Andrija Mandic’s speech in Fundina stirred passions within the Serbian World and further divided an already deeply divided Serbdom. The regime media in Serbia brought in Vladimir Vukovic, who on Jovana Jeremic’s show and on the regime’s Euronews threatened Mandic, calling him a bought-off Serb. This is, incidentally, some kind of tavern-style categorisation of Serbs that Metodije came up with, dividing Serbs into the bought-off, the brainwashed and the suffering. If you ask me, it is some gusle (*a single-stringed instrument)-playing nonsense repeated by Vukovic and Igor Damjanovic, the media servant from Montenegro to whom Vucic has been reduced.
Except that Damjanovic is still loyal to his comrades from Ahmad and Rusich, while Vukovic, who is now an editor at Politika, no longer has pictures of himself wearing T-shirts with Putin’s face on them, but instead, from the pages of the media outlets he works for, welcomes Zelenskyy’s arrival in Serbia.
But at least Vukovic dares to take a swing at Mandic. Pipun does not dare utter a word, but only keeps attacking Spajic.
What did Andrija Mandic do to provoke such hysteria from Belgrade? Nothing terrible. He said that no one from outside can measure his Serbian identity, or that of Serbs from Montenegro, and, to paraphrase him, that Montenegrin Serbdom grew out of Montenegrin stone, and that Montenegrin Serbs have no one else to report to; that fraternal relations are fraternal relations, but that in their own country, Montenegro, Montenegrin Serbs make their decisions independently and autonomously.
I immediately thought of an analogy with Milo Djukanovic, sometime around 1996, of course with a somewhat weaker Serbian national charge. Andrija is, after all, president of New SERBIAN Democracy. Milo did not immediately take a hard line either. At first, the argument was that Slobodan himself had betrayed the Serbs, that the Pancic spruce and the black pine grow under the same sky, and that Montenegrins remained loyal to Serbdom, until the arrival of an alternative at the helm of Serbia showed that every government in Belgrade would accept only the obedient as partners.
History repeats itself. Mandic is at a turning point. He still does not speak about the rest of us in Montenegro, and still represents only the Serbs. Those outside Montenegro are still his brothers and sisters. But he has taken a major step towards helping us understand one another better, in the sense that he has clearly confined himself to Montenegro, which is, of course, his home. It would never occur to me to measure Andrija’s Montenegrin identity, but I really do not expect anything beyond what he has said. From whom it comes, that is enough.
But if he intends to broaden his appeal and become a more serious political factor, he will have to leave the ethnic pen and broaden his reach. Perhaps NSD will become ND. New Democracy. Once Serbian, and then “also Serbian.”
Joking aside, Andrija is right about one thing – Serbdom in Montenegro is indigenous, and the Serbs of Montenegro are at home in their own country. Serbs and Montenegrins share the same history, which they interpret in different ways. Those two interpretations are often mutually exclusive, but we should agree that the state of Montenegro and the Orthodox Church in Montenegro are a shared heritage. We share the state as a heritage with everyone else, while our ancestors together created and built the Church.
The only thing I would ask of Andrija Mandic, the collective Andrija Mandic, is that he treats Montenegrins who are not Serbs with respect, that he does not close the doors of the state and the Church to someone simply because they do not view history in the same way. Today, in the Government, we have a couple of ministers who have somehow been smuggled in and may speak Montenegrin, while in the churches that our common ancestors built and defended for centuries there is not a single priest who will publicly say, “I am not a Serb, I am a Montenegrin,” and that he speaks “the Montenegrin language.” So much for discrimination.
But let me not be gloomy. I think this is a good step. Not because Serbs are arguing among themselves. But because the Montenegrin Serbs, led by Mandic, have put Montenegro first. What kind of Montenegro is a separate question.
Integral Serbdom is a misguided ideology from which only Serbs lose.
The part where I say that Mandic is my brother is a provocation for those who are tearing into him, so that they take the bait. We are not brothers; we are fellow citizens. But among the Serbs in Montenegro, I have brothers, sisters, friends and best men. And Andrija Mandic probably has some among Montenegrins as well. Surely it cannot be that some Dodik, the Bosnian, or Vucic, the Serbian, is closer to him than they are.
(Columnists’ opinions and views do not necessarily reflect those of the CdM editorial board)