On litanies, in another way by prof. Miodrag Perovic
I was impressed with the opinion of prof. Dr Miodrag Perovic ,on the current events in Montenegro.As a respected University scholar and founder of Vijesti which is one of the most influential independent media enterprises in Montenegro, Dr Perovi? has been for a long time contributing to the strengthening democracy and society in Montenegro.The opinion article showed well a thought out and viable way out the deadlock situation. A way out that can unite the split and divided nation and lead to a better future without corruption and antagonism that have captured and monopolized the state.
Dr Du?ko Kne?evi?
On litanies, in another way
Miodrag Perovic
? Daily Press Vijesti, 4 March 2020
Or, why I did not sign the appeal of the former members of the Independence Movement
The Law on the Freedom of Religion turned Montenegro into a battlefield between the regime and the Church. The regime says that the litanies are an assault by Belgrade and Moscow on the Montenegro's state independence. The Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) in Montenegro replies that the people are gathering with God's blessing to defend their identity, their Church and their religion. It is unclear why thousands of those who voted for independence from Serbia have also joined the litanies.
On the regime
The twenty-first day of May 2006 was supposed to be a milestone in the integration of the Montenegrin nation. It is a notorious fact that the success of a national revival movement depends on whether it will integrate the nation on the principles of freedom, equality and fraternity. The means of achieving this is by establishing a society on the principles of a modern democracy. That is why every modern European nation sees itself as a large integrated family of equal members. However, the Montenegrin regime did everything possible so that its citizens would hate the idea.
After the referendum, Djukanovic started to crash the independists who demanded Montenegro's democratic integration and, a bit later, to tighten the pre-referendum divisions. Thus, the enthusiasm with which the victory had been achieved on the independence referendum has been destroyed. Post-referendum Montenegro does not affirm any of the ideals of the nation: neither the ideal of liberty, nor the ideal of justice, nor the ideal of equality.
Just as Bonapartism delayed the realization of the ideals of the French Revolution, so the enthronement of the new Lord of Montenegro delayed the accomplishment of national ideals for some future times. Because a nation cannot be integrated on the absence of liberty, on injustice and humiliation. The established regime is a kind of a hybrid oligarchy. It pursues legitimacy through rogue elections, and then enforces despotism. The Despot and its council of about ten people govern the legislative, judicial and executive authorities on the basis of a presumed majority will. In some situations, they are the Crown (feudal) Council, in another the Politburo that enforces dictatorship, in others the oligarchy which makes economic decisions in its own interest.
Viewed from the angle of Montesquieu's Spirit of Law (1748), who inspired the French Revolution, Montenegro is in a pre-revolutionary stage. "The principle of despotic power is constant corruption ... and the state is poor". The subordinates are no more than slaves because despotism rests on fear. “The people must be kept in a state of fear of punishment”. The despot has no need to restrain, to doubt and to reason ... That is why he naturally becomes "lazy, lustful and ignorant”. Montesquieu predicts that for democracies, which he expects will be the next stage in the development of a European society, the greatest danger will be the spirit of inequality and the spirit of extreme equality. A republic with extreme inequality cannot be stable. A small republic with great inequalities cannot survive.
A century after Montesquieu, De Tocqueville, in the book The Old Regime and the Revolution, based on historical documents, describes a situation in France at the dawn of the Revolution similar to Montesquieu: “... No one sees anymore in the sovereign the father of the state, but everyone perceives the master, ...... they hate him ... He is full of anger and fear; he sees himself as a stranger in his own country, and treats his subjects as vanquished." For the situation after the collapse of the First Republic introduced by the revolution, De Tocqueville says that the usurper established "a rule stronger and much more absolute than the one the revolution had overthrown". And instead of the freedoms that were the ideal of revolution, it allows only their "empty images".
Should one believe the two founders of the theory of democracy, the people did not go to Amfilohije because they liked the return to the Middle Ages, but to oppose Djukanovic's despotism. Religion can mitigate somewhat the effects of bad institutions and laws, and is the only thing capable of serving as a nuisance to despotic power, Montesquieu says. De Tocqueville explains why, shortly after the Revolution, the church strengthened everywhere in Europe: "The experience of all ages has shown, after all, that the strongest root of religious instinct has always been implanted in the heart of the people". An anonymous citizen conveyed on the portal Vijesti: "Amfilohije, recognise our - your nation, and all of 900 thousand of us will come to you".
On the Church
The Serbian national program, which has been alive for 180 years, is aimed at erasing Montenegrin-hood as a category. One of the means by which this program was implemented was the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro. Although ecumenical (universal) by definition, the SOC has for centuries preached ethnophyletism (tribalism that equates religion and nation).
Metropolitan Amfilohije did not realize that the restoration of the independence of Montenegro required that the Orthodox Church in Montenegro should do what it did before the formation of Yugoslavia in 1918, when it was an irreplaceable pillar in the establishment and preservation of the Montenegrin state. He continued to hold sermons and speeches against Montenegrin identity. For this reason, national Montenegrins still see him as the inspirer of the wars in the early 1990s and as an opponent of the Montenegrin state. Although he was essentially only an opponent of the Montenegrin nation (proponent of Montenegro as another Serbian state).
However, a generation of younger priests understood that a Montenegrin state without a nation would be the first example in history that the centuries-old existence of a state in the era of nation-formation does not give birth to a national identity. Therefore, they began to preach civic ideas in the litanies, which support the unification of Montenegrin national and civic beings. Rector of Cetinje Seminary Gojko Perovic sent a message to all those who are looking for another church: "There is no prayer for us without you, nor Montenegro for you without us." This statement is the most important result of litanies. The call for unity of Montenegrin diversity, without erasing national Montenegrins, has not been heard from the Church to date.
This is an important step in the evolution of the Church, even if it is, for starters, just a purely pragmatic view that it is also better for the Church that all Montenegrins pray together, some as Serbs, the others as Montenegrins. Even if the priests were pushed in this direction by the presence in the litanies of a large number of national Montenegrins, who were not close to the Church before.
The state authorities, however, are not ready to welcome the changes that are emerging in the Church. Its latest rulers, without statesmen vision, have never even thought about it. They have continued to insist that half of its Orthodox citizens are traitors. Djukanovic has recently threatened institutions that are almost non-existent and called for obedience. It seems that he was looking for an excuse to deal with the litanies in a physical manner, with that poor human material (one follower’s terminology). So that he could re-establish the power of the guardian of the revolution in a divided society. He gave up following statements by the British and US Embassies calling for a peaceful resolution of the problem.
Conclusion
All successful national movements have accomplished the democratic integration of the nation. All unsuccessful ones have in common that, instead of democracy, they have built corrupt non-free societies. When Gran Columbia fell apart from corruption, Bolivar wrote, "Of everything we have created, all that remains is independence."
Preservation of Montenegrin independence is a long-term issue. Today, it will be defended by NATO, but who will defend her from ‘democratic’ drowning into Serbia in 10 or 15 years, when Vucic recognizes Kosovo and Serbia becomes a NATO member. If the youthful Djukanovic endures, there will be no one to defend it: “Leave the country where one man holds all power. It's a nation of slaves", says Bolivar.
Rome did not fall because the barbarians were stronger, but because it was ravaged by corruption, nepotism and weakening of institutions. At the moment, Montenegro is also much more threatened by Djukanovic's despotism than by Greater Serbian aspirations and its own ambivalent Serbian-hoods and Montenegrin-hoods. Montenegrin-hood is an emancipatory idea and, if it survives the present rule, its power will inevitably strengthen. The problem with the SOC is one of a long-term, while with each passing day of his rule, Djukanovic challenges the civilizational justification for the existence of a Montenegrin independent state. The only Western values that Djukanovic and his entourage have embraced so far from Europe are expensive wardrobe and expensive watches.
It is a paradox that the hope that everything can end without the conflict between independentists and unionists is provided at this point by a medieval institution such as the Church. It is giving birth to an emancipatory idea of unity of the Montenegrin folk being, while the party that technically realized Montenegro's independence seeks to cement divisions. That is why the main political task at the moment is to return the ruling party to civic positions and to help the Orthodox Church in Montenegro to not return to Greater Serbian hegemonic positions towards its own people. Evolutionary cycles begin with random mutations. The mutation happened in the Cetinje Metropolitanate. Now we should help the new species, that is for compromise, to prosper.
There is no one in Montenegro who still doubts that one of the intentions of the authorities, after-overtaking the property of the Church, is to sell that property to investors and to incorporate themselves, as usual, in all sales. Therefore, at a point when the private state is at its peak, the government does not have the legitimacy to transfer to the state the property held by the Church. However, temporary solutions to a centuries-old problem exist. (For example, raising the legal subjectivity of the Orthodox Church in Montenegro to a level that allows them to keep the churches and estates, but without the right to transfer their ownership to the Belgrade Patriarchate)
It would be best if the two war-friends and inspirers of the 1990s wars (Milo Djukanovic and Amfilohije Radovic) retired from the front row and left others with greater negotiating capacity to negotiate. Let the younger ones seek forms of coexistence that integrates Montenegro into one being.
The conditions are ripe for the era of divisions promoted by Djukanovic and Amfilohije to end. Political parasites on both sides, defending their sinecures and seeking conflicts, need to be moved away from negotiations.