Favorite Postcard

The newly elected President of SRY, Slobodan Milosevic, did not even begin his first mandate, and it is already becoming clear that his presidency will fundamentally differ from Lilic’s: while the mentioned ex-model was spending long hours in the presidential office sending best-wish postcards and telegrams to all the corners of the (third) world, Milosevic himself is promising to be the one receiving best-wish postcards. If that which appeared in small type on the front page of Politika on July 16 is anything to go by, the postal service worked overtime on Tuesday to deliver all the gaudy, best-wish telegrams expressing endless joy and happiness. The fact that Milosevic, to everyone’s general pleasure, has remained President — what else could a man of that caliber be? — with a state that has slightly expanded, was loudly congratulated by all who represent anything in the modest Milosevic-Markovic home at 33 Tolstojeva St. President of the Serbian Government Mirko Marjanovic could not resist admitting that "Following you we have always known that you stand behind the welfare of Serbia and Yugoslavia". The President of the Citizens’ Committee of the Federal Parliament, Milomir Minic, felt an urge to state that "your election to this important position is a guarantee of strengthening stability, and of the affirmation and development of a democratic, free and independent SRY as a nation of equal citizens and republics". With his original and admittedly brave statements Mimic appears to have taken the words right out of the mouths of the Federal Premier, Radoje Kontic, of the Chief of Head Quarters of the Yugoslav Army, Momcilo Perisic, of the President of JUL, Ljubisa Ristic, of the young Socialists of Smederevska Palanka, of the workers of the Tobacco Factory NIS, of the President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Master Milomir Jakovljevic, of the Chief Committee of Telecom Serbia, of thousands of other exultant individuals, and of citizens’ groups and institutions.

Even though it is a difficult and thankless business to look for the most impressive of the countless outpourings of joy, if only because it is in the Family, the message of the President of the Serbian Parliament, Dragan Tomic (which received the widest coverage in the pro-regime media), is in the running for being nominated at the very least as the message of the week, proving that Tomic remains the uncontested master of the accolade genre. That message states, among other things, that "Your election is welcomed by all citizens who are for peace, unity and a better future for our country". The multi-talented Tomic effectively proves, with only a few words, that he is the undisputed king of praise (which we already knew) and champion of insult (which is also no news — you need only remember his expression "fascists on the streets of Belgrade"). That with which Tomic left his competitors in his tracks is the brilliant implied insult masquerading under the appearance of a best wish. Thus, Tomic’s mixed experiment of the postmodernist type represents a successful "hybrid" of textual messages sent to different receivers: with this the President is being told "I sincerely recommend myself for all future occasions!", while all citizens who were not sufficiently enthusiastic about the election of S. Milosevic are being told that they are as degenerate as those who wish for "war, discord and a worse future for our country".

Of course, language always reveals those who use it, their desires, intentions and values. Dragan Tomic, the proven ventriloquist of the true "discourse of power", in this unprecedented instance introduces to the game a division of the citizens of this country into Good — those who are Good because they support Milosevic, and who support Milosevic because they are Good — and those others who are Evil because they do not support Milosevic, and who do not support Milosevic because they are Evil. That is the closed circle of a logic and a dialectic of a government which from its coming into power has been seeing the world as strictly black and white.