Spitting the nation

MiloradVučelić, editor in chief

We came a long way from Brussels’s technical negotiations to the fact that Kosovo is not considered a state matter of Serbia anymore. The talks are exclusively about Serbs in the north of Kosovo and their rights as a minority within the frame of the Albanian’s independent state of Kosovo. The discussions are about the rights of the Serbian minority in a neighboring state. As if it was by command, there’s no single word uttered in media about Serbia presence in Kosovo or the Serbs living there. All at once, everybody is talking that we are not trading Serbs for a date, but that doesn’t exclude trading Serbia as a state for a date, weather we get it or not.

Alive and remaining Serbs, for our political officials are the one and only reality in Kosovo. All existing state institutions of Serbia in the north of Kosovo, active for the last thirteen years, suddenly became “parallel”, and then by authoritarian dictate their purpose and very existence is being denied. No matter what, these institutions are more than stubborn reality both for us and the Serbs in Kosovo. A clash with this stubbornness of fact and struggle for survival cannot happen without any consequences and indeed not only for Serbians in the northern Kosovo.

The Constitution of Serbia is a much tougher and more complicated matter. Not only that the Constitution has no roots in reality but it is also a lie, along with so much more. “For almost ten years now, Kosovo was a taboo and nobody could tell the truth about it, officially. Fairytales were being told about it. Lies were told about Kosovo being ours, and it was even decreed by the Constitution. Nowadays the Constitution is no help at all…The Serbs are only permitted to leave Kosovo any time they choose”, wrote IvicaDačić, the prime minister of Serbia, in the attempt to clarify out position in the process of negotiations and also to show how much is he standing by his oath of office he have taken when he was elected in the Public Assembly.

As we can see, it was mentioned that there was a strong possibility of Serbs, abandoning Kosovo if Serbian state institutions are to be disassembled. Will Serbia, maintaining this present course of negotiations in the matter of Kosovo, allow for all this to happen or ménage to bring itself to a halt, and what then, when it does stop in this middle of nowhere place?  Are we going to acknowledge this fact, this possible exodus of Serbians and what will be our stand about it? And will this too be labeled as mythomania? How are we going to handle-go about this scenario, just like this one, for example, on the front cover of Pečat?  The photo in question is from the year 1986, and back then in Yugoslavia it was the photo of the year. It is hardly necessary to remind anyone what were the following sequences of events what was the destiny of political acters and the people.  Are these our “back to the future” pictures or is this the crown, the climax of our current Serbian negotiating skills and potential?

Is it possible that someone who is  so distinguished, self-respecting can put us all on hold in a position of waiting while enduring  constant humiliation, for someone to give us the date, offering us with it a only a choice of some Albanian throwing or not throwing a bomb in bedroom of a Serb in Kosovo?.  Sure, his choice is no doubt deeply founded civilized behavior and therefore supported by USA and EU, and ours is simple and easy! By the looks of it, what we have here is not at all about conflicts of negotiations between civilizations and nations, rather a conflict of civilization with barbarism.

 

Are these the kind of solutions Albanians in the south of Serbia are wishing for, demanding the same rights the Serbs in Kosovo have? It is not hard being the profit of doom, if it’s all by default always coming true. And it is not the issue if something is foreseeable or not, but in the fact that the politics is there to prevent and neutralize everything that can be in any way threatening to the state. Serbian government cannot just like that, state that it is not going to pay any attention to everything happening in Bujanovac, Preševo and Medvedja where parallel authorities to our state are being constituted and demanding a special status. It is definitely the worst possible choice. The problems should be met head on and solved, without turning away from it waiting for its internationalization. All the issues of this kind are first and foremost a State matter and then everything else. We emphasize and for the hundredth time insist that this all also refers to Vojvodina, Raška and much more.

It is almost impossible and utterly irresponsible that nobody in Serbia cannot see that the attempt to bring down RepublikaSrpska is next, and that it is correlated with the solutions to the Kosovo problems. It is impossible also, for the same reason, the American ambassador in Belgrade, Michael Kirby  reminds us of: “Washington doesn’t want another RepublikaSrpska in Kosovo because this model didn’t prove to be a successful solution for the development of Bosnia and Hertzegovina.

About this change of the national identity, constant smearing of one’s own people happening in our media and political life, is speaking for itself. Favorite premise from that menu is that the Serbian folk are lazy and idle do nothings, and that it was always like that. It is becoming extraordinary the fact that someone is trying to represent our hard-working more than diligent grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers, and us as well, as some lazy idle god for nothing drones; and how easy it has become to forget or erase, due to ideological reasons or just plain lunacy, the surprisingly high number among them with full retirement, without a day of sick leave, or without a day of absence from working at their land, stables or factories.

The times of victorious wars, where we tragically exceeded and were industrious and heroically successful is discarded. Who, among us don’t remember, the times during their childhood when their mother was sick, so she couldn’t do all the house work with or without their help?

It’s been said that everything that was achieved was achieved in the near past by spending foreign loans, even if the whole of Yugoslavia before it broke up, was much less in debt than Serbia is today.

As much as the efforts of our people are belittled and underestimated, the handy work of Europeans is looked upon as a thing of admiration. It is not taken under consideration that so much was achieved there just as a result of Marshals plan, and also how little was built by plain exploitation and robbing the colonies and underdeveloped south of Europe and Balkans.

All that shenanigans being spread and all this hullabaloo made although the Serbian general public is there for the purpose of bringing our national spirit and self-confidence to their knees, and embracing masochism of sorts, where nothing depends on our decisions and all our troubles are apparently due our genetic makeup and the only solution is to endure this destiny of ours. The best case scenario would be to accept the proverb” all the best things come to those who wait”, until that time when EU take us under their wing and through the date into its embrace. And until then“Come what come may”.

Official Serbia and Serbian media are hastily rushing towards this famous and in the recent times, fortunately very often quoted encyclopedian claim by Krleža about Serbs and their logic “that was moving on four legged brain, but a primitive brain, that arose between those landslide of Balkans and diplomatic gorges of woe, in a permanent state of panic of the beast that sniffs around the traps and irons and smells all kinds of danger everywhere. Doesn’t trust anyone, not even itself, with the one and only intent in its mind – to nick whatever it can lay its hands on”. Our Second-Serbians really did their outmost, supporting and trying to get on the sweet side of current regime, to prove again that these Krležaand Franconian disqualifications stand to reason.

In this way, at one point, one simple remark, said just “by the by”, in TV show about actuality of the book” Protestant ethics and the capitalist spirit” by Max Weber turned into a something of small campaign of accusations about do-nothing  character of Serbian people and the reasons for this national particularity.

We are not at all that far from accusing all unemployed in Serbia of losing their job opportunities because of their orthodox beliefs. That book, was by the way, published in 1868 as a part of a famous edition” Logos” and it was read with well-deserved regard. Then, as well as now, it could be considered as praise worthy material for self-improvement and better understanding of the world we live in, and it’s past, but not much more than that. Some people have learnt all the lessons it had to offer, drawn all the benefits from it, so they completely fit in the estimation given in the afterword of famous professor VojimMilić:” Thusly, the foundation of a new mass morality (protestant) well-adjusted to the early capitalism, were laid. It was providing an ease of conscience for the capitalists gaining their wealth using the means recognized by society to be fair and legal.”

Those who hold the position of power in Serbia, who can very well significantly influence the state of community, and they are capable and in the right place, are under serious obligation  to multiply their efforts, to provide jobs for people and to facilitate their chance to fulfill themselves, and then then they can be in a position to evaluate if they are lazy but able or not. There was a time when we were joking about the Serbian workers, about how they are capable of building the capitalism in Germany and also building the socialism in what was our state then. Nowadays they are still successfully building the capitalism in the West, however they are apparently incapable of building the capitalism in Serbia! Maybe it’s not the ability of our workers that is in question but that particular kind of capitalism that’s being built in Serbia in the last thirteen years and the government supporting this kind of capitalism.

How can even be possible to talk about any kind of idleness in Serbia while those who work here in privatized firms are being overworked and seamlessly exploited while earning the smallest pay in the Europe, without fixed working hours and a day off, where every day we can see laid off pregnant women or new mothers being sacked after their first day at the job, while it is normal for invalids to work illegally at constructions, with no protective gear or social security. Every call or opening for jobs is attended by hundreds of people. Is this where we look for idle hands or the evidence of laziness of our people.

Even more interesting and stimulating is the fact that at the peak of the global economic crisis in New York, London and Paris, the best-selling book was none other than “The Capital” by Carl Marx, if we talk about the books and understanding them. It is highly unlikely they care less about the capital than they are. Or do they care more about the capital and we are more concerned with the spiritual.

The operation of disparaging, people that’s been going on have a designated purpose, that is to serve as a reference for all the state and political measures to be evaluated by the degree of their unpopularity, and that is all there is to it. The better the measure – the worse for the people that deserves it anyway. And then there are the cohorts of second-Serbians to justify it all and cover it up, and to provoke yet another wave of approval from our rulers.

When we make the best possible, first-rate measures, there won’t be any more inherited identity of this people. There will be a complete harmony. Those incurable remaining, will have their place in a little tavern by the graveyard named “Eternal peace”. From there they will have a perfect view of the triumphant brigades of those whom still run the streets hunting for date for negotiations with EU, having no time for anything else. Emblems will be more and more yellow.

Pecat 259, 18.03.2013.