Ain’t No One’s Got What We’s Got

Even when we were kids, our coastline used to be far more jagged than the Italian coastline, and to boot, we were the ones, of all European and non-European people, who got stuck with sole ownership of nearly the entire Pannonian Plains (dubbed "our breadbasket" by shrewd school teachers); we felt no inadequacy where mountainous peaks were concerned, not even when faced by the most mountainous of mountainous countries; our rivers used to be full of fish, water snakes, crabs, gold, cobalt and other chemical elements; our biggest river, all our own, was the Sava, even though our other rivers naturally carved out their otherwise enlarged bottoms just so that they would not be forced to flood the rich chernozemic soils in which were planted the latest, state-of-the-art domestic agricultural seeds... The position of our country used to be vary favorable, which could hardly be said of the situation of our people, right up to the year 1987 of our era, when, with the aid of a single Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Serbia, even that flaw was rectified.

Still caught up in the memory of the New Year’s holidays spent in the exulted surroundings of Karadjordjevo, where her husband was giving hay, out of his own hand, to the by now domesticated large deer, a breed that the late Tito used to shoot out of sheer amusement, as contemporary press reports tell — on January 5 Mira Markovic made an inventory for her readers in the Bazar bi-weekly (No. 854) of everything we Serbs have today, and of which other peoples and their rulers can only dream about: she begins, logically, with history, that instructress of life and unique branch of industry which ranks our country among world leaders in production, export, and reserves! This flower of the European intellectual milieu receives medical care from doctors who are perhaps the best in the world, even though our people rarely get sick, given that they are biologically and mentally superior... Professor Markovic can hardly be criticized for being contradictory — an impressive history goes hand in hand with biological superiority: didn’t the Germans, for instance, write the most impressive pages in their history precisely at times when they were convinced that they were biologically and mentally superior to other peoples?

And finally, let us look at the original:

"Serbia has an impressive history, nearly all riches available in nature, diverse and plentiful energy resources, a useful and civilizationally provocative strategic location, a superb climate, inherited love of freedom, painters who are acknowledged worldwide, superior biological and mental vitality, a prestigious position in world sports, perhaps the best doctors in the world, a very educated population when compared with other European countries, an enormous capacity for climatic, social and psychological adaptation, a developed competitive spirit, writers whose works have been translated into tens of world languages, modern universities, a developed sense for both technological and cultural innovations, high levels of increases in production for over half a century now, ambitions to be the first, and the will to be the best..."

From among the multitude of gifts which nature more than generously showered us with (not caring for the envy of other nations and states), the most precious gift appears to be our ability for climatic, social and psychological adaptation. Who else, beside us, the champions of adaptability, could accept without protest such a plummeting standard of living, who else could participate without resistance (except for several, hired, nagging media exponents) in a war which officially was not conducted, who else could listen to so many lies without blinking, who else could close their eyes so many times to monumental frauds executed in a manner becoming the lowest scoundrels?!

"These are rare and precious gifts", the President’s Wife asserts. "All together there are very few nations in this world. Some are rich, but have no poets. Some have great seas, but do not have more than two universities..."

So true, Comrade Professor! Some nations are rich, some have poets, and us, well, we have both! Wealth and poetry, the wealthy and the rhymsters! Some have big seas, some small, while Serbia has no sea at all, even though it cannot be said that the Serbian ruler has not done everything which needed to be done, doing even those things which did not need to be done, for this error, this Serbian sea-lessness to be rectified. Admittedly, success was lacking. Even those Serbs who lived on or near the sea were obligated to vacate their residences, with the result that Serbia today has even less sea than at the time of the Eight Central Committee Session, but it did get new citizens in return for this loss. From Croatia and Bosnia, thousands upon thousands of biologically and mentally superior specimens hurtled into Serbia only to improve an otherwise excellent picture; the newcomers are also showing a welcome degree of social and psychological adaptability, they very rarely take their own lives despite having to sleep on corrugated cardboard, and despite not knowing where they will be living tomorrow.

In our desire to force our way to the sea, the number of handicapped did increase in Serbia, but even these people are happy just to be able to be handicapped in Serbia. They are happy with what they are getting and, even though the government truly did provide many of them with actual wheelchairs, these people did not spoil a single one of our afternoons with pestering protests; in the privacy of their own homes and hospitals they are reading One Flew Over the Coo-coo’s Nest, waiting for their crutches to be glorified, and are generally happy: with above average education, they know full well that they are part of the Serbian tradition, they know that the Serbian people, once the occasion presents itself, will glorify everything, and that is the most important thing for them. Even if they did lose an odd limb here and there, they know that such a loss can be explained scientifically. In Prof. Markovic’s terminology, they probably fall under the category of having "a developed competitive spirit", and every competition must have a losing side... Amputations were, in any case, performed free of charge by perhaps the best surgeons in the world. All those invalids would have died of gangrene in some European hospital, while here they are at least still living and getting respect...

Prof. Markovic began her essay on the super-nation by evoking memories of the slogan under which the veritable friend of her family triumphed at the presidential elections. With her already celebrated style of an eternal highschooler, she writes that the election slogan "Serbia and the World" was truly beautiful. How could it not have been! Serbia and the world truly make a beautiful couple! The world, disorderly as it is, fitful, and, if you like, backward, and Serbia all brimming with universities, plums and doctors... If we didn’t have the world for comparison, we would be like Narcissus without a mirror to show him his image; we would not even know how progressive we are. O.K. we were progressive in the past also, but never quite to the degree to which we are now.

I know people (whose names I hope I don’t have to cite) who see the mentioned essay as a professor’s complete, tragic rift with reality. For my part, coming from a Leninist background, I feel caught between a rock and a hard place, and must admit that I see the Professor’s essay as a subjective expression of an objective reality: all these years of discontent are in reality a Golden Age for Mira Markovic. Hence, I take her view of Serbia as nature’s godchild for an understandable byproduct of her (Mira Markovic’s) reality. Her latest analysis of Serbian reality I read as a text of complete and utter sincerity.