The Farce

Written by: Đorđe Šćepović

Any dictionary of foreign terms will tell you a farce is a comedic play, full of slapstick, absurdity, and bawdy humor. A lighthearted, often vulgar spectacle. But if you ask me, the true farce is the Montenegrin Parliament, its so-called inquiry committees, and the absurd political theater unfolding before us. It’s a circus, through and through. Directed, yes, by the ruling regime, but with the full participation of an eager opposition, happy to legitimize a grotesque and degenerate political reality.

Of course, every farce needs an audience. Every performance needs its spectators. But not all of us have the stomach for this daily charade, served up like a gourmet feast, polished and plated with silver, hoping we’ll forget what’s really on offer. Instead of venison, we’re fed slop by self-proclaimed benefactors.

Farces abound lately. But when the Democrats take center stage, the spectacle reaches its peak of absurdity. Everything surrounding those so-called parliamentary inquiry committees, their "investigations" into long-buried cases, their pretense of exposing hidden truths, is sheer theatre. Because the “truth-seekers” of today are the very same people who ignored the truth when it mattered. When they had the power to act, they looked the other way. Now they parade recycled lies, wrapped in new packaging, hoping repetition will lend them credibility.

Take Danilo Šaranović, for instance, Bečić’s loyal footman, now the police minister, playing a budget version of Eliot Ness. Watch as he brandishes a few sheets of paper like holy relics, invoking the names of the dead and blaming them for nearly every unsolved murder since the early ’90s. That, right there, is a farce in its purest form, down to the last comma. And let’s be clear: absolutely nothing will come of it.

Šaranović, a tragicomic figure, waves those papers on cue, marching to the rhythm set by his handler, Boris Bogdanović. Their aim? To flood the public with sensational “revelations,” straight from the front pages of Informer or whatever tabloid is in vogue in Belgrade. But make no mistake, when Šaranović takes the stage, you can be sure Chekhov’s gun won’t be firing.

Literary theory gives us Chekhov’s gun, named after the great Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who famously said that if a gun is shown in Act One, it must fire by Act Three. Otherwise, it shouldn’t be there at all. Well, Minister Šaranović, you didn’t belong on that parliamentary stage, standing there with an empty gun that won’t fire in Act Two, Three, or even Five. Because this isn’t drama. It’s a spectacle. Disposable. Yet another distraction to mask the failures of a police force under your command. Every mafia hit that’s happened on your watch, hidden behind smokescreens and stage fog.

As ever, the Democrats are working hard to steer attention away from the swamp they emerged from, and where, come the next election, they’re likely to drown.

Frankly, I’m amazed the minister hasn’t yet “reopened” the case of Prince Danilo’s assassination. With their supposedly “exclusive” operational intel, maybe the Democrats could offer the public a fresh take. Perhaps they’d even blame the dead again, why not rehabilitate Todor Kadić, the foreign agent and assassin? In this farce we’re forced to endure, anything goes. The dead, after all, can’t talk back.

But let’s not be too hard on the delicate minister; he didn’t just go after the dead. He accused the living too. Take Dritan, for instance, charged with cigarette smuggling and ties to organized crime. Yes, the same Dritan who once stood beside him on the campaign trail, arm in arm, swearing to bring down the mafia. Back then, they made grand declarations from the podium, vowing to dismantle criminal networks. For a fleeting moment, the world seemed to forget Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, so righteous was the Democrats’ and URA’s crusade against organized crime. Or so it seemed.

In truth, they declared war on their patrons.

Leaked Sky messages from drug clans reveal hardened criminals buying votes for the very politicians who now “bravely” tally election results. The same people they claim to fight are the ones who handed them power. Yet another layer to this farce.

And still, when the Democrats and URA speak about one another today, they both sound… accurate. Maybe that’s the only truth left to salvage from this entire rotting edifice, spoken by the worst of the worst, about each other.