by Teofil PANCIC
Dry and Drenched: What does this eccentric behavior look like in practice, i.e. in nature, outside laboratory? Let us consider a very recent example. Dr. Vladeta Jerotic, a psychiatrist, theologian, writer and humanist, has recently marked the publication of his new book, The diary of a journey, Europe and Europeans; on that occasion, compassionate and utterly humane heart of Dr. Jerotic could not but get worried about the sad condition of Europe: "I feel about them the same as Dostoevski; I would cry over Europe, a cemetery with beautiful monuments, in which people struggle with their lack of faith, censor their feelings, and therefore appear somewhat dry" (Glas Javnosti, November 18, 1999). Ah, if it weren't for that "them" in the previous sentence, someone could thing that Dr. V.J. was including "us Serbs" into that European society worthy of sympathy and tears, but this way... All that can be concluded is that Dr. Jerotic, a distinguished local intellectual, sees everything that ordinary mortals, plebeians and simpletons, do not: slow but definite downfall of Europe, over which a well-meaning Serb intellectual can only shed tears. It had been good, before it fell ill! It is fortunate that "we" are not like "them", so that there is no need to shed tears over our destiny. And really, if one takes a look, as soon as an objective Serb, and an intellectual to boot, takes a short trip at least to Budapest, or even to Paris or London, he has to agree that the present day Europeans appear, what else, "somewhat dry". This, of course, in comparison with the present day Serbs, who at first and all consequent glances appear on the contrary very drenched... But that s not something that a standard Serb intellectual and humanist, overcome with weltschmertz would find interesting. Europe is threatened by extinction, not Serbia!
However, we are far from the thought that Dr. Jerotic is a profane and vulgar anti-European, as are all those characterized by base intellect (according to Slobodan Jovanovic); verbal anti-European attitude is the rhetoric characteristic of the "lower class" of the Serb "patriotic intellectuals". Those more developed, refined and better read varieties of the Standard Serb Intellectual, on the contrary, fatherly take Europe under their protection and defend its Authentic Values even from herself (just recall the renaissance man Kalajic, who we miss so dearly...), and especially from the imperialist America and its New World Order. If, therefore, the present Europe is so pathetic that one should cry over its fate, its past was much more glorious;(...)
After so heartrendingly lamenting over the worn out Europe, the Standard Serb Intellectual must also ritually defecate on America and Americans; that somehow, comes as a password, a self-legitimizing cry. After all, is it possible to be a Subtle Being if one does not utter at least one contemptuous racist filth about the inhabitants of that continent? Psychiatrist, theologian and humanist Vladeta Jerotic views that culturally-historically lower race in this manner: "When an American faces a Rembrandt's painting, he feels inferior and sad. That feeling must be compensated by force, money, warfare..." When I was in the US, I also visited museums and galleries (what can I do, I kept that habit from Europe). I noticed that these museums and galleries displayed a few Rembrandt's paintings. However, I did not notice that any one of the visitors would turn sad facing that scene overwhelmed by the European Culture, which is a part of Dr. Jerotic's cultural heritage. This either indicates that 1) there were no Americans in that museum (very unlikely) or 2) that I am not an intellectual, or a psychiatrist, and could not recognize in the museum that internal spiritual breakdown (very likely, even definitely true).
Fall form Mars: However, I had my doubts, which only demonstrates the deviant nature of my spirit, and could not rest in peace. In long sleepless nights, I begged to ask Dr. Jerotic whether he thought those devilish Americans had fallen directly from Mars on that large continent? The white American majority, which overwhelmingly makes up the American establishment, hails, whispers perhaps the Devil himself, exactly from Rembrandt's Holland, Shakespeare's England, Joyce's Ireland, Goethe's Germany, Voltaire's France, Boccaccio's Italy, Servantes' Spain, Strindberg's Sweden, Chopin's Poland... What are these people if not Europeans outside Europe, a consequence of European expansion and, as is usually said today, occupation? What makes Dr. Vladeta, or you, or myself (not so distant offspring of an illiterate shepherd from the Stara Mountain) a Rembrandt's descendant who "when facing Rembrandt's painting" should, I suppose, be so full of pride, as if Rembrandt were his grandfather or uncle, while some John, Jean, Johan, or Giovanni from New York should be ashamed and totally frustrated?
If we are not suffocated by heavy industry fumes or the Nitrogen Factory in Pancevo, there is no doubt that we will be sadistically strangled by all that "right", "Christian" archikitsch of childishly proud, sympathetic provincial Serb intellectuals who aspire to save Europe, and were scattered all over cosmos a while ago. During all these unfortunate years they have so profitably aligned themselves with "leftist" babbling from the local "center of global resistance to the New World Order". What Dr. Mira Markovic has to say about the State of the World these days boils down to, also, sympathetic cry over occupied Europe which, naturally, in its sad decadence has no strength to resist the Conqueror, so that only we maintain the flame of Resistance and berate vulgar and arrogant America, which "has no history and tradition" etc. (although, if that were important at all, the aforementioned state precedes the modern Serbian state by several decades...).
Mandatory Punishment: And while poor, semi-starving, cold, dark and neglected, and to a large extent functionally illiterate Serbia stumbles and staggers around trying to somehow stumble into that twenty first century, Serb philosophers and humanists are lamenting over the sad fate of Europe, which still lives with a smile on its face, failing to see its own terrible Catastrophe which is seen by our Seers, because "it comes to them". Masters of our misfortune, "left" producers of happiness by force as well as polite opponents, court jesters from the "right", all virtuous Traditionalists and Conservatives, some on the left and others on the right, keep singing the same lament over the rest of the planet and cosmos. On the other hand, there is no one left to cry for such Serbia, left to live in fear and poverty, lack of freedom, and die in pain, in various stunningly idiotic wars, or from illnesses that have been curable elsewhere for a while. There is no one left to cry for, or shed a tear for the people for whom it is not known whether they have a harder time living or dying and who, only in Europe, do not know whether they will be alive the next morning. And they do not know, also, whether their lives will ever get better. While christian Jerotics and comrade Miras are together reading last rites to Europe and America, Serbia is melting and disappearing, and the life in it becomes a specific type of mandatory punishment, without the right to appeal. And then a Serb sits down and reads all that and cannot believe his own eyes. He can only say: Americans have it so good! They are, supposedly, frustrated only in front of Rembrandt's paintings, while Serbs are daily frustrated in front of shelves of every supermarket in Szeged [city in the south of Hungary, near the border with Yugoslavia]; he feels so "inferior and sad" that he would be prepared to "compensate for that feeling by force, money, warfare"... And then he opts for money. It's simpler. Then he brings back to his children a kilo or two of already stale Hungarian salami after a long bus ride. While the children are enjoying the salami, eat while you can!, the frustrated father watches his passport full of stamps, recalls a routinely contemptuous stare of the Hungarian customs policeman, and his hurt pride wakes up and he says to his beloved children: be proud and happy. After all, you are, together with Dr. Vladeta, Rembrandt's offspring!
The kids watch him with blank stares and, as soon as he leaves the room, put fingers on their temples and say: screw it, the old man has lost it.