Politics Without a Line

What has changed in Serbia and what hasn't, what could have been quicker and what will be a long time coming - it seems as though an incredibly large number of people are dealing with these somewhat metaphysical questions and not only during their leisure time. That can be easily explained, a lot of people have invested a certain effort and taken upon themselves the risk of toppling the old regime and are now watching their handiwork and don't know whether they should be pleased with the speed, displeased with the slow tempo or desperate because nothing has changed. No one is saying that things were better before, but that consolation isn't of exceptionally long duration. I have the feeling that the famous revolutionary elan is evaporating quickly and that the new order is slow in emerging, so that we are now hanging in mid air, devoid of a driving energy and without directions and rules of conduct. Therefore, it could happen that the initial dilemma on revolutionary or legal means and methods could be resolved by abolition. Neither this way nor that, but rather no way at all, that is anemically and chaotically. With the strength of old age and the experience of youth.

I naturally don't know what could have been done differently and better until now. Maybe it is a true miracle that anyone has done and is still doing anything in a country which is so utterly drained, ravaged, left without any money, will, intelligence, with so little hope, virtues, good habits and useful customs. Maybe all that was within the powers of man has been changed, but a fundamental turning point still hasn't occurred since in Serbia a will to live still hasn't won. As though the famous morning dilemma still continues, should I get up or pack up, which shall eventually certainly be resolved to the advantage of life, but for now we are witnessing on all sides various forms of dying and expressions of anger, hatred, bickering and all kinds of death wishes.

Rifles are being fired and people are being killed in southern Serbia as well as on the city streets and we are living in the vicinity of death, in an everyday, intimate contact with violence and murder. That effortlessness of killing which has been going on for years, is turning into a habit and leading to suicide of a society, hasn't been severed and has possibly gotten its purest expression in the words of the radical Tomislav Nikolic, delivered on the parliamentary platform and in front of the TV cameras, that he isn't sorry that Slavko Curuvija was assassinated. For Nikolic, Curuvija was, so to say, a traitor. Beside that, he can look upon every individual case of death from the standpoint of a professional gravedigger who, therefore, lives off corpses. However, this particular case was a murder case, and the citizens of Serbia could hear and see a politician, parliamentary delegate, national representative, commending and acclaiming murder, meaning a crime by any laws which had ever been in effect anywhere since the beginning of time. Nikolic obviously believes that there are people in Serbia who should be told something like this, who will like it, who will agree that murder is a totally acceptable and unjustifiably infamous manner of resolving political disputes.

Now, the way it was voiced might not be a crime, and even if it is, laws don 't provide good enough protection from such anti-humane statements and gestures. No legislator can predict and sanction all possible ways of expressing murderous emotions, if society itself doesn't find enough strength to reject and clearly punish this policy of crime. Public disgust should be so strong that no one would even think about voicing something like this, just like no one would, let's say, step out onto the platform to relieve himself, believing that such a gesture would fill the voters with enthusiasm.

One could say that Serbia has already punished such manners and such policies at the elections, but they still seem to live on and continue to pollute the public space. Nikolic and others similar to him are demonstrating in this manner that they haven't actually been totally defeated, even though they are in the minority, since obscenity is still legitimate, and for now that's enough for them. The only thing that is important to them is to maintain their right to continue with their filthy business, by which they are demonstrating that the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) didn't succeed and that there is no chance for a normal state. I don't know whether that is an exaggerated request, but it simply doesn't suffice that they are in the minority, just as it isn't enough to say that in this country a large majority of people don't kill, the majority of the drivers don't run pedestrians over at the crossings, the majority of the delegates don't think like Nikolic. What I want to say is that despite the majority which DOS won, it still doesn't have or isn't demonstrating clear state authority, strength and initiative. And it's high time they started showing their teeth. A lot of time has already been lost on discussions about The Hague, about the culprits and crimes and the state is starting to look helpless and immature. I think that is exactly what Nikolic wanted to emphasize.

The DOS leaders have so far showed various better faces of the new government, cleverness, intelligence, tact, caution, credibility but there is no doubt that Serbia is also expecting them to rule decisively. I even amaze myself for being on the side of law and order, but I see that the first problem of this country now is no longer freedom and rights, but order and stability. Weakness shouldn't have been the only substitute for police omnipotence.

However, one cannot say that all the misfortunes of today's Serbia are of a police nature and that all boils down to a good dosage of state power. The impression of overall weakness and a tendency towards decay is also causing the problem with Montenegro which won't become disentangled for months, naturally followed by Albanian terror in the south of Serbia which the new government is dealing with in the best possible way, and concluded with certain DOS leaders such as Nenad Canak who is at the same time in the government and in the opposition, who is carrying out some kind of private policies, sometimes amusing, at others threatening.

And there is no one to draw some kind of a line, to set up boundaries, close some problems and complete some tasks.