Patriots Versus Traitors

‘‘I would never tell the people that war had started, and when it had ended, then I'd tell them who had won,'' said a Latin American dictator, explaining why the press should be abolished for the duration of the war, and a strict censorship introduced. In many things inflation, lawlessness, mafia, corruption, missing persons, misery and a general hopelessness, we have reached and even surpassed Latin America. The matter regarding the press differs here from the method recommended by the generalissimos.

They told the people here who had won before the war had even started, and now that it is coming to an end, they have decided to remove all those who could disturb the people and spoil the general joy and euphoria of the winning side. The warlords seem to have decided that their grand national design should end with all the citizens watching only one TV program (the Latin American syndrome) and reading only one daily paper (which would report on the television programs). Writers of aphorisms said recently that this ideal has practically been achieved: empty refrigerators, empty stomachs, empty shops and full television sets.

During the war it all started with the dismissal of nationally and ideologically unfit journalists and threats to those who wouldn't sing along in the national chorus, or agree to pseudo-patriotic phrases. As time went by, threats were made against ‘‘national traitors'' and ‘‘foreign mercenaries'' embodied mostly by the independent media. They escalated some ten days ago when Serbian Information Minister Milivoje Pavlovic summed up the undesirables as the ‘‘fifth column,'' while his zealous associates immediately worked out a thesis on the existence of an ‘‘unpatriotic gene'' among some journalists. This turned out to be the final verbal preparing of the ground for the adopting (under summary proceedings) of amendments to the Law on Information. Under such amendments, the Federal government would have the final say on whether a newspaper, radio station or tv station would be allowed to receive financial aid from abroad. In the meantime, probably following the logic that the final hour had come for a showdown with the ‘‘fifth column,'' someone resolved to start the ball rolling by kidnapping journalists. To the surprise of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) members of the Federal parliament, and in spite of the belief that this was just a routine amendment of the Law on Information, the measure failed. The autistic, hackneyed and ideologically-formulated explanation on the need for amendments did not succeed in convincing even those Radicals who, until recently, were the most passionate supporters of the ‘‘patriots versus traitors'' theory in journalism. Nobody believed the stories that all this was being done in order that ‘‘all those involved in public information should have equal rights.'' The prevailing belief in Parliament was that the approval of such a competency to the Federal government was similar to the giving of the car keys and a bottle of whiskey to a minor. Such stories make as much sense as claims by SPS top official Borisav Jovic ahead of the last elections when he said that the ruling party was being ignored by the majority of the media.

The Socialists were in a minority (but this doesn't mean that they won't try again) in their attempts at effecting speedy changes in the Law on Information, changes which would give the government limitless power in deciding who deserved to get some newsprint, equipment, printing inks, a typewriter or computer, since this has been the type of help received by the independent media from various newspaper foundations so far. This kind of help has never been secret, nor can its quantity be compared to the help received openly, but often secretly, by the media favored by the regime. Someone has likened foreign aid to what the state is offering the citizens these days supplies in exchange for coupons: something that is talked about a lot, but comes in very small quantities. The killing of the independent media and the creating of an idyllic atmosphere in which all the citizens will be ‘‘informed'' via TVS headed by Milorad Vucelic, does not depend so much on curtailing all foreign aid, as on doing away with the ‘‘aid'' offered by the authorities under the mask of an economic policy, something that can be summed up in one word a catastrophe.

It is interesting that during the debate on the amendments in the Assembly, no one tried to offer any counter arguments. No one asked the Minister how much the battle for the ‘‘spreading of the truth'' about Serbia has cost this country so far. A guest from a friendly country talking to Borisav Jovic said, recently, that the battle had definitely been lost and that it was necessary start all over again, this time from a different angle. No one asked how much of the taxpayers money was being used to host various false humanists, intellectuals, international frauds and impostors, mafiosi laundering their money here, quasi-philosophers and other adventurers who have visited Belgrade in the last few months, at the invitation of our `ministries of truth', with the aim of allegedly spreading the truth about us. Finally, no one thought of asking why the various governments and ministers turned a blind eye when billions of dollars were spirited off to Cyprus and other ‘‘safe places.'' They are suddenly concerned when several thousand dollars' worth of cameras, tapes and newsprint have to be imported into the country.