Milosevic was eclipsed by the sexual alternative, he was relegated to the realm of legend to rest, only to nevertheless reemerge from the shadows yesterday in The Hague, as upright as ever. The crushing of the gay and lesbian parade threatened, as a result of the drama and crudeness of that event, to eliminate him altogether from the collective national consciousness. Brute passions were at their height on the streets of Belgrade in an expectedly ugly fashion.
Crucified between Europe and themselves, the Serbs must self-critically examine themselves. There will be no European integration without fags, that is, Serbs will not be accepted into the Union if they fail to honor the right to sexual freedom of choice and sexual diversity. From the behavior of the socce fans, angry Serbs, skinheads and Radicals, Freud and other engineers of the human soul might be led to conclude that these groups consist of latent fags, just like all excessively masculine groups. In people of different sexual orientation they recognize their own homosexual urges and attack those parts of themselves which they refuse to acknowledge as part of themselves in others. They despise them and other socially undesirable characteristics. In psychoanalysis this is called externalization. Hence homophobia and aggressiveness.
On the other hand, the Serbs (and an occasional Croat) have always expressed defiance toward the class enemy. After 73 years, Milosevic repeated the historic words of Josip Broz: I do not recognize this court! They didn't help Broz, who was sentenced to a long prison term while Milosevic, in the opinion of his party and Bane Ivkovic, showed firmness and dignity which confused the Hague tribunal. Hence even the sacrifice of Zoran Zizic - his resignation from the function of federal prime minister in protest against the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic - was not pointless: Milosevic will not yield! For Zizic's honor, too, is being defended in The Hague...
Thus it happened the federal prime minister after his resignation awarded medals to our gold-winning waterpolo team.
Milosevic, on the other hand, was not allowed to finish saying what he thought of them. He had the idea: "A mockery of a tribunal, a mockery of the hearing before him whose purpose it was to hide the war crimes which NATO committed in the FRY. My executioners and the world public know well that I am not in The Hague due to alleged war crimes ascribed to me but because we stopped NATO and because we showed the entire world that NATO is not omnipotent and that even a small country and people determined to defend their freedom can defend themselves from the greatest military machinery in the world." Milosevic wanted to emphasize that he is proud of what he did to defend his country and people. "That defense was honorable and noble, in the spirit of the best tradition of Serbian arms."
After defeating NATO, why wouldn't Milosevic defeat the Hague tribunal, too, with his rhetoric?
While being tried for the tract of land in Dedinje, before domestic judges whom he recognizes, Milosevic defended himself using purely legal means, with attorneys. In The Hague he opted for the Yugoslav United Left line of defense, the political defense, and released his attorneys. It is expected that his future speeches in The Hague will find a receptive audience among the Third World countries and opponents of globalization among whose supporters I do not count myself, either. Where is the multiculturalism in globalization?
They didn't listen to Zizic, they extradited Milosevic to The Hague and Zizic abdicated. He says he did not endanger the stability of the federal state by doing this, he only preserved his honor.
Zoran Zizic (born 1951) said as early as February that extradition was an unpopular move and that it was not foreseen under the existing Yugoslav constitution although he allowed the possibility of other solutions: "That doesn't mean the federal government will not cooperate with the international tribunal, all the more so because a modification of constitutional norms is in preparation." When time ran out, however, the wait for this modification was abandoned. And the Hague tribunal itself had failed to become more of a legal and less of a political institution, as Zizic had expected.
The Hague, it is true, is trying to prove that it is independent of politics but this looks like the efforts of some domestic leaders to prove that the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic had nothing to do with the donors' conference and that it occurred at the same time only by coincidence!
"Ah, that Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day) and those priests!" adds playwright Biljana Srbljanovic.
Now Carla del Ponte is acting as triumphant as Biljana...
Allow me to mention in passing: the moment someone were to place himself above the Constitution - such as it is, it is valid until it is changed - then that person would be an usurper like Milosevic, who ruled by oral decree, without or against the law. But that's over and done with now...
From the phase of optimism, towards mid-May, Zizic fell into a pessimism which resulted in his resignation. In May he said that a consensus on the law on cooperation with the Hague tribunal had been achieved in principle and that this promised a quick solution to the mutual satisfaction of all parties.
"Our country, as a member of international institutions, should cooperate with the Hague tribunal."
Then everything fell apart; some members of DOS angered Zizic's Socialist People's Party (SNP). This is pointed out by Zizic's friend, SNP president Predrag Bulatovic. Bulatovic says that cooperation with a part of DOS will be difficult and recommends new federal elections without excluding the possibility of a new premier being appointed once again from his party. Some believe that this might even be Zizic himself; he himself doubts it.
Zoran Zizic is a charming man who nurtures his human roles. A master of jurisprudence, he understands the Constitution and the law; that is why he resigned. He believes in God and goes to church but also to the pub because among Serbs and Montenegrins those two things are not mutually exclusive. He advocates a united Yugoslavia. "Montenegro cannot remain separated from Serbia because this would mean its political and economic isolation." He allows the possibility of Montenegrins voting otherwise but he doubts it...
Whether Zizic, too, will became a part of legend or whether he will return and when will be decided by Predrag Bulatovic.
The role of personalities in history is indisputable.