When Serbia goes up in the flames which they themselves will ignite this week and when the flames engulf them both, Sloba will be holding her hand. He will not utter a single word of accusation to her for his political fate. Both of them know why; Mira believes she created him! This, she believes, also gives her the right to destroy him.
In practical terms, Milosevic is the casualty of a domestic assassination. He was done in, probably prematurely, by Mira's absolutely erroneous calculation that had the goal of reorganizing Serbia and Yugoslavia in a manner which would allow family dynastic rule for decades to come. Since the division of labor at home, going back to their high school days, was into ideological tasks, which were her forte, and implementation, which was his job - everything that Milosevic did during the last year, everything that he said in public, everything he thought about at home, everything that he forced upon the state, the army, the police, the media and the ruling political parties - everything was a product of her thought. Which doesn't absolve him but only demonstrates to what degree of fatalism and with what loyalty he bore his reluctance to deny her anything.
The analysts see in them, and rightfully so, only one dimension - the one that has determined the fate of so many people, changed the lives of many, destroyed their homes, their dreams or buried everyone's children. However, what is fascinating about this kind of people is the fact that they also have an ordinary, everyday dimension, that they look like everyone else. Even normal. He never transcended the role of a poor boy who married into a family with a historical pedigree; she never meddled in his affairs while he was a banker and she never stopped meddling from the moment he entered politics.
She, namely, believes that everything in society can be organized if you have the people to implement it, the force to secure it, the media to popularize it and the fear that will force people to act as if they believed in everything they hear. She pictured every aspect of life in Serbia as a part of a continuation of the Eighth Congress [Milosevic came to power in Serbia after a political coup at the Eight Congress of the Central Committee of the Serbian League of Communists, in which he overthrew his mentor Ivan Stambolic] - she is the author of the scenario for the coup leading to the takeover which occurred there - she sees the entire domain of politics as a conspiracy by a group which called itself the First Proletarian Brigade and which cost Stambolic most dearly twice. The first time as a politician, the second time as a living being.
Until now, things have gone in her favor. She believed that the words he spoke at one time created a myth of Sloba. She was convinced that he was the domestic product of the Markovic-Milosevic enterprise, and not a specimen from the Serbian ethnic and political zoo. He believed that she possessed supernatural powers by which she was leading the family toward planetary success, and that because of those capabilities they should not only live historically but create history. The Eighth Congress represented the inception of a precisely defined mutual relationship; the second blow to his ego, which he bore without grumbling, came when she demanded that the peace be signed at Dayton and threw Karadzic, Mladic, Crncevic, Mihailo Markovic and Vucelic out of the house. Since then he has been completely alone and surrounded only by her people or people of whom she approved.
The concluding, final blow, the political dethronement of Milosevic, practically, began with the creation of JUL [the Yugoslav United Left]. The passionate Serbs, still fresh from war memories, took her political engagement as a marital infidelity by a man with whom they had tied the knot for life. Since then, Sloba has squandered everything that he had previously gained in the eyes of the Serbs. She created her own neo-Communist parallel organization which behaved toward Sloba's people like commissars toward ordinary partisans. He was increasingly ineffective in fending off her demands for new political appointments for her friends, whom he personally detested but had to tolerate.
A sudden change in his terminology made it clear that Sloba's weak and transparent resistance was broken. Up to that point he defended himself with the words: "I cannot say things like that, I am the state"; after the socialist congress, the opposition became traitorous, opponents became hyenas, tourists became old hags, Otpor [resistance] became Hitler Jugend [Hitler's youth organization], reporters became mercenaries, and all of them together became fascists. This was all a result of Mira's ambition to become directly involved in state political leadership, to be formally installed as the right hand of the head of state and to substitute for the "weary" Sloba in many of his duties and responsibilities. The expressions "weary" and "not the same old" Sloba were heard with increasing frequency among the members of the JUL.
Mira, fearful of future developments, came up with a way of forestalling any eventuality, either a possible assassination attempt - and they suspected that the Yankees were constantly preparing his liquidation - or a way of avoiding a battle to succeed him. She planned to kick off the entire campaign by assuming the position of the head of the Federal Parliament. According to the constitution, this would make her a legitimate successor to the throne. Because of this wish on her part, a whole series of unimaginable moves unfolded.
In order to achieve this, first an alliance with the Radicals was unavoidable; then a law on media and the university, then a change in the constitution and finally, a fatal mistake - elections! She grafted her own lobotomized men to implement the policies that practically forced the Serbs to actively resist - Ivan Markovic, Goran Matic and Ljubisa Ristic. These three are as loved among the Serbs as castration and circumcision combined. Her people, delirious before the silence of the Serbs, behaved like prostitutes without a street to walk on. For the same price, they revealed more and more.
Sloba's words, created by her, no longer met with approval among the Serbs! On the contrary! Expressions such as "Serbia will bow down to no one" or "We know how to fight" no longer mean anything to anyone. The energy of evil has evaporated. The force with the help of which the Serbs got to where they are now is gone. That is why his speech to the mustached Montenegrins was a catastrophe. His speech to the people of Sumadija was met with silence. Her injected sentences, her reversals, her private assessments regarding the hormonally unbalanced members of the opposition sounded unconvincing and artificial in his interpretation. On the other hand, her promotional appearances, her demands that the poor world embark upon a revolt against the rich, headed by the Serbs who are prepared to die in the battle against the New World Order, only frightened people or made them laugh.
Therefore, the wrong policies and the wrong people, the wrong time and the wrong moves gave the only possible result - an electoral debacle! Their personnel selection process used to replace the capable or the taciturn with charlatans and idiots - whose lack of creativity and intelligence was the guarantee of their loyalty - has now backfired. Except for force, they have nothing to lean on. And that force, which until recently appeared to be an area where they exercised absolute power, is itself now before a schism. How many people from the police and the army want to fire at their new supreme commander - Kostunica? Today every one of them must choose - which does he fear more, the future or Sloba?
During this time, Mira and Sloba took a 24-hour "time-out"; they collected their policies transformed into tatters, collected their power turned into rags and decided to fight to the end. Their end or ours. Even if he had wanted to, and he didn't, Sloba would not have denied her final wish not to kneel before traitors, before class enemies and before fascists. Even if both of them had rationally chosen a peaceful parting with the Serbs, something stopped them: they could not allow their enemies to rejoice, they cannot stand to see their courtiers redeeming themselves by selling their secrets, and they cannot depend on anyone for mercy!
The couple who declared war on the whole world today faces war with their people. A logical end for both them and us. Embracing each other before the earthquake, he is weak in front of her, she is powerless before the forces which direct her. It is all like in the sad, melodramatic Russian love stories which they loved watching. Except for the end. Here it cannot be a happy one!
That is why this article is not about guilt and responsibility. Every one of us will judge for himself. This is just a story about a woman who wanted everything and a man who could not deny her anything. All the elements of the classical plot are here: power, money, death, a woman, war, poverty and the end. It would be a Greek tragedy, were it not a Serb one!