"Well, would not it have been easier, if they had decided to get rid of you, to shoot you?" the former high school student from Travnik and brilliant student of philosophy from Heidelberg joked. In the early eighties he was celebrated as the most promising young philosopher from the other side of the iron curtain; in the nineties he carried the label of the most efficient cigarette smuggler in the transition countries, and early in the new century he became the undisputed champion of democratic enlightenment, reformation and transformation of the Western Balkans.
Should the lesson of this story be that philosophers in the Balkans as a rule differently interpret snipers, and that the bottom line is that they always should be careful?! Especially if precocious, contemplative kids smuggle cigarettes and hang out with dangerous types in their free time? Because, in every worthwhile screenplay, a convincing tragedy, the sniper from the first act (Sarajevo) must catch up with his victim by the grand finale - in Belgrade.
But, this is not the time, not only because it is so soon after the murder and due to elementary civility towards the late Djindjic, to exploit Zoran Djindjic's murder for settling various partial, state, national or ideological accounts. As far as Djindjic is concerned, over the last two decades I've undergone a whole gamut of contradictory changes of emotions and opinion, from impressionable meetings with a charming, exotic professor with a ponytail whose sometimes erotic verbal exhibitionism reminded you of soccer player Roberto Baggio and immediately afterwards seduced you with stories about his professor Jurgen Habermas. In the second half of the 80's, this Serb Leszek Kolakowski published his political essays, sensible and wise, anti-totalitarian (therefore both anti-Communist and anti-nationalist) in Sarajevo periodicals; some of the most uncompromising analyses of the Serb society at the end of the nineteen eighties hypnotized by Milosevic's national-socialist alchemy written by professor Djindjic were published in Nasi Dani.
Then, for us who knew and read him, in the early 90's, when the political scene in Serbia purportedly became pluralist, while it actually fragmented into myriad of harmonic, complementary nationalist models of the "denouement of the Yugoslav crisis", came the period of disappointment, because of "a slow surrender" of professor Djindjic that will later receive its semi-official colloquial name - pragmatism.
However, all of that together and individually, all those more-or-less correct flash-backs are not at all relevant, and do not help in understanding the motivation of those who brutally murdered Zoran Djindjic in the center of Belgrade, in full daylight, in front of thousands of witnesses. Djindjic was not murdered because of any of his actions that provoked deep mistrust in Bosnia - his flirting with nationalists, cigarette smuggling, links with mafia gangs, his pragmatism, untrustworthiness... He died because of the refusal of the society in Serbia to accept deep and profound changes! Energy and speed, depth and essential nature of actions taken by Djindjic (in which his allies from the DOS followed either slowly or not at all, or without sincere support) were simply a shock therapy that was welcomed only by a small part of the Serbian society. Hemmed in, obstructed and blocked by conservative sluggishness and nationalist resistance of his first partner Vojislav Kostunica, more-or-less despised by the rest of the pygmies in the DOS camp, Djindjic had to carry out mission impossible - convince his European and American friends that Serbia was not a lost cause, society that had no hope of ever becoming civilized.
For example, let us take into account cooperation with the Hague, and compare what "untrustworthy" Djindjic did to the achievements to the "consistent" Prime Minister of Croatia Ivica Racan. Racan's government, during three years of its rule, that was supposed to be a radical step away from dictatorial Tudman's regime managed to send to the Hague only the unfortunate ethnic Albanian Rahim Ademi. Racan's government knows everything about Ante Gotovina's hiding places in Hercegovina, but as soon as he crosses into Croatia, they immediately lose him. Socialdemocrat Racan weeps next to general Bobetko's catafalque, but he refuses to extradite him to the Hague; on the other hand, during that time Djindjic tightened the noose around Ratko Mladic and Momcilo Perisic. Therefore, while Djindjic "packed up" and sent to Carla Del Ponte one president of FR Yugoslavia, presidents of Serbia (two pieces), president and deputy presidents of state and federal governments (too many to count), a horde of generals, policemen, a battalion of protected witnesses, Racan managed to add to the handful of sad Croats from Bosnia-Hercegovina - a medical report about general Bobetko's health. Let us now leave Racan alone and move to our own yard. When a year ago the local authorities chased out several bums from abroad who did not have the right to be here, for weeks those very same authorities feared civil war and their leaders feared liquidation. Djindjic got rid of Milosevic who had, at his worst, two and a half million supporters, or Seselj, who can always count on a million and a half supporters. The way in which Djindjic led the country did not indicate that he was a man who counted and expected to face the voters in the near future. To him, it was obvious that the country he led had to exist for elections to be possible.
It is totally irrelevant whether Zoran Djindjic died as a victim of the "organized crime" or the lobby supporting Serb war criminals. With more or less caution, more or less scheming, in the previous three years he managed to dismantle basic levers of the demon-like Serbian system whose equal and cooperative parts include war crimes and ordinary crime.
We can tell ourselves that life in Bosnia-Hercegovina is peaceful, that our prime ministers and ministers calmly walk through our cities and peacefully go to work. I fear that that is only because criminals, mafia bosses, international conspirators equally calmly and peacefully go to their jobs. No one has so far attempted to push them into the legal framework. For example, the prime minister who attempts to figure out how Federation BH managed to spend 700 kilograms of heroin, while only 0.5 kilograms were seized, will end up like Djindjic. Or at least like Jozo Leutar!