Andrej Nikolaidis & Dusan Pajovic: For authentic Montenegrin left

Montenegro is interwoven with colonial influences, both from Serbia and Russia, as well as from the Quint countries. It is a political, cultural and economic colony whose independence, like the independence of its citizens, is only formal. Nothing demonstrates this situation more clearly than the elections and the government formation. Citizens exercise independence by voting; Serbia and the Quint (therefore – the United States of America) demonstrate their power over Montenegro by giving instructions and exerting pressure – who and how will form the government: by imposing their interpretation of the “will of the citizens”.

In the meantime, Montenegrin politics boils down to, on the one hand, competition in serving Belgrade, and on the other, convincing the Quint – who is a better protector of their interests. “The others are corrupt, we are better than them”. “These new ones are lying, they are not honest, they have a badly hidden pro-Russian agenda; bring us back, we will do it faster, better and more obediently”, says the opposition.

The Montenegrin government is a servant of Belgrade and that is clear to everyone, especially to the apologists of the government. But it is an illusion that the colonial influence of Serbia can be defeated by the strengthened colonial influence of the Quint. In the end, it turned out that it doesn’t matter whether the government will be allowed by Belgrade or the Quint.

We reject the mindless and cynical discussion about which type of non-freedom is better for Montenegro.

Montenegro fell in 1918, at the will of the great powers. Then, due to the synergy of the imperial policies of the Quint and Belgrade, it fell again in 2020. In the meantime, at the will of Belgrade, with the tacit consent of the great powers, which, as is usually the case, saw fascism as a “lesser evil” than communism, it fell in 1989. And what is the idea of the opposition, how to solve the problem: we need more imperial politics?

On the other hand, we have historical experience: Montenegro rose up after 1918 thanks to the communists. If it rises again, it can only be thanks to the steadfast left. Which, however, is non-existent. Not even in mention. Because such a policy is seen as hostile by both the government and the opposition.

And they are right. The only solution is a left-wing, emancipatory policy that would sweep away both the government and the opposition, curb the big capital behind both of them and, of course, exorcise the imperial policies of both Belgrade and the Quint. If you think it’s impossible, think again. Because it has already been done once: done by the communists.

The illusion of the Montenegrin right

The illusion of the Montenegrin right, which fortunately is not mainstream, is that the so-called “national emancipation” can be completed selectively and independently of all other forms of emancipation: from the economic, through the democratic, to the identity – we are thinking of the entire spectrum of identities, which in number and complexity far exceed the national and religious ones, which unfortunately function as synonyms for “identity” in the Montenegrin public discourse.

The illusion of the Montenegrin right is that the “national and religious issues” can be solved within the neoliberal economic, anti-social paradigm.

Montenegro has been paying the price of that illusion from September 2020 until today. And it will continue to pay it.

The neoliberal paradigm survived: it only changed its national sign and became clericalized.

Montenegro will never succeed in carrying out the process of decolonization with practically absolute power of the church, with ubiquitous nationalism and conservatism. The answer to Greater Serbian nationalism cannot be Montenegrin nationalism if it would also be fundamentally conservative. In conflict with Greater Serbian imperialism, that nationalism would necessarily look like a small child entering a muddy ring with a professional MMA fighter.

By using primitive political and social tools to strive for emancipation, the business is doomed in advance. Anyone who tried to do so would not only be beaten to death and humiliated, but would, knowingly or unknowingly, assist Greater Serbian nationalism.

The incapability of the Montenegrin opposition

It has been clear for a long time that the opposition cannot capitalize on the corruption and nepotism of the government. Because they themselves have been doing it for many years, so any insistence on the fight against corruption would be too tragicomic. If Montenegro had an even decent opposition, this kind of government would have been shaken a long time ago because of the identity oppression and clericalization that it brutally implements, as well as because of its servitude to Greater Serbian imperialism.

DPS might be able to organize some kind of a cocktail party, but no resistance protest. When they somehow gather the disaffected citizenry, they cry from the stage about the alleged failure of NATO, keeping silent about the failure of the people standing in front of them. They used to behave like Serb Spartans, now they would like to be NATO ones. Their idea that the Masters will restore them to power because they served them better is as irritating as it is delusional.

Who and when could believe those “leaders” at all? While repeating the phrases of Milton Friedman, they sound as if they would privatize their own mother, not the state.

Isn’t the whole story relating to the census, which was planned to be boycotted only until questions about property – how many apartments are owned, for example – were excluded from it. It was a trade: we quietly vote for occupation and assimilation (though we couldn’t do it louder and more convincingly), and you carry it out without touching our property.

Let’s summarize: some have a spare homeland, and for others, property is the only homeland.

Wars, then mass privatization, created DPS’s new class of oligarchs. Some of them, when there was a change of government, did uno reverse and changed sides. The others remained to “defend” the same colours.

The problem is that the players are only there to walk the red shirts and open their mouths to the national anthem. Everything else is too much for them. Because the new class raised by DPS could solve all problems with 1% of the wealth invested in progressive policies.

But, as we can all see – it won’t. That’s why you can’t like a billionaire, no matter what religion he is. He just became what he is by exploiting the non-unionized workers of this country and taking away the surplus value of the people who are at that same quasi-protest next to him.

Just as billionaires are not your friends, imperial powers cannot be your friends, either. What the Montenegrin “political elite” explains to itself as friendship and alliance, is nothing but classic service. If that is not clear to the “elite”, let them look around. As they were raised, the same way they can be pulled down. They were replaced with new ones, as soon as those who clearly announced that they were ready to serve appeared. After all, before they became “protectors of EU values and NATO”, they thought the same as the new protector of European and NATO interests – Andrija Mandic.

When we hear the phrase “our western friends” we laugh our lungs out. That’s just how “our western friends”, we’re told, butlers and maids address the nobility in Yorkshire.

Where to and what to do?

The struggle will be long and painful. There are no guarantees for its success. If there is no such struggle, ruin is guaranteed.

Anyone who joins that fight knows that they will be publicly shamed, some will be prosecuted, some will be convicted. Anyone who does not enter the fight will realize how difficult it is to be aware of one’s own cowardice.

There is no quick solution. The so-called “independence-supporting political elite” will not, and should not, return to power. Even if such a thing was possible, it would not solve anything. As it turned out, neither our “historic victories” – nor the 2006 referendum, even less the entry into NATO in 2017 – solved anything permanently. The Montenegrin political elite, in accordance with its neoliberal ideology, believed that those two dates marked the end of history. They believed Fukuyama’s propaganda even when he rejected his own thesis as empirically proven wrong.

Instead of spending energy on figuring out how to return to the good graces of its “western friends”, believing that absolute submission is the path to mercy, the Montenegrin opposition should, for starters, give up trying to control and model the so-called “Montenegrin pole of the political field”.

In that field, apparently, there is a huge empty space for the activity of an authentically left, i.e. class, national, identity and ecologically conscious, progressive party/movement. The authentic left is traditionally the closest politics to the citizens of Montenegro. Such a party would not have to knock: the door is wide open for it. The idea of social justice is deeply rooted historically and culturally in Montenegrin society. For this reason, the citizens of Montenegro accepted communism wholeheartedly. The authentic left is the only idea that can successfully oppose the clericalization of society, against which NGO policies and the repetition of phrases about “secularity” are clearly powerless. On the other hand, it is clear that there are voters who want more progressive policies – this is evidenced by the result of the fraudulent, falsely progressive-green project URA in the 2020 elections.

The true left must promise and bring justice to citizens. This means, among other things, expropriation of the stolen, progressive taxation of wealth, generous benefits for those in need and more workers’ rights, especially in a country where not everyone who remembers workers’ self-management has died. It means, therefore, concrete and courageous decisions, and not talking about the “rule of law” that serves as a substitute for justice – which is, in fact, the guardian of social injustice. It was the false “rule of law” and false “democracy” that served to establish a system in which 1% of the population controls wealth and political processes, expecting the remaining 99% to submissively participate in the travesty that aggressively imposes itself as the only possible, even “best” of all systems.

DPS, SD and SDP are not left parties. DPS is a catch all party that tries to cover several parts of the political spectrum, while serving big capital; SD moves around the center, and SDP is slightly more to the left of the center than them. The left-wing policies that we propose imply a departure from their so-called social democracy that maintains a system of oppression, as well as from the right of any kind.

True left parties/movements, however, must arise as an authentic reaction of citizens, not as another DPS project of tragicomic political engineering.

If the preconditions for the rebirth of an authentic left politics do not exist at the moment, and it seems that they don’t, we should work on creating them. Instead of fantasizing about a “quick return to the old” – which, even if it was possible, would be just another disaster – energy should be spent on creating assumptions for the authentic new.

This, above all, implies the following:

• A new kind of Korcula school

A place where academic workers, activists, philosophers, sociologists, political scientists and psychologists would gather, who, together with other citizens, would participate in debates through which new ideas for the reorganization of society would be born, during which the society itself would additionally be educated and pushed forward.

One of the founders of the former Korcula school wrote about it: “an open exchange of opinions, a free and critical discussion about the important problems of our modern times and the life of today’s man, was often a passionate defense and explanation of one’s own convictions and a conflict of engaged thought, without which there is no real mental and social development. So, we can say that the Korcula summer school immediately after its foundation and already in its first sessions, instead of academic instruction in the narrower sense as it was conceived, became a social event of the first kind”.

If a party was formed from this, it would advocate leftist, emancipatory and decolonial ideas of social equality – great. If not, they would once again have a strong enough citizenry that could resist various anti-emancipatory currents.

• Civil disobedience

When there are no institutions, system and social network – resistance, self-organization and rebellion are the only things that remain. Martin Luther King said that it was a moral responsibility to break immoral laws, and the case of Rosa Parks shows this best. This black activist refused to “respect” racial segregation and get up from the section of the bus reserved for whites. It was her moral obligation. Her disobedience led ultimately – setting off a series of events, bigger and bigger – to the abolition of racial segregation. We also have an obligation not to allow excavators to destroy the property of citizens exercising their political rights during a new and inevitable Belveder, to demolish the Mausoleum tomorrow, drill the Adriatic or pipe rivers.

OK, “Montenegrins don’t kiss chains”, but in these times it is our duty to chain ourselves to some living or non-living objects in order to prevent a further abyss and the collapse of the values that are important to us. In this way, the network of chains would become a safety net that the authorities could not break.

The Montenegrin national intelligentsia’s attempt to solve the “national and church issues” by cohabiting with corrupt, undemocratic, anti-emancipatory policies, in the name of a “higher goal”, ended in spectacular failure. This is how the similarly structured attempt by the followers of the Greater Serbian ideology to subjugate Montenegro and permanently make it a part of the Belgrade local empire, which is at work, will end.

The policy of choosing the lesser evil, empirically proven, does not work. Instead of the policy of “lesser evil” and fear, which are the parameters of right-wing politics, Montenegro needs a policy of hope – and the left rests on it. The neoliberal policy of colonial service, regardless of which center of imperial power it serves, creates an economic and social paradigm that is doomed to failure.

This implies completely new, unconventional forms of political activity for Montenegro. It implies: horizontal and democratic, instead of vertical and authoritarian organization; fighting against state repression, instead of relying on “state power”; cooperation instead of competition; the fight against big capital, instead of relying on that capital; internationalism instead of servitude and closedness; learning from the experience of the decolonial struggles of the nations of the Global South, instead of parroting phrases produced in the imperial Global North.

The process will be long and painful. It also implies raising awareness among citizens that those whom you admire and support are your enslavers, and those you despise as less worthy are your brothers and sisters in battle.

One world, one fight. One Montenegro, one fight.

Citizens of Montenegro, like all beings, deserve freedom. The choice between the predefined parameters marked as “a)” and “b)” is not free. It is necessary to abandon the logic of false binary oppositions. Where you are asked to decide between “a)” and “b)”, the only answer is to reject the offered choice and write your own answer under “c)”. At the same time, you participate in the creation of the question itself.

Only that is true freedom.