The Real and Impossible

In the seventy-second year of his life Dobrica Cosic has been given the chance to play his third or fourth part in the political life of Serbia. It is rare for someone to be given so many chances, and rare for someone to have strayed so far and been deluded so often to, in the end, be welcomed as the last hope. Probably no-one who has so convincingly shown his political incompetence has been given harder problems to solve. Nonetheless, it is believed that he should be given time and offered the opportunity.

It is, to all appearances, not quite clear to Dobrica Cosic that he has in no way deserved this opportunity, unless he understands what he has to do as punishment and acknowledgment of his personal responsibility for the catastrophe this country finds itself in. He has become president of a country unrecognized by the world and a good portion of its own inhabitants, which is under a blockade as yet unseen in the world, threatened from the outside by military intervention and from the inside by civil war. He knows how much his political thought and action have contributed to this situation, just as he knows that no-one has less moral right to the role of savior. But Serbia has no other choice. It is forced to block its nose and close both its eyes in the flimsy hope that this local doctor Frankenstein will succeed in curbing his monster.

The first thing the new president should do is to contest his position and the state he is head of. This, I think, is the last thing on his mind. In his inaugural speech he mentioned new elections, but not for a constitution making assembly. This means that he accepts this Yugoslavia and wants to continue from where Milosevic got stuck. He noticed that something was wrong only when the United Nations introduced sanctions, which means that with regard to the liability of Serbia nothing is clear. He leans more towards the views that the world is unjust and indifferent, that Serbia will take revenge on its enemies from previous wars and that Titoism is guilty for everything.

Of all that Milosevic has done, the only thing Cosic hasn't liked was his arrogance towards the opposition. He has understood that tension has increased tremendously and that Serbs could start shooting at one another. Unlike Milosevic, he knows how to listen and talk; he likes more to win people over than to openly confront them, so that at least he can soften personal intolerance. But time will show that he considers his role far more serious and ambitious than that of simply temporarily mediating in the conflict between Milosevic and the opposition.

It is expected of Dobrica Cosic that he will persuade Milosevic to peacefully step down. It is believed that if anyone can do this then it must be he who has some kind of paternal authority. There is no doubt that Cosic will try to do this, but Milosevic already feels like a hunted animal and doesn't trust anything except his television which tells him that his people still adore him. Because of this, Cosic should maybe begin Milosevic's removal on the television which is managed by his man, Milorad Vucelic. For instance, he could gradually reduce the number of telegrams of support.

Milosevic's formal and actual power far exceeds that of Cosic, but if he doesn't use it soon, Cosic's authority will corner him and he won't be in a position to set the police and army against him. Simply by his presence on the big scene, Cosic has lessened his power and extracted the detonator from the bomb. This is all Dobrica Cosic can do for Serbia. But Milosevic still hasn't surrendered, which has been proved to the students, and the risk of violence and conflict in Serbia is not small.

With regard to the lifting of the sanctions and the return of Serbia to the community of mankind, what has to be done is out of the reach of one man alone, particularly if the man is one of continuity who would first have to destroy himself and deny all he had thought and done in the last few years. How hard this is in the case of Cosic can be seen from the fact that he would immediately have to disappoint those who put him in his present position. He was first nominated by the communities of Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, whom he would have to advise to stop their fight to break away and accept those states as their own. How can this be done by the father of Serbian unity and Greater Serbia, and how, without this, can the lethal sanctions be lifted?

And this is just the beginning. Cosic has to see what he will do with Kosovo and how to talk to the Albanians who believe him no more than they do Milosevic. He also has to face the growing distrust of Montenegro towards the new state which could, with the removal of military threats, change into open rejection. It will be hardest, though, with Serbia.

For years Serbia has fooled around, fed with giant doses of idiocy, and now it all must be stopped, peace must be made with its imaginary enemies (of which some, in the meantime, have become real), it must completely change its picture of the world and surrender its futile hope in Russia. This could maybe be done by a statesman of the highest caliber. Dobrica Cosic is not such and is horrified at the thought of changes which would destroy all he has ever believed in.

Thus the sanctions will continue, maybe lightening gradually, because Cosic, inasmuch as it depends on him, will look to retaining a peaceful manner. He himself did not oppose Milosevic's war adventures, but he is not a man to take on the responsibility for anything like this. He received, helped and organized all those who participated in the opening of the "Serbian question", from Kosovo meeting holders, to Babic and Karadzic, but he would like that this conspiratorial side of his politics not be seen and that he remain for the public and history books a humanitarian and democrat. The position of president makes him responsible for what is done behind the scenes and it is in all ways a positive fact that the capitulation of Greater Serbia will be signed by the chief restorer of this bloody illusion.

More defeats await Dobrica Cosic even if he manages to free mankind from Milosevic. He has come forward as the last defense of the republic against growing monarchism, having the premonition that the return of the king threatens to open the deepest and most dangerous conflict about which Serbia fought over half a century ago. If it has been proved that the Serbo-Croat war has not been forgotten, if in Bosnia the memories of Turkish violence have been awakened, why in Serbia (and Montenegro) should the descendants of the Chetniks and Partisans be less vengeful if the opportunity arises to exchange the roles of victor and defeated?

The total international blockade has already completely closed the area for liberal-reformist moves, even if Cosic were prepared to make them. Serbia has fallen behind in many things and it is still moving in a direction opposite to the rest of the world. In order to at least change this direction, the new president would have to go to the television building and explain to Vucelic that it is time to stop his "spreading of the truth about Serbia" and begin with honest information.