Milosevic's Hybrids

These days, after a rather long period of time, I have the impression that a slight lull has prevailed over Serbia. The regime is counting its wounds and losses, the opposition is contemplating how to carry on, and the students will have to conclude their protest, yet they don't want to go back to their classrooms. After making history for months, it is definitely difficult for them to resist the enticing feeling that they have matured rapidly, that they have acquired immense experience and have understood it all. They truly have outgrown their professors and learned something more important than what the latter shall teach them, something about themselves and how to become a better person. However, neither that nor the skill of demonstrating isn't something one can live off for a long time, even in the most unfortunate country.

Beside this, it seems as though the students are suffering from a feeling of defeat as well. They got all they had asked for and they now feel as though they were overly cautious and asked for too little. They probably believed that anyone of intelligence understands that when they say chancellor they mean president. However, Milosevic has remained where he was or at least there is no evidence nor witnesses who claim otherwise, and on top of that we now also have his new parapet - madam Milentijevic.

The students are left to conclude that the options for their protest have dried up for now and can only wait to see its delayed reaction and to give the opposition a chance. This generation obviously cannot conceive life in Milosevic's country. Many of them are keeping their passports in their pockets and whistles clenched in their teeth. It still isn't clear whether they shall or shall not have reason and will-power to take to the streets again, and the only reason they did that in the first place was so that they wouldn't have to leave the country. To return back to their classes is a difficult decision for them since in their eyes it seems equivalent to packing their bags.

The answer to the question which isn't only troubling the students shall soon become known via Minister Milentijevic. She was given the key role in the defense of Milosevic's model of rule and now all depends on the success of her mission. If her task truly is liberation of the media, she wouldn't have become minister. That task would have been performed by the former minister Tijanic, definitely with a lot more authority. The very mention of media helped by foreign aid in the draft Information Law shows where the new minister is headed.

Namely, if the media situation was normal here, no one in the world would give a single cent to keep the independent, information-wise reliable press alive. Some would possibly invest or buy shares of profitable media but that isn't the issue which is worrying the minister. She would like to specially mark something which can actually be classified under pure humanitarian aid, reminiscent of giving out pills against a hang-over only to then say: "Brother Serbs, don't allow foreign powers to sober you down".

Yet the theories on conspiracies and foreign mercenaries don't rate that well here anymore. If that wasn't true, JUL and SPS would be the most popular parties and therefore wouldn't need madam Milentijevic. I believe that now, for most of the citizens of this country, the issue of foreign aid would primarily stand as evidence of a certain newspaper's quality meaning that the minister is fighting the very same battle which had already been lost at the local elections. Her real problem is dual: nether can faith in the regime media be restored nor can that monopoly be saved.

Naturally, resistance needs to be organized, but that isn't difficult anymore. We now know that we are in the majority and that we have all those whistles, pots, pans and ladles on our side which had opened and almost concluded the dialogue of the round table on media. Madam Milentijevic shall definitely get a sufficient amount of worthy replies however another, larger issue shall remain open.

Namely, it is now clear that the regime in Serbia is no longer stable and cannot remain as it now is. In that sense there is a similarity with our neighbors such as Bulgaria and, naturally, Albania where, applying more or less violence and street pressure, the fate of a seemingly-democratic country is being decided on. It is now becoming apparent that such a model with opposition parties and the elections, accompanied by a media and financial monopoly and strong police forces, presents an unsustainable hybrid. That formula was patented by Milosevic which kept confusing the entire world that was not capable of discerning whether they were dealing with a dictatorship or not. When, finally, all had come to believe that in Serbia things were possible which wouldn't be possible anywhere else, they started to accept this man not only as a Dayton signatory but also as a reliable partner who shall control the country for a long time to come. The opposition kept grumbling and proving its allegiance to democracy and Western values to no avail. Global heads of state simply do not wish to speak to those who are similar to them here but rather to the one who represents the country, whatever he's like.

However, it is now becoming clear that democracy cannot be simulated for a long time. Such a system endures pressure to truly become democratic or to slide down into bare tyranny. Since Milosevic has been caught in the unsuccessful attempt of simulating free elections, the above mentioned dilemma in Serbia is coming to a head now over the issue of media control since without that monopoly the regime shall lose power, or can conclude all debates, abolish the independent media and the opposition and the elections.

Albania has found itself at similar crossroads yet in a more dramatic form, having significantly slighter chances of stabilization in a democratic manner. Prior to the present rebellion of the robbed depositors, immense election fraud had occurred there as well. In Serbia the order was reversed: first the money was looted, and then the ballots. Rebellion broke out over the latter, which turned out to be more favorable for the regime, since it is easier to return ballots -yet due to that the character of the rebellion is purely political and peaceful.

That means that Berisha can still implement force and re-establish order while Milosevic has no alibi for it. Even if he were to think of it the Albanian example is educational in the sense of the stand of the army which is made up of recruits there as well, i.e. is inseparable from the people and is therefore taking part in the rebellion and is handing weapons out to anyone who asks for them. It seems highly unlikely that Milosevic would take such a risk which is why his last hope rests upon Minister Milentijevic who is to save his media monopoly and simulation of democracy. However, there is a chance that Mira Markovic is trying to convince her husband at this very moment that the events in Albania stand as glorious proof of the triumphant return of the leftists and of socialism, and that Berisha is losing as a rightist. She is utterly capable of overlooking the facts that in Serbia the theft of the votes and the people's money was carried out by the socialists and that people aren't feeling better on account of it. Yet Milosevic's legitimacy has not fundamentally been ruined by all the thefts and robberies as much as by the war and following that, by JUL.

He had his war mandate and has used it up so that it is now becoming apparent that there is no way he can go back to communism. While it was believed that he was the true leader and uniter, Serbia forgave him for many things and it is definitely true that a large part of the opposition's energy stems from the dissatisfaction over the outcome of the war. Yet it seems to me that it would not be right to see militant nationalism in that energy. In essence there is no real dispute between those who say that the war had to be avoided and those who believe that defeat had to be avoided. Namely, the stand which claims that the war was lost at its very outcome prevails and only Seselj still believes that the Serbs could have won and that possibly it still isn't too late.

For all future disputes on all that the liberalization of the media shall be of the utmost importance, which even madam Milentijevic cannot prevent. Which is how we shall subsequently get a chance to see and read all that had been censured over the years. Knowledge has been denied to a large part of the citizens of Serbia on key events and in those archive materials the best reasons and arguments against this regime lay hidden. People who are already confused enough by the revisions of the previous history shall be shocked by the magnitude of the secret history during Milosevic's epoch.

Yet when all of that passes the largest benefit from the liberated media shall consist in the fact that they shall no longer be very important to us. We shall skip over certain news items with a clear conscience. If we know that they are not lying, if we shall be informed of all that concerns us that means that we are secure and then nothing will concern us anyway.