Fighting Against Freedom

Montenegro is too small to hold elections of such enormous proportions.  I came to this conclusion last week in Podgorica, where I snooped around, gathered impressions and checked speculations on the consequences of all possible election results.  I believe that only a victory by Djukanovic’s coalition will bring considerable, historic change, while every other realistically imaginable result is totally inconsequential.  That in itself should be sufficient reason for many Montenegrins, who suspect that they are destined for greatness, to give their support to Djukanovic.

Bulatovic’s victory would surprise everyone, while it would gladden Milosevic.  It is more likely that the big confrontation will have no winners, and that Slavko Perovic’s Liberals will find themselves in a position to decide.  However, they banked on this so transparently, so shamelessly and so cantankerously that they really do not deserve any bigger role.  Besides that, no one knows which side they will support.  Djukanovic should be closer to them, but Perovic behaved for a long time as if the opposite were true, and as if he were more willing to enter into a coalition with Bulatovic.  During his campaign, he kept repeating that there is little difference between Bulatovic and Djukanovic, an opinion which he does not share with anyone in this world.

That is why it would be beneficial for Perovic himself to get rid of bothersome dilemmas.  In any case, things will get complicated only if Djukanovic’s coalition “For a Better Life” gets a parliamentary majority.  Of course, at the same time, this slogan does not tell us much, that is to say, no one will give Djukanovic their vote out of sheer belief in a better life.  Perhaps the quality of life will one day become a key election issue, and that should be the real objective of reforms.  But these elections will above all be crucial for deciding the dilemma between freedom and Milosevic.

However, in principle, such a dilemma is not decided through an election.  Freedom is not a thing you vote for, because by the time you get to voting, freedom already exists.  It appears to me that the main paradox of these Montenegrin elections lies precisely in this, in their being held in the unusual situation of uncertain and half-gotten freedom.  It is still not out of the question that everything there could go back to square one and could fall into the hole where Milosevic, his wife, Seselj and their crowd are all kneeling, even though such a fall would require a scenario which the regime in Belgrade is no longer capable of orchestrating.

If we know how elections look in Serbia, if we can see how jealously the regime fights over every inch of authority and tries to reduce every future election to an internal election, to a competition between the Radicals and JUL, it becomes clear that Montenegro is now deciding on changing this closed system and on introducing the principle of openness.  Therefore, if Djukanovic’s coalition wins, it might not secure a visibly better life in the near future, but at least it would ensure a regular airing of society, which is enough for a beginning.

Those who know Podgorica can already see a clear change there.  For my part, I now find in Podgorica that, for the first time in my life, disregarding experiences in the outside world, that I don’t feel like I stick out, that I belong to some larger majority, that there is no uncertain threat of someone’s caprice looming over my head, that the police, in principle, support something that is comprehensible, that I am not obligated to be on the lookout and always full of caution.  On television you can perceive subjectivity and playing with the other side; but that other side is the one which in Serbia transmits warped news combined with malice and disregard for everything, while it censors everything else.

In this sense, Montenegro has already parted ways with Serbia in a way which cannot be more complete.  What they have in power there has been weakened in Serbia even in the opposition, has been divided and nearly completely lost.  There are two different political systems in the two republics, and that difference seems to me far bigger than any ethnic, historical, cultural or language difference.  However, it is possible that this difference, which is today epitomized by Djukanovic and Bulatovic, has its roots in deeper and older differences, ones on which many Montenegrins in Serbia willingly insist.

It is worth remembering now that Belgrade, for decades, used to be the first and most often last stop for Montenegrins stepping out into the world in search of emancipation.  Milosevic is the first one who managed to change this balance, so that now decent people in the capital are beginning to remember their Montenegrin ancestors and heritage, for which they cared little up to now.  Thus, if in these elections the question of survival of a joint state is raised, this will not be mainly because of irresistible Montenegrin desire for sovereignty.  This motive would be nearly insignificant and certainly supported by a minority were the issue not one of a world of freedom and its absence.
Namely, it happened that Djukanovic’s Montenegro managed to leave, while Milosevic’s Serbia has stayed behind, all together with Belgrade.  Had it been the other way around, I do not doubt that the notion of Montenegrin independence would sound silly, comical and completely repugnant.  However, now it sounds attractive and appealing, even to those people who never lived there, nor have any intention of doing so.  This means that Djukanovic’s victory will certainly be good news.

He has expressed the intention of influencing change in Belgrade, which would certainly be desirable, because Belgrade is somewhat weakened.  But, if it turns out that there is little substance in this, if even that attack bounces back from Milosevic’s wall made of police and television, that will also be O.K.  The disintegration of this Yugoslavia would be deserving punishment for Milosevic himself, who needs this makeshift state the most.  He wanted it to be the way it is, and now he loosened it even more, so that now he can practically carry it around his neck.

The relations between Serbia and Montenegro do not have any connection with that crooked game.  Relations there are such that they do not depend much on combinations like the one invented over the weekend on Zabljak, when the last constitution was drafted.  Only some kind of insane war could ruin this, but I do not believe that Milosevic is no longer capable of organizing such a thing.  He was capable of it for long enough.

It seems to me that his plan is not to acknowledge the government of Montenegro even after this election, not to permit change of MP’s in the Chamber of the Republics in the Federal Assembly, to refuse in principle everything coming from Podgorica, to give Kertes complete freedom for customs fraud, to get Bulatovic to draft a few impossible laws, to blackmail Djukanovic into refusal and to continue with accusations of separatism in the hope that he will get a reason and an opportunity to somehow once again mobilize the army.

Bulatovic will certainly try to carry out what he promised in his campaign: to take away the police from Montenegro, and, in its stead to give it JUL-controlled television.  Such an exchange could now only be possible over dead bodies.  I fear that even my own personal, moderate pacifism would give way under such temptation.  To fight against Milosevic’s police and television, one might be willing to travel even further than Montenegro.  I believe that half of Serbia would volunteer there for military service.  In any case, we have no special plans for this summer, and there is not better fun anywhere else.