Andrija Mandic spoke publicly on Serbian propaganda television about the trauma of his family. The story of his family is extremely tragic, and with all human empathy, that story must not be a justification for political and historical revisionism and for revanchism presented as reconciliation.
Click here to join our Viber group, where we update you live from hour to hour and answer your questions directly.
Andrija Mandic’s Trauma
During his visit to Belgrade, Andrija Mandic was also hosted by Maric in his Cirilica show and opened his soul there. He talked about something that I have never heard him talk about publicly in Montenegro – about the sacrifice of his family for an idea. The idea of the unification of Serbia. As far as I understood Mandic, those closest to him were killed by Zelenasi (Greens – opponents of the unification of Montenegro with Serbia after World War I, named after green ballots), and then by the partisans. Both times, due to adhering to the Serbian national idea in Montenegro. No matter how wrong you think that idea is, Mandic has every right to respect the memory of his ancestors.
His fate and the fate of his family is a tragic example of Montenegrin divisions, which were most often the result of external influence. The external influence that Mandic’s ancestors represented in Montenegro, just as he represents them now. For Montenegrins, it is an external influence, for Mandic and NSD, it is not. Mandic and NSD quite openly advocate the idea of Serbian unification and are dedicatedly working towards it.
That idea is outdated, anachronistic and aggressive advocacy of it can only create additional resentment that can ultimately result in political instability. In the same show, Mandic tried to present himself as a conciliator, although his actions and initiatives polarize the Montenegrin public.
His ideology is not only anachronistic, it is also wrong, immoral. Politically immoral. Mandic is a representative of the idea of Serbian ethno-nationalism. Ideas that see “natural” Montenegro as a Serbian state. The Serbian Orthodox Church as an institution shares this ideology with Mandic, whose evangelical mission is exclusively linked to the destiny of the Serbian people. Its ultimate goal is the restoration and equalization of political and religious borders, which was only achieved during Yugoslavia. Paradoxically, the country that was eventually doomed by that same Greater Serbian nationalism.
Mandic himself is not that dangerous, because his current reach and influence is limited to a maximum of 20% of people in Montenegro. But that percentage is slowly growing. It is growing thanks to relativization and those who relativize things, who respond to Mandic’s false calls for reconciliation like playin a double pass.
A few days ago, I wrote about antifascism. It seems that this got on the nerves of some circles in the church and among the holders of the idea of Greater Serbian nationalism in Montenegro, so articles followed in the Zurnal portal, run by Vuk Bacanovic, a journalist with a very strange agenda, who at one time was favoured by Vijesti. Bacanovic worked for the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, then moved to Grigorije in Mostar and finally ended up in Podgorica, where he registered his portal. After Bacanovic, priest Gojko Perovic posted a rather relativistic text that was supposed to introduce the Chetniks into the anti-fascist tradition through the back door.
My friend, who is not a public figure, but has influence on social networks, and who inherits the idea of Yugoslavia and red anti-fascism, welcomed Gojko’s text as an invitation to dialogue. At the same time, Rajka Glusica came forward to relativize the story about language. Then Miso Lakovic from PES welcomed Rajka’s “fight against linguistic nationalism”.
Everything somehow repeats itself and we again fall into the trap by equating non-extremism with falttering the aggressive behaviour of those who are the most problematic in society.
These are all already seen processes, especially in politics. We are non-extremes and pretend to criticize all sides, but we only give that one extremist side a platform and serve it the levers of power so that it could promote its aggressive nationalist agenda.
No, you are not two sides, but one side with different factions. White and red and maybe some neutral PES blue, to be completely banal and simple. The one who is strategically excluded from the dialogue are the greens, let’s be simple again. Without the greens there is no equation, without the greens there is no Montenegro, just as there is no unification without the whites (Bjelasi, Whites – supporting the unification of Montenegro with Serbia, named after white ballots). The only question is which path we have chosen.
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(The opinions and views of the authors of the columns are not necessarily those of CdM)
