Patriotic Mobilisation - For the Second Time

Call to Lynch Traitors

AIM Belgrade, 29 March, 1998

The latest developments in Kosovo - which immediately unpleasantly reminded all those with normal memory of the introductory skirmishes on the eve of breaking out of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia - proved to be very convenient for declaration of yet another "patriotic moobilisation" by the authorities. In an atmosphere of threatened territorial integrity of the state, which the majority believes enjoys support from without, verified (verbal) fighters for "our cause" and professional traitor hunters appeared again. The specific "starting shot" was fired by - who else? - Dr. Mirjana Markovic, the person who has not at all become a celebrity by her scientific work, but who has become an important and unavoidable protagonist of Serbian public and political life thanks to the banal biographical fact that she is married to the long-time sovereign ruler of Serbia, the current president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic.

Dr. Markovic who got as a present from her husband a whole political party ("Yugoslav Left", a bizarre combination of sentimental slightly decrepit nostalgic Titoists and Brezhnevists and cynical pragmatic unscupulous "businessmen" who consider their parapolitical "engagement" as the most certain way to get quickly and unlawfully rich), appeared on Wednesday, 25 March at the election conference of the municipal committee of her party in Zemun. The very place where she gave her speech - which was given high publicity by the regime-controlled media - is "notable": Zemun is the stronghold of the extremist rightist Serb Radical Party, the new coalition partner of the ruling Serbian Socialists.

Mirjana Markovic was driven to Zemun in order to urbi et orbi publicise, among other, the following: "Allies of foreign pressure on Yugoslavia in Yugoslavia itself should, like in any country in the world which is free, independent and stands on its dignity, be treatred as its greatest enemies. These allies are among a part of the so-called independent media, in certain publishing houses, personified by some rightist political parties (the "right" which sometimes means one thing and the next moment another, is a constant negative obsession of Dr. Markovic, op. T.P.), but sometimes also in the person of a rightist or careerist installed in the Left, among a part of the corrupt or manipulated intellectuals, experts, public personalities, young people..." Masons, Jews, cyclists and fans of stuffed cabbage leaves were this time omitted from the list of Dr. Markovic, which does not mean that they will not have more luck in the next drawing. Further on, the first lady of Serbia and Montenegro concludes her patriotic soliloquy: "In the interest of preserving territorial and state integrity of Yugoslavia, in order to protect its national dignity and in the interest of reconstruction and reform in Yugoslavia, all patriotic forces should unite, all material and spiritual subjects, all political, social and cultural resources. We literally need a frontline along which freedom and independence will be defended, but also a civilisation frontline along which peace and prosperity will be defended, the way to a humane and modern society".

Practice is sometimes faster than theory, so that the appearance of Dr. Markovic had a specific prelude in the scandal initiated by Belgrade district prosecutor Miodrag Tmusic when he accused editors of five Belgrade independent dailies that their journals, "unpatriotically" used inadequate, treacherous terminology: they did not call persons killed in Drenica in Kosovo simply terrorists, but the Albanians; Nasa borba went too far by even calling them people...

This scandal appeared somewhat like a operetta and helped only prosecutor Tmusic to definitely disgrace himself in public in which he has never been considered to be a genius of jurispridence anyway. After the new appearance of Dr. Markovic and establishment of the new coalition government with the ill-famed Radicals, however, things are becoming less funny. It is known from the recent history of previous wars for post-Yugoslav heritage that the Socialists and the Radicals always cooperated best and most passionately in suffocating xenophobic atmosphere of general paranoia. Whenever patriotic clarion calls are sounded and those with most stentorian voices roar the always ready at hand platitude "Serbdom is in danger", the Socialists and the Radicals forget all mutual differences and without much hesitation fall into each other's arms. This can clearly be seen from the way Vojislav Seselj is treated in writings of Dr. Markovic: at times he is a model-patriot, but at times a loathsome, disgusting Rightist, nationalist, chauvinist, fascist, Herzegovinian (in Serbia, like in Croatia, this is a curse in the past few years), and in general, a being which deserves contempt. Once this over-sensitive intellectual with strong meteopathic inclinations publicly expressed doubt about manliness of Dr Vojislav Seselj... He then called the best known Serb sociologist, "red witch" and a series of similar "sweet" names.

Nowadays, this is nothing but the ugly past. The regime, reinforced by "ideologically unwavering" Radicals, obviously intends to make good use of the new rise of "patriotic temperature" in public to finally get rid of increasingly unpleasant privately-owned independent media. In the beginning of the nineties it was much easier and less painful to tolerate the existence of disonant public voices because there was just one independent daily, a few weeklies and magazines, and a single radio station which could not be heard even on the entire territory of Belgrade. In the meantime - especially during and after last year's "winter revolution" and taking over of power in the cities by the opposition, the relation of power significantly changed: there is a two-digit number of dailies which are not controlled by the regime, nobody knows the number of such periodicals, and radio and tv stations have created a network called ANEM - Association of Independent Electronic Media, and with the help of satellites, Internet and in similar ways, distribute independent and uncensored information on the territory of almost entire Serbia. That is how the total circulation of independent dailies exceeded the circulation of regime newspapers - some of which are barely surviving despite regular and lavish financial "infusions" from the state budget

• and the uncontrolled radio and tv information is not a privilege of Belgraders any more because signals of stations which have joined ANEM are covering at least two thirds of the territory of the state. This creates big problems to the regime, because slowly but disturbingly persistently, it is depriving the refime of the strongest weapon by means of which it has been ruling for a whole decade: ignorance and inadequate information of the majority of the population about even the most fundamental facts. Therefore, it will not be surprising if after the Brezhnevian xenophobic outburst of Dr. Mirjana Markovic and parajuristic trifling of prosecutor Tmusic some form of open repression follows against independent media which were lucidly called by someone "the only opposition left in Serbia".

It will soon become clear whether the Radicals will agree to participate in this game of the Socialists and the Leftists; at the time when they fell from grace of the Socialists, after Milosevic and Karadzic split, they could be heard only in a few independent media. But, it is not exactly characteristic for the Radicals to think highly of such matters. The new minister of information is a Radical cadre, the young and insolent Aleksandar Vucic, man who in his career had no professional connections with media. Except that his mother happens to be a journalist. After all, if someone can be a big philosopher just because her husband happens to be the president of a state, why would not someone else be a minister of information because he is the next of kin with a journalist? This, too, is Serbia.

Teofil Pancic

(AIM)