Hate Speech as an Election Message

Children of a Lesser God

"They won't tell us what to do." The Socialist People's Party's message to minorities in Montenegro is nothing new: once again hate speech is threatening the freedom of choice of those who do not belong to the Christian Orthodox majority

AIM Podgorica, February 27, 2001

With elections just around the corner and a referendum on Montenegro's status on the horizon, the republic is echoing with well-known tunes. "Ethnic minorities could decide the future of Montenegro," an MP of the Socialist People's Party, Momcilo Vucetic, warned recently in an alarmed tone of voice. Let us examine what prevents this deputy from getting a good night's sleep. Generally speaking, the biggest culprit, in his view, is the Montenegrin government which refused two demands of the Socialist People's Party and the People's Party: that citizens of Serbia originally from Montenegro be allowed to vote in the referendum and that only an outcome backed by over 50 percent of registered voters be considered valid.

Vucetic, equipped with pen, came up with the following figures: Montenegro has some 450,000 registered voters. If one-half of them (that is, 225,000) vote in the referendum, the result will be valid. But here comes the most horrifying part of his arithmetic: one-half plus one of this number will suffice to declare Montenegro an independent state. The conclusion is evident: "Some 110,000 people cannot decide the status of the country. And this is exactly how many minority residents Montenegro has."

In this he is right: some 25 percent of all citizens of Montenegro are members of minorities. Only it never occurred to Vucetic the Deputy and Patriot to explain whether anyone has the power or the intention to prevent the overwhelming, two-thirds "Orthodox majority" from participating in the referendum and thereby deciding the future of Montenegro.

Respected members of the People's Party went a step further than their colleagues from the Socialist People's Party. "The principle of positive discrimination should be used to ensure neutrality of minorities when fundamental issues are at stake. It is clear that there is no more fundamental an issue than the one involving the state's future." This is how the irrelevant minorities were lectured by the pro-majority Predrag Popovic, the vice president of the People's Party, until recently deputy speaker of the Montenegrin Legislature, and advocate of multi-culturalism, tolerance and other seasonal plants. Equipped with such experience, Popovic also felt obliged to advise individuals belonging to nations under the jurisdiction of a lesser God not to take this personally, because they will remain friends like always.

No offense, but the protocol established by the Creator has to be observed. While the Chosen are carrying out their historic task of deciding the fate of Montenegro, the others should stay at home, behind closed shutters, as if outside a blinding eclipse is in progress. Afterwards, they will all come together once more. And that is not all. Afterwards, in accordance with the latest European trend and their inborn compassion, the Chosen will grant them all the rights that they, as such, are eligible for.

In that context the matter is quite clear. A Montenegro for which all would vote, both its "majorities" and its "minorities," would, naturally, be less worthy than the FRY, into whose foundations only the votes of the Chosen were built. In this, attention should be paid to the lesser mathematics as well: there is no way in which a vote for Yugoslavia can prevail in Montenegro if its ethnic minority citizens are not prevented from voting on its fate, their fate, the fate of their country and their children. In other words, the FRY can survive in Montenegro only as an idea, a concept and a practice of discrimination.

The following should be recalled: according to the 1991 census, in addition to Montenegrins (67 percent), Muslims-Bosniaks comprised 15 percent, Serbs 9 percent, ethnic Albanians 7, and Croats approximately one percent of the population. All public opinion polls show that minorities (except for the Serbs who consider themselves a majority anyway) support Montenegro's independence almost without dissension.

Of course, "purebred knights" cannot deprive any Montenegrin citizen of the right to vote in elections or in a referendum. In truth, nobody is trying to do that anyway. They do only what they can -- they are trying to desecrate that right and the results of its honoring. A part of this demanding job is to create an unbearable atmosphere in which members of minorities would "voluntarily" renounce their free will.

But what else is new. The same happened on the eve of the former Yugoslavia's breakup and the 1992 referendum. The purpose of the operation is the same: fear should be put to good use so that minorities, instead of asking themselves what will happen with Montenegro, should, in seclusion, ask themselves what will happen to them. Only under the weight of fear can they consent to not see how impossible it is to separate the fate of every individual citizen and every individual ethnic group from the fate of Montenegro.

Of course, the leadership of the Socialist People's Party and the People's Party can no longer create an atmosphere wherein the people would en masse allow themselves to be devastated. No, the struggle in Montenegro today is waged for every single, individual soul. The Socialists and the People's Party are already preparing the ground for a boycott. In this, all those who for whatever reason fail to turn out at the polls will be of assistance: if the turnover is below 50 percent, its results will not be valid.

This is why they are resorting to rage: to make those naturally prone to feeling endangered even more hesitant. After all, it is not too hard to evoke bad memories. After presidential elections three years ago, supporters of Momir Bulatovic laid the blame for his defeat on treacherous "Turks" and "Shqipetars" (ethnic Albanians). In addition to the base rhetoric and endless tirades about "treason," punitive patriotic expeditions were also dispatched to the homes of ethnic Albanians in Malesia, near Podgorica.

There is also the they-won't-tell-us-what-to-do message. "Patriotic" forces are trying to convince their followers that ethnically pure Montenegro exists not only in their dreams, but in statistics, in the streets, cafes, and schools as well. Those who accept this illusion will find it difficult to understand why it failed to work in the referendum.

The they-won't-tell-us formula will come in handy as a therapeutic means in the days to come to help them through their flight from reality. Fate sometimes plays ironic games: this may be their last handhold, almost like clutching thin air, when in conditions of equal opportunity for all, they find that they are a minority.

Esad Kocan

(AIM Podgorica)