After a recent diplomatic visit to Italy and a meeting with the Prime Minister of this country, Matteo Renzi, the Prime Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, boasted that today Serbia is respected and respected more than "Tito's Yugoslavia". Addressing those present at the congress of the Socialist Party of Serbia, Vučić recounted his conversation with Renci again, this time adding that the current Serbian government had more diplomatic visits, and more significant ones than Josip Broz's Yugoslavia had in its best five years. Vučić did not specify which years were in question, whether they were five years in a row, or separate ones, nor by what criteria was it determined that they were the best for Serbian diplomacy.
photo: Archive of Belgrade...and the first summit of the Non-Aligned
Given that the anecdote was told at the SPS congress, it is reasonable to assume that this praise for himself and comparison with Tito is also a praise for the socialist leader and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Ivica Dačić. In such a comparison, Dacic comes next, I guess, to Koča Popović. It is also reasonable to ask whether such comparisons make any sense, but before that, the more important question is what is their purpose?
Let's start from the obvious - the purpose of these comparisons is for the government to brag about its supposed diplomatic successes. Not to be praised by others, but to praise herself. Although these so-called achievements have been achieved in terms of foreign policy, the goal of self-praise is to conduct internal policy through it, to "sell the story" to the citizens of Serbia, who are largely unaccustomed to following foreign media, that everything will be fine in a moment. when almost nothing is wrong. The whole mechanism is, therefore, just a skillfully designed PR strategy that makes the appearance of something out of nothing, in the absence of concrete results. The current government in Serbia, however, instead of an absolute semblance, offers reminiscences of the bright past.
PARALLEL ĐINĐIĆ: That strategy began with references to the recent past. It has not even been two years since then, and we have already almost forgotten the numerous statements, analyzes and direct insinuations in which the first vice-president of the Government, Vučić, was compared to Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić. "Vučić is like Đinđić," declared businessman Miodrag Kostić. "Dacic and Vucic's government is the first after Djindjic's to sincerely lead Serbia into the European Union and to try to solve the Kosovo issue on a realistic basis," said Vesna Pesic. "Vučić could end up like Đinđić," warned Dušan Mihajlović, the Minister of the Interior in Đinđić's government. "I'm in a hurry to do something, because I know how I'll end up," Vučić himself pointed out in September of last year.
Is it because of the short time that Djindjic's government had available to do something, because the representatives of the government themselves saw that the parallel was distasteful, or because of the still fresh memory of the attitude of Aleksandar Vučić towards the political legacy of Zoran Djindjić, which he had until after the founding of the Serbian Progressive Party in 2008, the "Dindjic parallel" was quickly abandoned. Vučić and his government needed a foothold in the somewhat distant past, which most voters do not remember in too much detail, but they do remember. If some moment from the past that no longer has living witnesses was chosen as the basis of this crisis PR, the construction would fall under the charge of mythomania. In this sense, and only in this sense, the current government can be recognized for its skillfully chosen "model".
photo: phonetPRAISE YOURSELF: Ivica Dacic...
GERMANY, AMONG THE REST: The fact that Vučić compares himself to Josip Broz Tito did not go unnoticed by the public, so the Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia Zorana Mihajlović told TV B92 that she is proud of the fact that the Prime Minister of Serbia goes to countries like Germany and is received by statesmen of the largest countries in the world, as well as the fact that statesmen of that rank come to Serbia. Speaking about the summit of the heads of government of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and China in Belgrade, Mihajlović said that she did not consider it inappropriate to compare the diplomatic activity of the current government and the prime minister with the period of the reign of Josip Broz Tito and stated that the meeting that will be held in Belgrade in two days the biggest since the Non-Aligned Summit in 1989. "For the last six months, every week the prime minister has the most important meetings with the most important countries, either he goes there or they come here," Mihajlović said. When asked what is special about Serbia that makes everyone come here, she said that it is our position: "We have one very special thing, our position, Serbia is right on the line between East and West, the fastest way to Europe is through Serbia."
...and Kori Udovicki
Let's draw a line: Minister Mihajlović is proud that Vučić is going to countries like Germany. Since 2000, there has not been a single high-ranking Serbian official who did not go to Germany, including Vojislav Koštunica, with all of his turning in the direction opposite to what the European Union wanted for Serbia. Since 2000, that is, for a decade and a half, Serbia is not a country in isolation, nor a country under any sanctions, so that the departure of one of its officials to Germany or any other country in the world would be an unprecedented miracle.
But there is another miracle in Zorana Mihajlović's statement. When asked what suddenly attracted high-ranking world statesmen to Serbia, the Deputy Prime Minister replied that it was the geographical position of our country, on the line between East and West. As far as is known, Serbia, physically, has not moved anywhere since the SNS came to power in 2012, and it is unclear where its foreign policy reputation suddenly improved from its geographical position. Zorana Mihajlović knows this very well, and therefore this statement of hers should by no means be packed in a folder with a "nonsense" sticker. Speaking about Serbia's supposedly strategically important geopolitical position, she actually revives talk about SFRY, as an important link between the two Cold War sides in a once-divided Europe.
KNEELING POLICY: Unlike little Serbia, Yugoslavia was indeed an important geopolitical factor during the Cold War. We will probably never know which five years of Tito Vučić took as the best in terms of diplomacy, but let's just take the stormy 1948, which began with a demarche by Britain and the USA to Yugoslavia demanding that Belgrade not recognize the Greek communist government, and culminated in the Resolution of the Informburo and by the response of the Central Committee of the KPJ, that already in July, the same Yugoslavia would sign an agreement with the USA on a loan of 17 million dollars and the unfreezing of Yugoslav assets in the USA. Or, let's recall the importance of Yugoslavia at the time of the formation of NATO (on NATO intelligence on Yugoslavia's attitude towards the USSR, see "Vreme" number 1005, text "From a communist blade to an unofficial member"), the Balkan Pact from 1954, the role of the SFRY at the time of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement, the meeting between Tito and Kennedy in 1963, the fact that the fall of Ceausescu in 1989, it started precisely in Timisoara because there it was possible to "catch" the signal of the Yugoslav TV channels, and so on, and so on... When it comes to diplomatic skills, we will only remind you of the detail that the correspondence between Tito and Khrushchev was the first contact since the breakup 1948, lasted from July to October 1954, so that in November the USSR expressed its readiness to normalize relations, and the first meeting took place only in May 1955. That did not prevent Tito from supporting Czechoslovakia in 1968, but also from meeting with Brezhnev three years later.
Therefore, SFRY did have an important geopolitical position and was an important factor for both sides divided by the "Iron Curtain". True, today, in light of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, many are inclined to label the current situation as a continuation of the Cold War. It is also true that the European Union looks askance at Serbia's position regarding that conflict. But the essence of that European "gloomy view" has absolutely nothing to do with Serbia's key geostrategic position, but exclusively with the accession process in which we have stepped relatively deeply and with the fact that we are a small, economically unstable country, and that Serbian officials, big and powerful in front of the cameras of the domestic media, they are basically kneeling at the door of the EU. In this sense, the rashly conciliatory and pragmatic tone of the proven anti-European, historian and SNS member Radoš Ljušić in a recent interview with "Večernji novosti" is also indicative: "If we were stronger than the EU, I would reject it (Germany's request to remove it from the Constitution of Serbia preamble on Kosovo, cf. Nov.) with pleasure, but since we are not stronger, we must accept it with an enormous effort to at least soften it. The Serbs must once understand that it is not a shame to kneel before the stronger, otherwise we will all go to the Kingdom of Heaven!"
Although essentially utilitarian, which was one of the main features of Tito's foreign policy, Ljušić's tone reveals the truth about Serbia's current foreign and even internal policy - it is a policy without a single trump card, without self-confidence, devoid of political skill, which sounds like, far from , capitulation. Everything is the opposite of the Yugoslav way of conducting the political game, which found that Russia "failed" for South Stream and that Putin, in a "we'll see" style, shakes his head at the offer to import Fiat vehicles from Kragujevac (by the way, Fiat's production facilities were working last month only three days a week, due to reduced demand). Let's add to that the Prime Minister's statement that the report on Serbia's progress published by the European Commission in October is "the best in the region", as if we are in a competition with other Balkan countries to join the EU faster.
TITTOGRAPHY: The coalition partners of the Serbian Progressive Party are also actively participating in the PR strategy of "scratching" about Yugoslavia. The recently held congress of the Socialist Party of Serbia ended with the re-election of Ivica Dacic as the leader of this party, and in that sense nothing has changed, except for the party's visual identity. Namely, SPS has a new logo. Of the famous red rose from the time of Slobodan Milošević, only the stylized handle remained in the logo of this party after the Fifth of October. Fourteen years since the fall of Milošević and six years since the great return to power in Serbia, the SPS decided to finally let go of that handle, the last trace of the memory of the red rose. Since December 14, the socialists have been visually identified by the white Cyrillic "SPS" on a red background, where a star with clearly defined four points is inserted into the letter "P". The fifth arm is yet to be guessed, although SPS denies that it is a red five-armed one. "The new logo of the Socialist Party of Serbia has four arms and symbolizes Serbia's European path," SPS vice-president Dijana Vukomanović explained to "Blic": "It is our turn towards the future. Although at first glance it seemed to many that they saw a pentacle on the logo, it is not about it. The idea was that the new symbol on the logo, which doesn't even have five arms, will actually be a guiding star that will be a symbol of Serbia's European path." Vukomanović added that experts advise to change the sign every ten years so that new voters will be attached to it. .
photo: phonetSENSELESS COMPARISON: Aleksandar Vucic with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang...
How to recognize Serbia's European path in the red star with four clearly defined and fifth just-indicated points is not exactly the clearest. Especially in a country where the red pentacle has a very clear and deep-rooted meaning, to which should be added the fact that the SPS is a kind of successor to the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. It is, again, about robbing and crunching the emotional meaning that the nostalgic idea of Yugoslavia as the last moment of well-being carries with it.
By extracting old rhetoric and old iconography like this, the ruling parties in Serbia are in one sense following world trends. Unfortunately, not political, but fashion and design. The dominant political trend in Serbia is most similar to retro fashion styles in home decoration, where pieces of antique design furniture dominate. However, we are talking about furniture that only looks shabby, but in terms of functionality and usability, it is fully adapted to the needs of modern man, in contrast to Serbian current politics.
photo: time photo archive...and Josip Broz Tito with John Kennedy
WE ARE GREAT, MOTHERS OF ME: Where no reference to the glorious past for the purposes of self-praise can be made, "take my word for rhetoric" comes into play. Last week, we had the opportunity to hear from the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Serbia, Kori Udovički, who stated that the budget for 2015 is being prepared, the likes of which she has not seen since she remembers the fiscal consolidation. "It's not about political demagoguery," promised Udovički and added that Serbia's economic policy has been bad so far, because "second best" measures have always been adopted that aimed not to cause the greatest damage, instead of those that would serve the purpose.
Udovicki stated that we are now in a situation where we have two Serbias - one choked by bad decisions in the previous decade, and the other which in the last two years of severe crisis has shown that the economy is slowly starting to find its way, organize and create growth.
If nothing else, Aleksandar Vučić is not Tito, nor is Ivica Dacić Koča Popović, because neither Tito nor Koča were what they are today when they were active. In order to be able to make the comparison that the prime minister gladly and often resorts to, it is necessary to pass time and create a historical distance.
Rhetorical reliance on symbols of the past reduces politics to the level of popular culture, as iconography is taken over and comparisons are made without concrete results. At the SPS congress from the beginning of this text, Vučić recounted part of his meeting with Italian Prime Minister Renzi: "I told him that because of the new labor law, he lost five to seven percent of the vote in two weeks, depending on the polls." Renzi smiled, very broadly, I didn't even see that he was confused, excited, or anything, and he said to me: 'And what would interest me? I am here to do the best job, which I have dreamed of all my life, to have the opportunity to change my country, to make it better, and whether people will like it or not is one question. It's important how it will be judged in five, ten and twenty years.'' The prime minister could emulate such an approach.
