by Zeljko CVIJANOVIC
That sentence, spoken two summers ago by one of officials of Slobodan Milosevic’s party, in front of the big boss, will never be, although it should, recognized as the historical moment in which the then Yugoslav president made his first decisive step towards the Hague. Previously, and this should be much more important – although it isn’t – Milosevic committed another grave political violence by changing the constitution, so that it would fit his “excellent standing”.
“Boss, we’re doing great!”
Two years later, the messenger brought the news that the authorities were again “doing great”, which can only indicate that yet another government in Serbia has started believing in their TV propaganda sooner than those for whom that propaganda is intended. The government of Zoran Djindjic, true, still isn’t doing “great” enough to call a new election, but it is doing “great” enough to resort to political violence. On the one hand, therefore, there is the old story that in the political Serbia “doing great” still only indicates an opportunity and right to resort to political violence. That hasn’t changed, only the ruling rhetoric has changed. In the past it justified political violence by calling on the survival of the state and the nation. Today, violence is justified by the purported fact that it will be the last violence ever and will remove the possibility that any other violence may come afterwards, just like the tribal reformist from the old joke informed the elders’ council that as of today there was no more cannibalism because he had personally eaten the last cannibal.
On the other hand, however, this time legalistic squabbles about who comes first, the DOS coalition agreement, which allows the ruling coalition to expel and substitute its representatives in the parliament, or the law about representatives in the parliament, which denies that possibility, do not matter. What matters is totally obvious: one coalition, even the ruling coalition, gave itself the right to modify the composition of the parliament with an administrative decision.
That cannot mean anything else but that Djindjic has modified the composition of the parliament to the extent that he does not have to invest anymore tolerance in the Cacak-Cyprus tobacco industry for the sake of support from nine representatives of Velja Ilic’s New Serbia party. That means that the government that commits such political violence is approaching the critical point at which, once it’s crossed, the power is not defended because of reformist or any other ideals and plans, not even for the sake of power itself, but only for the sake of political violence that it commits, fully confident that the very same violence will strike back the moment it stops being in power. In other words, and this can be taken as a definition, the amount of political violence applied by one government against its opponents is inversely proportional to its subsequent readiness to be choosy about means exploited to remain in power.
Are you concerned? Do you fear the situation in which the world will again have to go out to the streets because the authorities have messed up so much that neither the elections nor anything else but plain, ordinary violence can bring about a change in government? Do you think that Goran Svilanovic’s intellect triumphed when, after voting at the DOS presidency meeting for the expulsion of 50 representatives from the Parliament, he later proposed that compromise be sought to find a way out from a parliamentary crisis?
If you do, you are wrong. That proposal was inspired by ordinary fear of a politician who has invested too much in himself to allow to be pushed, without personal enthusiasm, too close to the red line of political violence, after which no political violence will appear sinful.
Politically speaking, by replacing 50 representatives in the parliament of Serbia, Zoran Djindjic has carried out not only a coup, but has in the transitional period turned the DOS coalition into a private distraction, a circus, which, starting with this week, can function without anyone but him. If the conciliatory Svilanovic did not get scared of the red line, then his instincts probably made him afraid for his own skin, and the implied importance of his political party stemming from his mediation skills and the fact that only he is capable of talking in one day to both Djindjic and Kostunica. Neither Svilanovic nor Kostunica after this parliamentary coup maintain former importance. The DOS has been transformed from a creature that was kept civilized by the atmosphere of fear. It has become a construction in which it will finally be obvious who steers and who hauls. The only problem is that those who will be harmed by that are too numerous to be counted on the fingers of one hand, while only one person will benefit from it.
That is why the weak to nonexistent resistance to that decision in those parts of the DOS that will not be brought closer to Kostunica by that resistence – like SDP – is actually the last defense of parliamentary democracy in Serbia and the last guarantee that the authorities will not cross the line after which there will be no going back.
It is especially interesting that in this most recent, irreversible conflict between Djindjic and Kostunica (unless skillful Svilanovic sells them some of his own fear) we are witnessing a fierce underground battle whose result will indicate which one of the two of them is true heir of Milosevic and his policies, which made Serbia into an international pariah state. That arsenal is the origin of the key argument of Kostunica’s opponents according to which Kostunica is a new Milosevic because representatives from his party are increasingly frequently voting in the parliament together with the Socialists and the Radicals. In this case, it is irrelevant whether in Serbia anyone, for example, initiating public construction projects should be denounced as a follower of Adolf Hitler, who also promoted such projects. What matters is that Djindjic hasn’t left to Kostunica or anyone else, for that matter, much choice. They are either for him, or for Milosevic. It does not matter whether the foreigners, who are still dismissing any mention of early elections, believe that. It is important that Kostunica himself is getting closer to start believing in that, and consequently, for the sake of foreigners and general impression, is trying hard to portray his resistance to Djindjic as anything but an attempt to bring down Djindjic’s government.
However, the situation with Milosevic’s legacy is somewhat different from what can almost daily be read in the newspapers. Namely, Kostunica is less than anyone else in the DOS an advocate of the thesis that Milosevic is the main culprit for everything that happened in the last decade. That is why he has maintained relations with Bosnian Serbs, that is why he very insincerely condemned crimes committed by the Serbs, that is why he is more inclined to view the Hague as the dark dungeon that a place with even a trace of justice; that is why, as Aleksa Djilas says, Kostunica is a fake saint.
But every criticism of Kostunica that would aim at this moment to draw parallels with Milosevic is either moralistic or ideological. On the other hand, every criticism that would pull Djindjic in the context of Milosevic’s rule is a functional criticism of the method Djindjic uses, it is criticism of the methods used to assume absolute power or absolute nothing, it is criticism of political violence.
In the end, if we manage to defend the thesis that Milosevic was made destructive by his nationalist ideology, perhaps the ejection of Kostunica’s party from the parliament is only an act of self-sacrifice by Djindjic, who became a cannibal only to make sure no one eats us tomorrow in the street. If, on the other hand, we agree that Milosevic’s destructive nature was based on his will to power that was so strong that he crossed the line that led to, at first political and then naked violence, then the fate of this country, ignoring the Democratic Party of Serbia, lies in few weak SDP hands that are fighting for the survival of parliamentary democracy in Serbia, and the plain fear of Goran Svilanovic.