When “Rural Issues” Give Way to Urban Ones

Written by Adnan Čirgić

Alongside countless other tall tales that voters across all faiths and nations swallow whole, the current regime came to power riding the familiar narrative of “reviving tradition.” In one of the canonical works of Montenegrin heritage, Examples of Humanity and Bravery by Marko Miljanov, there’s a story everyone knows: the tale of Leka Ivanov. When Leka’s daughter heard gunfire near their home, she said to him, “Look, people are chasing a man”. Leka’s reply was simple and unflinching: “Open the door for the one who is fleeing, close it for the one who is chasing”. He didn’t ask who was chasing whom, or why. He subordinated the fate of his whole family to sheltering someone seeking refuge under his roof.

Fast-forward to today, and the so-called “revivers of tradition” have not only lost all connection to this heritage, they actively define its opposite. You can see it in the streets of Podgorica, where people seeking refuge are being chased, beaten, and publicly called to lynch.

It’s futile to spin reality and pretend that those opposing the fascist, anti-Muslim hysteria lack empathy for the young man who suffered minor injuries at the hands of a group of migrants. The perpetrators of that hateful attack had names and faces, and as we later learned, they weren’t even Turks, but three Azerbaijanis and one Turk. If protesters were genuinely supporting the injured man and demanding citizen protection from the state, they would be holding signs naming the actual culprits, not chanting for the expulsion of Turks from Montenegro.

If a bust of a Chetnik butcher could be dismissed by Prime Minister Spajić as a “rural issue” too trivial or banal to merit discussion, the spirit of Pavle Đurišić freely roaming the streets of the capital has forced itself into the urban spotlight. And this topic has been imposed by Spajić’s colleagues at multiple levels of government, whose calls for arming citizens and self-organization encouraged open, Islamophobic displays of fascism. That fleeting photograph of Turks lined up against a wall by police is just the latest echo of “peaceful concerned citizens” spreading unrest across Podgorica. Spajić’s rapid abolition of the visa-free regime with Turkey confirmed for them that Montenegro is “under threat” from Turkish migrants.

Anyone unaware of countless clan killings or armed criminals who conveniently cooperate with the police, like during the Belveder-protests, might think that centuries-long peace was shattered for the first time last night by the brazen violence of a handful of migrants. Anyone unaware that both the government and “peaceful concerned citizens” silently witnessed the horrific murder of 23 Cetinje residents might actually believe the media narrative claiming these incidents are about “preserving peace and security”.

Prosecutorial and police actions targeting citizens calling for the lynching of Turks are nothing but a cheap smokescreen, designed to hide the true responsibility and planning of those who sent armed people into the streets. Instead of prosecuting the party, state, and city officials who called for street unrest, armed the population, and preached imagined “self-defense” against hundreds of thousands of Turks supposedly threatening Montenegro, the authorities cover up the fact that these gatherings were not spontaneous, but planned and orchestrated.

This isn’t really about Turkish migrants, or at least, not primarily. As the prominent cultural figure Milutin Mićović pointed out, it’s happening due to the “absence of the Mountain Wreath”, though he apparently reads it more like Pop Mića from the eponymous work.

The streets of Podgorica are no longer a place for a nighttime stroll, not because of Turks, but because of those who first “liberated” Montenegro from anti-fascism and now are “liberating” it from Turks, undoubtedly, first from domestic ones rather than foreign. Domestic “Turks,” as should be obvious by now, include anyone for whom Vučić is not president, anyone who does not see Čiča Draža and Pavle Đurišić as heroes, and anyone for whom 1918 was not a jubilee year. By the laws of this so-called liberating government, everyone in Montenegro is innocent… until proven to be a Turk, or Montenegrin.

Power in Montenegro is not made up solely of DF, the Democrats, and PES. An inseparable part of it includes Ervin Ibrahimović’s party and the Albanian parties. Those who vote for them in the next elections must remember that even public displays of Islamophobia, xenophobia, and fascist rage toward at least part of the population they represent were not enough to push them out of power, or even to demand accountability for the real perpetrators of the swelling fascism. The urban issues imposed by their boss? They handle those in a “peasant-like” way.