The article is written by Andrej Nikolaidis, CdM columnist.
Krivokapic’s cabinet, the Ministries of Health, Foreign Affairs, Capital Investments, Interior, Agriculture, and the chief negotiator with the EU, the Clinical Center of Montenegro, Public Health Institute… have persistently and consistently been failing to answer CdM’s questions. The Ministry of Education answered our question – once.
Why is Krivokapic’s government rhetorically committed to media freedom, but in practice it carries out stigmatization and sabotage of the critical media?
In sentences that contain “but”, you can cross out the words spoken before that conjunction. Such a sentence conveys what follows after “but”. The second part of the sentence refutes the first.
For example… The sentence “Of course we condemn the genocide in Srebrenica, but we cannot allow the politicization of that terrible event, and that it is used as an argument against the Serb Republic”, actually means this: “F*** you and your genocide”. Or this: “What happened in Srebrenica is terrible, but the broader historical context should be taken into account”. Which means: “In Srebrenica, you got what you deserved”. I think we understand each other, without “buts”.
In what Zdravko Krivokapic, his government and the parliamentary majority are saying, you can cross out everything except what was said about the Serbian Orthodox Church and Montenegro as a Serbian state – Everything said about European integration, commitment to the transatlantic alliance, democracy, depoliticization, media freedom, economic and health measures, green energy, the fight against corruption, transparency… all this serves only as a means of mimicry, as a means of buying time for this Government to do what it is enthroned for: to reinforce and concrete Montenegro as part of the “Serbian World”.
And that’s all.
That job is, after all, complete – only the concrete has not hardened yet. The contractor thinks that it will harden by 4 September: on that date, in Cetinje, they should prove how they can jump on that concrete as much as they want and thus prove that there is no more force in Montenegro – and that that force is particularly not the ones under the slab, the ones on whose heads they jump – which could cause a crack in the concrete, let alone collapse.
Denial is the worst strategy: whatever it is, you should look it straight in the eye. Even when you have lost everything, you are left with dignity and defiance – the only thing a man has ever had, to speak frankly. By denying, you take that away from yourself.
In one day – Parliament Speaker congratulates the sports success of the national team of another country and the PM attends a ceremony organized by the church of another country, held in a third country. The festivities, by the way, are dedicated to priests who died without succeeding in destroying the PM’s state, for which, after all, the PM wants the same thing they wanted. What is that? The Serbian Wworld in vivo, my dear ones.
Therefore, when Krivokapic’s government and the institutions of the “new Montenegro” systematically, extremely undemocratically, non-transparently and discriminatory, refuse to answer CdM’s questions, they do not show inconsistency in their agenda. No, because their agenda contains nothing democratic, nothing transparent, nothing non-discriminatory. On the contrary: they show full consistency, because their agenda is undemocratic, non-transparent (mimicry, let’s be precise) and discriminatory.
The ruling majority refuses to answer CdM’s questions because it does not treat it as a free, opposition-minded medium (which CdM is), but as an enemy (which CdM is not). The fact that this is the most read portal in Montenegro does not make the Government feel responsible to the public, citizens-readers and the institution of critical media. On the contrary: it means that it is a medium that needs to be sabotaged and, God willing, destroyed.
The rhetoric nurtured by Becic, Abazovic, Krivokapic and the army of national workers below them, according to the critical media, leaves no room for doubt. For them, critical journalists and public intellectuals are “mercenaries”, “part of the octopus” and “criminal structures”. The government strategically and consistently criminalizes critical thinking. The only thing that protects the critical media from open persecution is the government’s dependence on foreign embassies. At this stage of government action, open media persecution is not good for founding the Serbian World. Persecution follows as soon as circumstances permit.
Until then, CdM’s work needs to be made more difficult in every way. For example, by an organized refusal to answer the questions of the journalists of that media.
The government simply believes that the CdM is not a medium of what PM Krivokapic calls “my people”. CdM does not have “its people”, but its readers. It does not have “its faith”, but professional standards. That does not concern Krivokapic. Doubt is his enemy. Suspicion is, unfortunately, the mother of journalism.
This man, after all, does not try to create the illusion that he is the Prime Minister of all citizens. He is the Prime Minister of his people and, above all, of his church. Those who are not his people will, if they have not already, be fired, and members of Zdravko’s people will be brought in their place. This is, euphemistically, called “employment at managerial positions” and “depoliticization of institutions”. This is, precisely, called ethnic cleansing.
Zdravko’s non-people, for now, may have their own media, but Zdravko’s government will be hostile to them. Zdravko’s non-people, whom he describes as “those who have been bothered by something all their lives”, may protest as much as they want, but the state will forcibly enable the symbolic conquest of Montenegro in Cetinje – because, says the Prime Minister, it’s his people’s will.
The active hindrance of CdM’s work implemented by the government is the policy of media segregation. It is part of a broader strategy of political, religious and national segregation that is the agenda of Krivokapic’s government. Anyone who claims not to see a link between the government’s decision to treat CdM as a non-medium and the secret police’s decision to abuse citizens of one nationality in order to prevent their legally guaranteed right to protest, i.e. to treat them as non-citizens, doesn’t see it not because it is not obvious, but because they refuse to see it. Because they refuse to see their own illusions, lies and misjudgments.
There is a name for the order that Krivokapic has established in Montenegro.
No, it is not democracy. No, it’s not that even with the royal dose of sarcasm.
The word we are looking for is: apartheid.
