Good morning! Vidovdan is a feeble attempt to overshadow the magnificent celebration of 21 May. We’ll probably see an even weaker attempt in September during Vucic’s Flag Day, and perhaps before that on the worn-out, washed-up 30 August anniversary. The effort to revive the energy of the religious processions movement now feels like a farce and a pale imitation of what it once was.
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The March on Kosovo
Vidovdan is just another trigger. Serbian nationalism never takes a break. From Christmas, to the Epiphany cross-swimming tradition, then Saint Sava Day and Saint Basil’s Day, through Vidovdan, 30 August, Vucic’s Flag Day, and back again, no opportunity is missed for mass gatherings and nationalist celebrations centred around the Serbian tricolour flag.
But as time passes, this narrative is fading. The Serbian tricolour has become synonymous with Vladislav Dajkovic, while Danica Crnogorcevic is now even more cringe-worthy than she has ever been. The whole spectacle increasingly resembles that woman from Herzegovina who, dressed in a tricolour dress with a Chetnik cockade on her head, recites verses praising Putin, seemingly unaware that both the rhetoric and the aesthetics would probably unsettle even the most extreme Russian nationalist.
Many Serbs in Montenegro want nothing to do with this story and refuse to become caricatures in Aleksandar Vucic’s political cartoon, where his remaining loyalists in Montenegro are Dajko and Pipun.
Vucic, however, still has Vranes and Marko Kovacevic, who rushed off to Kosovo much like Dragan J. Vucicevic did to Montenegro. But Kosovo, acting as a serious state, refused them entry, presumably because it believed they intended to stage a provocation alongside those who were detained.
The idea is to provoke the Kosovo police into using force against them and then present the incident as a political issue in Montenegro, thereby destabilising the country by damaging relations with its neighbours. Isolating Montenegro from its regional partners and allies would represent a major success for Vucic’s policy of sabotage.
The same approach has already been used against Croatia and is now being directed at Kosovo. These are old, well-tested strategies.
But all of this is ultimately futile. Montenegro, together with all of its citizens, is steadily moving towards European Union membership. Yesterday brought several more encouraging messages from Brussels. The country should remain patient and avoid responding to provocations, which are likely to become more frequent as accession draws closer.
For that reason, it is essential to maintain regular communication with regional partners and minimise the risk of provocations through close coordination among well-intentioned political actors, whether they are in government or in opposition.
Provocations should simply be ignored. If Montenegrin citizens cause trouble in Kosovo, the Kosovo police should escort them to the border and ban them from re-entering, but should not use violence against them. This is important both because they are Montenegrin citizens and because those seeking to destabilise the region want to turn provocateurs into victims.
That’s all for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(Columnists’ opinions and views do not necessarily reflect the views of the CdM editorial staff)
