Eurasia Press & News
A deadly circus took place in Kosovo. Adventurism and splurge that brought the possibility of embargo, isolation, visas and – war back to the already dreary reality. Obviously, we didn’t have enough, so the deder of one and the same.
And nothing is clear to anyone, even though it was duly announced. Namely, the day before yesterday, the central event of the fictitious party holiday, the Day of Serbian Unity, Freedom and the National Flag, took place in Niš on September 15. On that festive occasion, the president of our Republic returned to factory, i.e. radical settings.
In an incendiary speech, and after pumping emotions of resentment live, he verbally fired towards Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was an attempt of Gazimestan for the poor, where battles are again not armed – but such are not excluded either.
Because the Serbian people are threatened, we should gather together and unite around the flag on the pole and the leader on the television. And what a little narrative that was copied verbatim from the infamous SANU Memorandum (1986) from almost forty years ago. And the rope we were already hanging on. A hundred times weaker and bare-handed, is it possible for us to continue smoking the same story?
THE WAR IS ON, JUST NOT DECLARED : It will be possible, as well as that words mean something and have consequences. Because, said – done. Only ten days later from the so-called Day of unity, freedom and other things, a tragedy happened. In the village of Banjska in the municipality of Zvečan, one Kosovo policeman was killed (and two others were wounded).
These police units came because of the previously installed barricades, i.e. the blockade on the bridge at the entrance to the village, and encountered an ambush. And the attackers in full war gear or armed to the teeth, then – fled to the monastery.
They broke through the locked gate, with a crossfire with the Kosovo police, while the monks and pilgrims from Novi Sad were practically held as hostages or clay pigeons. In the exchange of gunfire, (at least) three paramilitary attackers were killed, and whose names are hidden like fleas in a scab.
We don’t give holy places, they say? Officials of the Visoki Dečani monastery, which is a true sanctuary on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list, testify about armed persons with masks who, “fleeing from the (Kosovo) police”, “forcefully entered” the Banjska monastery while exchanging fire, and “exposing the monks to direct danger” and pilgrims.
Thank God and NATO because a greater bloodshed was prevented, so the whole monastery was not destroyed because of these bandits, and priests and religious tourists were killed. And now, at least four families are crying today, as they call funeral homes and caterers for donations.
And wars also broke out due to minor incidents. Or is the war going on for a long time, they just didn’t tell us? So, from the frozen conflict and the cold war, we sleepwalked to firearms, i.e. grenades, cannons and Kalashnikovs?
BALVANI TO CIVILIZATION : Serbian conspiracy theorists and professional geopoliticians are happy to recognize (allegedly) the same handwriting or scenario in the colored revolutions in Eastern Europe and springing up in the Arab world.
They just don’t see him in the same Udba narratives, resentments, public rallies, riots and celebrations in Serbia for four decades. Because the dramatic scenario for armed battles, which are not ruled out, was written a long time ago by the duo Jovica Stanišić and Frenki Simatović. While the shadow writer was Dobrica Ćosić.
Are we producing new Martić, Hadžić and Babić from certain Radoičić and Veselinović in the north of Kosovo who incite the confused and paramilitary organize the angry citizens? Are they erecting barricades towards peace and logs towards civilization? In the personal interest they sell as national?
It’s just that instead of robbing white goods and video recorders, skunks, cryptocurrency miners and other wonders are now being produced in the Kosovo Krajina. But hey – when will the paramilitary come back to Kosovo?
And that’s why, if we really want to understand recent events, we should go back to Gazimestan – but in 1989. On the occasion of marking the 600th anniversary of the Kosovo battle, Slobodan Milošević openly announced wars then and there, and the wars started a few years later.
In the year when the Berlin Wall fell, we erected barricades against the Kosovo Albanians and the rest of Yugoslavia. However, the entire society and culture participated in that propaganda parade with stage singing and planned shooting.
The excellent historian Radina Vučetić from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade testifies to this in her scientific work Kosovo 1989: (mis)use of the Kosovo myth in the media and popular culture, published in 2021 in the international scientific journal Comparative Studies of Southeast Europe.
“Just as the fall of communism did not happen overnight, neither did the changes in Yugoslavia in 1989,” writes Vučetić. And the Kosovo theme in society experienced a culmination this year. The Serbian Orthodox Church has been transporting and exhibiting the relics of Prince Lazar all over Serbia for a year.
On the occasion of Kosovo, academics generously published scientific works, and artists published artistic works. The feature film Battle in Kosovo was also shot. And Večernje novosti wrote that instead of Rambo, children should play “Miloš Obilić and others who lost their lives on the Kosovo field”.
So today we wonder where violence in schools and society comes from. The stage spectacle Kosovski boj was performed, the musical and stage work Boj was performed in the Ethnographic Museum, the Bitef theater organized a concert on the eve of Vidovdan, and SANA organized the scientific conference Kosovski boj: history and tradition and the like.
CHEAP IMITATION : These events were preceded by the consolidation of Milošević’s power in “anti-bureaucratic revolutions” in Vojvodina, Kosovo, and Montenegro. Cult and great Yugoslav director Želimir Žilnik recently stated the following: “The first mass uprising of this type took place in Novi Sad, the city where I live. It took me ten minutes of conversation with some of the participants to see the true nature of their protest.
Everything was well coordinated with the secret police and paid for – mass transportation was provided, banners and speeches were written and dictated in advance.” The general story was about the suffering of the Serbian people. As it is today, and as a cover and mise-en-scène for future wars and looting. For a nation that is so (rightly) proud of its history, it will be that we remember it poorly and learn even less from it.
And that is why the latest Day of Waving the Flag, and the terrible events in Banjska and the transformation of paramilitaries into Obilići, martyrs and heroes, are just a cheap imitation. Both tragedy and farce at the same time. By the way, everything is disputed even in the name of this holiday invented in 2020.
Which does not exist in the hateful law, but is a matter of verbal agreement between the presidents of the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska. Because what does Serbian unity mean if not Greater Serbia? What does freedom mean? Of what and who exactly: Albanians in Kosovo? Montenegrins in Montenegro?
The so-called of the collective West in society and the state? And are we unfree today? After all, it is the holiday of the national flag – and what others, please? Surely not Ferraris from anti-regime protests or rainbow colors from parades, evil and upside down? And yet, the famous people also swallowed that celebration, (reluctantly) like the Parisian.
And the flag was hung in cafes and terraces, it doesn’t matter that some of them, along with a crate of beer, were once distributed by the Čelarevska pivara. But let’s not be petty and let’s not split heraldic hairs now.
Counting on the thin memory of its audience, the government insists on the following. That the commemoration of various sufferings (Jasenovac), battles (Košare), and in general the victims of the Serbian people in history only started after 2012. And is it really so? Well, it is not, as evidenced by (historical) science.
And that’s why it’s worth remembering what the national project of marking Colors in Kosovo once looked like. As a historical battle that was politically and ideologically instrumentalized in the battle with the Albanians, and socialist and federal Yugoslavia.
All the same as the recent holiday and the invented tradition of the national flag. Because the handwriting is the same, only Parisian cheaper. Just like the scenario, values, propaganda, and worldviews regarding heavenly Serbia. While earthly life goes on – and further away from here.
