Serbs there. At least fifty Serb civilians were killed and their houses and the church burned. There, in 1994, a mosque was built on the land of a murdered Serb. The Islamic Community stated it was a terrible mortgage for it and ordered the demolition of the mosque. It was ruined in 2008.
What kind of a Montenegrin government is it in which the right ball is a person who doesn’t want to forgive or forget?
What do you think: if Fata lived in Montenegro, would she be able to see, would anyone ever be able to see, the illegally constructed church from her courtyard to be removed?
We all know the answer: she wouldn’t. No one. Ever.
Because, to be frank, things that can be done in Konjevic Polje near Bratunci, that is, near Srebrenica – hey, Srebrenica! – in Montenegro, you see, can’t be done.
The legal standards applied in Fata Orlovic’s yard are unattainable for Montenegro. Which tells us everything we need to know about the state of the rule of law in the equally old as well as the new, “liberated and refreshed” Montenegro. Because Zdravko would not remove the church from Fata’s yard – that’s obvious.
Neither would Milo do it: I guess it’s clear. If there’s somebody who doesn’t understand it – there’s Risto’s church on Mount Rumija.
In Montenegro, in the parliament, Muslims are being accused of abusing the suffering of Bosniaks; they accuse them of seeking condemnation of their own misfortune, while at the same time rejoicing in the misfortune of the Serbs in Croatia. In that same parliament, an MP from the government heats up the myth of the “green crossbar” and the terrorist who resides in every Muslim who pretends to be a peaceful, benevolent neighbor, while at the same time dreaming about the Islamic occupation of Europe.
Therefore, the story of the European right about the alleged “insidiousness” of Muslims is being reproduced these days, and it’s reportedly written in the Qur’an itself.
This thesis is based on a vile, erroneous, retarded reading of verse 106 of sura 16, which says:
“Whosoever disbelieveth in Allah after his belief–save him who is constrained and his heart is at rest with the belief -but whosoever expandeth his breast to infidelity, upon them shall be wrath from Allah, and unto them shall be a torment mighty.”
Although it’s quite clear that the quoted verse depicts a situation in which a Muslim, in order to save his life, is going to renounce Islam, remaining a Muslim in his heart, therefore, an explicit call not to die for the faith, a clear instruction not to be a religious fanatic, this short text in the interpretation of European and, of course, Balkan national socialists, became the “crowning proof”, I hereby quote a Croatian right-wing source:
“that a Muslim, according to the rules of Sharia ideologues, may hide, lie and pretend until the “right time” comes, and then he must do what the Sharia expects of him, whether he participates directly in the “holy war” or helps the Islamic “fighters” with his latent… the Islamic tradition reinforces hypocrisy in order to achieve a” higher “goal. This mentality approved by the Qur’an turns all Muslims into hideouts in such a way that the hoarding of Islamist terrorists becomes the obligation of every supporter of Islam.”
The message is: Muslims can’t be trusted as their religion teaches them to be perfidious.
I don’t know what they mean when they say “perfidious and malicious”? Something like when Montenegro receives you after you run away from war, then you obtain Montenegrin citizenship or become a DPS member and wave the Montenegrin flag every day and night like a crazy standard-bearer. You even come to the badnjaks burning organized by Miras, or you’re a govt official for two decades, or you get a title and a flat or two flats from Milo’s government, and then you decide to display the tricolor instead of the red flag, and take part in religious processions on days and nights, and then you get a position, rank and a flat from the new government as well. After that you start talking that you were suffering under the rule of the DPS, and finally accept the dismantling of Montenegro? Something like that?
So you say: Muslims are malicious and perfidious?
Let me tell you something about Muslims: Thank God for them.
Why, for God’s sake – the chauvinist in you asks?
Here’s why.
Because I think, because I claim, that Montenegro, if twice as many Muslims live in it, would be a more tolerant, progressive and liberal country.
Because the true, absolute Other in Montenegro are neither women, nor gays, nor transgender people, certainly not fat Greeks. No: Muslims are absolutely the Other of Montenegro.
The relation towards Muslims is a key test of tolerance, of a famous “multicultural and civic Montenegro”, its society and culture. In which it’s Muslims who carry the burden that Jews carry in the rest of the world: the alleged “sin of the ancestors”.
And that’s not all: in Montenegro, the relation to Muslms is a key test of our Christianization – no matter whether you’re a believer or you’re like me, a mere cultural Christian.
Because it’s like that, I swear to you: when I heard the news that justice had been reached and the church removed from Fata Orlovic’s yard, I looked up at the sky above Mount Lovcen and saw light, like a child’s soul white clouds, grouped to form the image of Jesus he laughs happily – a phenomenon similar to the one when a snowy face of Djedo (late Metropolitan Amfilohije) was spotted on a tree near Bijelo Polje.
I did, I swear.
