He didn’t have a hat with a Chetnik cockade, like his mayor, but the cockade was in his heart. And he understood the message well after the elections on 30 August.
It became clear in his head after the Chetnik victory in Niksic: their time had come, the time of the liberators. A time of dishonour and shame. The urine stench of freedom.
Reconcile Montenegro, declare Chetnik patriots, merciful butchers and saints. Is this the “inclusive” Montenegro that is promised from the parliamentary benches and ministerial seats?
No, this is an introduction to the worst of Montenegro. This is how the new, liberated Montenegro sings: in the dead of night, pissing on the hero.
Without raising his head, I guess for fear of looking into that eternal smile of freedom. They are even afraid of a dead Ljubo Čupić.
It was only a matter of days before some coward would do what cowards do – pee on heroes under the cover of night. Because they think it’s the spirit of the new age.
And they are right. This is the spirit of the time of the new government. Nothing happens by accident.
If the elected prime minister of the new government – imagine, prime minister! – celebrates the Chetnik terrorist Kavaja; if the Serbian Orthodox Church – the Church of Christ mind you! – proclaims the villain priest Maca a saint; when the minister of justice – the minister of new justice! – denies the genocide in Srebrenica, and the head of the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament of Montenegro – for human rights, hey! – declares Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic heroes, then it is expected and only possible that some marginal person there gives himself the right to urinate on heroes.
That nameless man from Nikšić, because he doesn’t even deserve a name, put into practice what the top echelon of the new government says: they revise history and make criminals out of heroes, victims out of criminals. And so the darkest side of Montenegro’s painful history is repeated.
There, almost in the same place, some other people urinated on Montenegrin history, a long time ago. This is how the new, liberated Montenegro sings: in the dead of night, pissing on the hero. Without raising their head, I guess for fear of looking into that eternal smile of freedom. They are even afraid of a dead Ljubo Čupić.
Yes, one December night in 1918, about an hour after midnight, a group of Serbian officers, also “liberators”, accompanied by soldiers and a small group of fucking followers, made three coffins.
On one was written St. Peter of Cetinje, on the other St. Basil of Ostrog, on the third, the Montenegrin dynasty of Petrovic. They carried, it is written, these coffins through Nikšić, playing a church procession. Then they stayed in the square, where they dug three graves, in which they laid the three coffins.
Then they held a funeral service, according to the tradition in the Orthodox Church. Instead of pouring wine and oil over the graves, as required by the Orthodox ritual, the Serbian officers publicly peed on the graves. It was 103 years ago in Niksic.
Last night, the ritual was repeated. Exactly at the place where Ljubo Čupić was taken in chains in May 1942. Yes, that way, now the main square in Nikšić, the hero was taken for the last time, before his shooting.
Ljubo Čupić’s smile shot all of them, both the occupiers and the local traitors. He stayed alive. They remained in the dustbin of history.
That is what those true liberators, the anti-fascists who raised the people in a general uprising on 13 July, thought. Now it can be seen that all these villains had to write down their names and surnames so that their children were taught in schools that those names and surnames are a shame.
As we should remember today, the name of this shameful man from Nikšić. But also all those from the new government, the civic-Chetnik coalition that rules Montenegro, which destroys every stone of free Montenegro, shouting that we should forget the terrible history and that we should “reconcile Montenegro”.
Reconcile Montenegro, declare Chetnik patriots, butchers merciful and saints. Is this the “inclusive” Montenegro that is promised from the parliamentary benches and ministerial seats?
No, this is an introduction to the worst of Montenegro. And in vain will be the Pilate statements of the “civic parties” of Democratic Montenegro and URA, the laconic condemnation of the act and the new calls for reconciliation.
Montenegro cannot reconcile with the fascists. It should not and must not. Resistance to fascism is the only answer if we want Montenegro to exist. Yes, resistance is the only answer if there are free citizens who love their freedom and their state.
This article originally appeared in Pobjeda and is reprinted with permission. Screenshot courtesy of Televizija Nikšić. All rights reserved.
