The New God

The only place in Belgrade where people today stand obediently in line and whose threshold is crossed with veneration, with no pushing and grumbling, is the branch office of the "Jugoskandik" bank. In these regions, nowhere else, not even at the doctor's nor in churches, are regulations abided by to such an extent. The new God has obviously succeeded in taming a part of the "celestial nation", which is vividly attested to by this example. His clanging voice has attracted the masses, those same ones which, some time ago, replaced pictures of old saints with the leader's icons. Meanwhile, even truck drivers from the most remote backwaters have removed the latter ones. Today's Holy Scripture - the bank-book, comes in pocket size. Jezdimir Vasiljevic, the owner of "Jugoskandik" is perhaps the most powerful new God in the Balkans. His nickname "boss Jezda" perfectly suits him, it is old-fashioned, provincial and as much mocking as respectful. The rule "Nomen est omen" is proved true in his case as well. Because, anywhere else it would be unimaginable for a banker to look like a cattle dealer. By almost never buttoning the first button on his shirt and allowing his tie to hang loosely around his neck, Jezda shows in practice that he is the boss. He doesn't have to worry about the impression he leaves on people, because he is aware of the fact that he has a halo around his head. Jezda is the boss also when he communicates with his associates. When, some time ago, he took over a bankrupt Belgrade firm, Vasiljevic, according to the tales of his then new employees, called one by one into a small room where he sat with an open suitcase full of money in front of him. He kept reaching into it and handing out money to those submitted to him, asking that they themselves say when is enough. Still, boss Jezda's modernism is primarily reflected in the fact that he strives to transcend the traditional meaning of his nick-name. Realizing that the existing state limits his operations, thus making out of him just another member of the new class, Vasiljevic concluded that if he couldn't change this state, he could ensure a new one for himself, practically one of his own. His departure to Montenegro was preceded by at least two failures: he did not manage to buy up Yugoslavia's foreign debt as he had promised, and he did not persuade the financial authorities to accept his expert advice and, instead of the politically disliked Deutsche mark, to choose the US dollar as the main currency for setting the value of the dinar. He was also certainly disappointed by the fact that the federal monetary authorities persistently kept refusing to give private banks the same guarantees and benefits as the "socially-owned" financial sector. Vasiljevic proved to be a "patriot" appropriate for the Milosevic era. With the help of boss Jezda's money, connections and industriousness, at the peak of the war in Croatia, the penniless Serbian authorities managed to obtain weapons and equipment for "volunteers", and afterwards oil for the state's needs as well. The sinful origin of the interests probably never crossed the minds of the bank- account owners. While boss Jezda could do everything for them, those whom the voters entrusted with managing the joint money couldn't do anything without him. It is understandable that afterwards Vasiljevic realized that he did not need the state, but that the state needed him. It turned out that the divine power of the money he has in large amounts is worth more than any law. Vasiljevic's incredible achievement is the product of state impotence and private virility. There is hardly any private banker anywhere in the world who can boast of having rented the greatest natural beauty on a country's coast, or of taking his guests there by military helicopters from the capital city, or of being given by the state a monopoly on selling smuggled oil for hard currency, the state thus having violated half of its own Constitution. The temporary peak of boss Jezda's success is the bizarre chess match whose first part has just been completed on the island of Sveti Stefan. At the time when the country is outcast and in a quarantine, boss Jezda forced the world, at least the chess world, to come to him. Historians dealing with economic development will perhaps one day describe the Vasiljevic phenomenon and his attack on the country's highest financial authorities as a grotesque episode in the unpredictable rise of private financial capital at the time of the primary accumulation. The idolatrous element in the attitude of the authorities and the people towards him and those like him will be described by the political and social psychology of a disturbed time, lacking traditional honesty, and as the result of the despair of an eradicated society. Vasiljevic, Dafina Milanovic and other upstarts, many of whom will soon go bust, will be remembered not as the personification of the exploiting Manchester type of capitalism, but of the unscrupulous, speculating kind, but disguised by benefaction and pathetic deeds. This is what American banker John Pierpont Morgan, who held 741 directors' posts in 112 corporations, was like. However, J.P.Morgan always tied his tie correctly and did business in a liberal political environment determined to firmly establish a state governed by law and representative democracy. He took part in transforming the Wild West into an organized capitalist state. At the moment, despoilment, unlawfulness and violence reign in the shaky structure called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Perhaps the withered socialism needs fertilizers to grow into young capitalism. We will live to see the sprouts, if we survive.