Appetite For Destruction

In order to achieve such a thing, someone like Sali Berisha probably wasn't necessary nor especially important. In the historical sense, he lasted for a negligibly short period of time, so that the present chaos presents the true and natural though slightly postponed epilogue of Enver Hodza's epoch.

That country has been locked from the inside for decades, in the insane fear of outside influence; it nurtured the idea of its own road to "cave communism" and a nonexistent level of human rights. It would have been a miracle if Albania had managed to peacefully extricate itself and self-assuredly start towards modernization, that is, it is normal that a nation of long-standing convicts has not missed the opportunity to surrender itself to an orgy of absolute freedom. The country returned to its natural state practically overnight, which shows how short the road is from a total to a nonexistent state.

Therefore, on the Balkan scene where the Albanian issue is in the center of the dramatic plot, Tirana was all of a sudden deprived of its stakes. The Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija lost their footing; many plans and strategies became irrelevant, while the ambitions and appetites of the neighboring countries shall certainly escalate. However, no one should dart ahead of time, since the current situation in Albania cannot last. Some kind of order and some kind of government shall definitely be reinstated, and beside that too many diverse powers exist in the closer and further vicinity, too many unstable regimes and too many dubious motives. Any powerful move made by them would start off a chain reaction.

Albania currently represents the black hole of civilization which is threatening to suck any of its shaky neighbors in which come too close which is why it would be wisest for all to leave its burial to some more distant representatives of the international community. Yet, in any case, the dream of Albanian unity has been harshly defeated and must be removed to the infinite future. As long as it is disposed towards disintegration, the state has no right to dream of expansion. Tirana's collapse shall certainly change many relations in the vicinity, especially in Macedonia and Serbia, but to talk of the nature of those changes now - before it is known what stand Greece, Italy, Turkey, the European Union and America shall take - would be pure geostrategic fortune telling. The assumption seems logical that the problem of Kosovo will have to become somewhat easier for Serbia, since the Albanian negotiating side has weakened, however due to that very reason they might become a lot more impatient and nervous. Beside that, the issue remains open as to what, from a Serbian point of view, would be the solution for the Kosovo problem.

Until that subject is broached, the local public is probably viewing the anarchy-like scenes from Albania with a mixture of maliciousness, fear and hope. The maliciousness goes without saying and does not need special explanations, while the fears and the hopes are definitely connected to the comparisons with Serbia and its future. At the beginning there was envy as well, due to the decisiveness and implacability of the duped depositors in Albania, until it was evident that all was falling to pieces there. Now people are asking themselves if something similar could occur here as well.

As far as the state is concerned, I see no strong enough obstacles which would exclude such an outcome, and I especially fail to see that we are positively moving away from it and that the basic social processes are leading towards stabilization. We might not live to see children with bandannas taking rifles out of the army barracks, yet I can imagine the draftees refusing to follow the orders of their officers, leaving the barracks and heading for home. Thousands of ex-soldiers, volunteers and officers from the Serbian Republic and Serbia have already left to fight for the justice and the freedom of their brothers in Zaire. Why would anyone put on a uniform of an army which seems just as foreign to him as the Zaire one for free here?

Namely, this regime has not managed to convincingly separate the state institutions from its party's politics and ideologies, and has completely confronted itself with the opposition in the process. In such a situation one cannot count on the unreserved loyalty of the draftees, or even policemen, while the silent boycott and sabotage in other state bodies are simply inevitable. Without a basic integrative idea, with a widespread feeling of distrust and hopelessness, having previously experienced isolation and defeat, in an atmosphere of the harshest accusations of theft, criminal activities, corruption and treason, the regime cannot expect fervor and discipline from its meagerly paid employees.

If Albania does not literally represent our future, it partially represents our past and present. What has occurred there suddenly and to the very end has commenced here a number of years ago and is still going on. Partial disintegration has almost been established and seems to be a permanent orientation of Milosevic's regime. He did not try to design new elastic institutions, necessary for transcending a totalitarian state model, but is rather keeping what is most important to him, the media and the police, in the same state while allowing everything else to collapse chaotically.

When things reach the very end, people grab hold of weapons, just like in Albania. In Serbia, so as not reach that stage, people took up whistles, as a symbolic substitute for a gun. Now the question is whether that substitute was efficient? Was the message clear enough and strong enough, or does this regime have no understanding for symbolic messages?

This question has no trustworthy answer for now. It is highly probable that Milosevic is not drawing a lesson on the necessity of changes from the Albanian example, but rather a completely different one, if any. He starts off from the fact that he himself is not encouraging collapse and is only maintaining the existing state of things, and believes that the culprits can only be those who wish for something different. "It must be clear to all those with good intentions that without me everything would collapse" he says to himself. On the other hand, the front made up of those who are malicious has unusually expanded so as to include the opposition, the citizens, the students, the church and the Montenegrins.

World powers whose influence can turn out to be important, are most probably still in a dilemma as to whether any sure way out exists here and what it would consist of. Milosevic might seem to them as a permanent cause and temporary obstacle to chaos, which leaves the question of who is interested in which deadlines in this otherwise uninteresting region. In all probability, no one is betting on him, yet neither are they betting on anyone else, mostly leaving things to be resolved in Serbia.

Following another panel on the media, it is clear that the dialogue which was recommended by Gonsales's commission between the government and the opposition shall not amount to anything. Milosevic sent Minister Milentijevic to speak of freedom while the electricians are shutting down BK Television. Neither the government nor the opposition, each due to their own reasons, see any sense in that discussion. That means that both in the media and in the upcoming elections each shall strictly follow their own rules and use what resources they have. Milosevic's idea might be to simply force the opposition to boycott the elections, while the opposition most definitely believes that, in such a case, people would take to the streets again and that no other option really exists.

However, it seems that Milosevic is ready to make another massive concession which Gonsales never asked of him: to pull out his wife from the public eye. I believe, no offense intended, that it stands as a true stately gesture in the general national interest, although many from the opposition shall definitely be disappointed and saddened by it. Let them find wives which shall get on their nerves themselves. Otherwise, this decision could have been anything but easy and I believe could not have passed without tears.

Supposedly, what is forthcoming is the unification of SPS and JUL, by which neither side shall recover its strength and Ljubisa Ristic shall weaken. Milosevic's intention is, probably, to allow the socialist to swallow JUL without any consequences which would, along with its bad reputation, bring them some money as well. We should not expect any ideological debates and conflicts, power and money shall remain in the family, and the public shall be convinced that the leftists, unlike the coalition Zajedno, know how to unify their stands and reach an agreement, since it is much nicer to merge parties than to divorce marriages and because love should always win, especially now at the beginning of spring...