Written by: Stefan Todorović
A new billboard appeared in Nikšić as part of the July 13 celebrations. But instead of highlighting one of the most important dates in Montenegrin history – marking both the uprising against fascist occupation and Montenegro’s internationally recognized independence in 1878 – the billboard places greater emphasis on a rebellion from another country: the Nevesinje Uprising. Once again, the local authorities in Nikšić symbolically reaffirm their anti-Montenegrin stance by downplaying some of the most significant elements of Montenegrin statehood.
The ruling coalition, which governs both nationally and in Nikšić, without any representation from minority ethnic parties, continues its now-routine practice of undermining the very country it leads. Their actions reveal a clear loyalty to a pro-Serbian, Chetnik-style ideology, which views Montenegro and its people merely as a regional extension of a greater-state project centered in Belgrade.
Their commemorative events continue in the same spirit as the unlawful, pepper–spray–tainted awarding of the July 13th Prize, now accompanied by yet another manipulative rewriting of historical facts. With this latest act, they have once again made it clear to the people of Montenegro how they regard the most heroic and defining moments of Montenegrin statehood.
At the same time, the silence and claimed “lack of jurisdiction” from Mandić and Kovačević’s government partners do not absolve them of responsibility for allowing Montenegrin state symbols to be trampled upon. Anything short of a clear and direct condemnation of this dangerous farce amounts to yet another chapter in the shameful story of ideological surrender and complicity. It is the same ideology responsible for the genocide of the 1990s – a tragedy we commemorated just yesterday.
The remembrance of the Srebrenica genocide should serve as a stark warning: ideologies like the current Chetnik-inspired one governing Montenegro must be confronted immediately, while they are still consolidating power, before they fully take control of all institutions. We have fresh, painful evidence of what such regimes are capable of when faced with a disorganized and demonized enemy. Today, that enemy, in their eyes, is civic, anti-fascist Montenegro and everyone who stands for it.
At this stage, they are not concerned with ethnic identity but with ideological alignment. That’s why, for now, they are willing to cooperate with minority parties – parties whose shortsightedness and hunger for power blinds them to the long-term damage they are inflicting on the very Montenegro whose Constitution they helped adopt in 2007.
Every citizen of Montenegro who truly believes in a civic, democratic, and anti-fascist state must resist these forces, wherever and whenever they act – inside institutions or outside them, in the media, online, or in the streets. That resistance must be constant, because their efforts will not stop. They will go as far as we allow. Better to be hit with pepper spray today than to be beaten, arrested, or even killed tomorrow. None of that is foreign to them – the only thing holding them back right now is the existing social and institutional framework, both in Montenegro and internationally. But those restraints are weakening by the day.
And those very restraints are the only barrier standing between us and the horrors of the 1990s, World War II, and the White Terror of 1918.
That’s why we must resist now – because, as the Democrats, loyal followers of this ideology, have essentially told us, pepper spray is just the beginning. Beatings come next.
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