Entry to a Third Life

The positive pressure from the SPS base is becoming irresistible, the television thinks there is no replacement for Milosevic, and where the SPS and television are, somewhere close are the people. Milosevic is therefore preparing to grow a mustache and rise once more, alive and well, remembering nothing and no-one from his previous life. Thanking those who advised him to remove himself, he will never forget them, particularly Prime Minister Milan Panic, with whom he has no argument. On the contrary, he liked so much what he did that he wanted to try himself.

It would be ideal if Panic, in the meantime, somehow managed to keep the FRY in the United Nations and loosen the sanctions a little, and then for the legitimately elected Milosevic to show the spiteful world how he had finally regulated the registration of his black-market firm. These are the times of the insatiable and homeless, and this idea is so cynical that it could easily come true. People here are used to every change being for the worse, and the worse it is, they less they look for change.

No-one, or course, can challenge the Serbian President's right to candidacy at the elections, or even pretensions at higher federal office. All the same, I am unable to make the mental connection with a man who seeks reward from the people he should be begging for forgiveness from. What is more, Milosevic is offering Serbs obstinacy and the opportunity to proudly perish from hunger and cold in order to show everyone that they are honored to have a president the whole world despises and considers to be a war criminal.

The electoral law must this time satisfy the opposition, at least enough for them not to boycott the elections. They will be given a little money for their campaigns, but in the interior the police will spread the rumor that they are noting down everyone who takes part in opposition meetings. The parties will be given time on the television to be pictured and represent themselves as much as they want, but every TV news bulletin will witness to the unprecedented peril the Serbian people find themselves in and the terrible betrayal awaiting them. If he dares to become a candidate and the opposition supports him, people will appear to claim that Milan Panic was sent from America by the Pope himself in collusion with the Devil to hand the Serbs over to their eternal enemies.

The TV news is an absolute priority to the regime because this program decides on war and peace, borders, elections, relations with the outside world. It is well known that each evening at 7.30 most people sit down to hear what they should think. It is understood that the government is speaking and many simple people think that Slobodan Milosevic himself edits the program, which isn't far from the truth. This half hour is packed and nuanced very carefully, it has nothing to do with journalists, so that it looks as if, in some underground bunker, it is made up by a team of military police experts on strategy, security and special warfare.

Those who hold it against President Milosevic that he doesn't speak more often to the public are losing sight of the fact that he does so every evening. The viewers have understood that the time for political pluralism has come which means that various people Milosevic doesn't agree with can now appear on TV. But, only those who have firmly chosen the opposition, who believe that the regime can really be changed, that sanctions don't have to be borne, and who have plucked up their courage, can resist the crude combination of threats and promises being emitted by the news.

Milosevic's intention to once more run in the elections and win carries the old-fashioned, royal contempt for the people and their ability to discriminate. A refugee from Bosnia told me how his neighbors in Zvornik believed more in what the television told them than in what they themselves saw. He interpreted this as the domination of hearing over sight, which deserves the attention of a neurologist and physiologist. But I believe it is more a matter of an unbearable level of evil and bad luck which many cannot allow themselves to think about independently, even to rejection of their own experience.

Milosevic's electoral body is wheezing under the sanctions and this will naturally be the strongest argument of the opposition. In order to ward this off, the regime propagandists will continue their campaign of hysteria which, more than the measure of external isolation, will mentally exclude Serbia from the world. No-one should fool themselves that this cannot happen. Not just because of the propaganda but, which is worse, because of the actual content of his political message and offer, Milosevic could really succeed. SPS can no longer count on an absolute majority, but it can make a natural alliance with the Serbian Radical Party, and this national-socialist coalition could be an expression of the real mood of the larger part of the population.

This national-socialism should not be confused with that of Germany half a century ago. Here there is none of that fanatical discipline and self-confidence, no new order is being introduced, the old one is being upheld. It is a matter of an offer suitable to the dominating atmosphere of defeat, mortification and fear. The nation is being called on to accept misery as a fate it cannot escape, but in which it can find some reason for pride. It will be said that they are miserable because they are Serbs, because the world doesn't like Serbs, but woe betide all those here who are not Serbs. It is believed that tales of a better life should not be told to the poor, nor should they be shown the splendor of the outside world which appears to be unreachable and only awakens envy. The poor like to hear about justice and how they should remain as they are, and not how they should grit their teeth and improve their lot when there is neither strength or will for this.

The true cynicism of Milosevic's candidacy rests in that, should he win, the people will have to share the responsibility for all that has been done up to now. No-one will be able to say that Milosevic fought a war against the will of the majority, or that the international sanctions were unjust because they affect the innocent. Serbs will consciously take on the collective guilt for the many crimes they have only yet an inkling of, but no subsequent justification will be of any use. It is here that the enormous moral and historical importance of the coming elections lies.

If national-socialism gets by, Serbia will have chosen sanctions and long-lasting international isolation. In a year we will become another Albania. The alliance with Montenegro will have to be maintained by brutal strength, i.e. weapons. No clairvoyance is necessary to foresee a war in Kosovo and about Vojvodina. The only thing the opposition parties can do is to stop calculating their percentages, forget their disagreements and personal vanity and come to a strong electoral alliance. Maybe Prime Minister Panic is just the person around which, at least temporarily, an alliance could be achieved. The choice would become perfectly simple, and this is the only way to defeat Milosevic.

Finally, in all this Dobrica Cosic could be given the historical role he has always longed for. He would be in a position to relieve Panic of at least part of the bulk of ridiculous accusations he is being charged with and offer Panic proof that he is a good Serb. Panic doesn't even dream of how important such proof is, but Cosic knows, and if doesn't do his utmost on behalf of Panic, he will personally bear the greatest responsibility for the suicide of Serbia and its exit from history. Though he has up till now stood by Panic, I am afraid that Cosic's heart pulls him towards Milosevic, misery and defeat, and there is no-one around him with the sobriety and courage equal to the magnitude of the challenge who could advise him to plug his ears and ignore the call which, at the very least, would put his prestige, popularity and national glory at stake.