A year or two ago, I published a text under the same title, with the difference that the last two words did not appear in that previous text. The text was inspired by my anxiety about the disproportionate and many times dangerous concentration of political power in the ruling elite of this country. That control center was becoming something to our eyes Sultanate, bringing us back in the political sense a couple of centuries into the distant past and making us similar to authoritarian governing structures in relation to which, by the way, the official policy declaratively seems to want to distance itself as much as possible. It was about a drastic gap between the proclaimed goals of social development and what was happening on the ground, which was conspicuously opposed to those goals. Trend sultanization not only was it not interrupted, but it continued rapidly, and led to a situation in which it is convincingly pointed out at many points of the relevant public that all important matters in this country, but also a large number of unimportant ones, are decided by one man. Among these less important things, the supply of the trade network with pickles and the retail price of the pickles were noted and repeatedly emphasized.
ABOUT AN APPARENT BIZARITY: First of all, this text will highlight one unusual bizarreness, which is characteristic and has been repeated countless times language error in an unhealthy number of public appearances by the President of the Republic (PR). With the exception of a couple of cases, which seem like linguistic slips, PR word metohija from the well-known name of our southern province is wrongly and, one might say, clumsily and rudely emphasized. In his pronunciation the word metohija has a short rising stress on the first syllable instead of that stress being located correctly, i.e. on Second syllable in that word. That language mistake is all the more serious because metochia it is not only part of the title of the southern province, but also part of our general linguistic stock, which only reinforces the obligation of correct literary emphasis.
This could seem like an old man's quip (less than a month ago, on September 30, I celebrated my 85th birthday) if it were not for the extremely significant relationship between PR and his - here I find a French word that works best with the same meaning figures in English - entourage. It is about his attitude towards the circle of close associates, which would mean that entourage can be translated into words coterie, camarilla, or somewhat figuratively court suite. Due to the said persistent wrong emphasis, one cannot help but wonder if it is possible that there is not a single person in the PR camarilla who knows how to correctly emphasize that word.
The first possibility is that someone from his environment they know how that word is emphasized, but in their opportunism they don't dare to draw PR's attention to it because that correction could be interpreted as a criticism addressed to the Padishah. That possibility is troubling enough because it suggests the existence of a cult of personality and reveals the authoritarianism of the rule that personality has developed. The alternative to that possibility is even worse: if in the multitude of people from that environment, not a single person knows how to emphasize a word metochia, then it reveals some kind of absurd extreme anti-selectivity personnel policy of the highest level of government. It is known that authoritarian rulers shy away from above-average intelligent and informed persons, as well as from strong personalities, but we were not inclined to believe that this anti-selectivity took such drastic proportions.
STEPS OF THE MECHANISM THAT GENERATES AUTHORITARIAN TENDENCIES: In the remaining half of this article, there is no space for a more complete (even if) enumeration of details that, even if only as an orientation and summary, indicate the authoritarianism of the local government. Let it be noted that the construction of an authentic democratic system in our society is not guaranteed wider social preconditions. Command over the state - with all its public enterprises, resources, media, means for legitimized use of force, intelligence and information agencies, etc., with the absence of the rule of law and institutional structures that would prevent the excessive expansion of political power and authority in segments where it is not appropriate - has the consequence that the party that gets power becomes so dominant that it marginalizes its political competitors quickly enough and moves the political system in the direction of one-party rule. This problem is at the very limit of insurmountable, and its striking part is the absence of division of power, that is, the merging of power into one impenetrable monolith.
Thus, the space for political interactions is devastated: the authoritarian government quite predictably begins to weaken with an increasingly visible inability to satisfy its dangerously growing clientele, while the decimated and shredded opposition does not have enough resources, power and organizational vitality to win an electoral victory in the foreseeable future and, in particular, to organize a sufficiently effective government. Serbia is on the way to being left without the necessary political forces capable of organizing an efficient state at both ends of the political spectrum, ruling and opposition. Needing the opposition, and gradually suffocating itself in the lumps of increased and aggravated clientelism, the current government has deprived this society of the ability to organize an effective state, without which any satisfactory regulation of social life is hardly conceivable.
EXCESSIVE CONCENTRATION OF POWER AND RESULTING AUTHORITARIANITY: With the rapidly consumed and almost exhausted space available for the creation of one newspaper article, it remains to address numerous unmentioned and spatially insurmountable objections that should be addressed to this authority - eg. a ten-year flagrant violation of Article 115 of the Constitution of Serbia - found and used by a merocracy. That shortcut consists in calling on independent and informed public unequivocally affirmed media, which for years have already been on the right thing of polarizing contrast that separates truth from lies. Without claiming that everything reported by independent media is the absolute truth, I point out the existence of several such media that have never disappointed me. For example on N1, they continuously criticize our PR, and it all seems perfectly true to me, and I register and accept it as such. My critics could say that I am simply indoctrinated by a few quality media, including this television. If someone wanted to create a register of views that are an articulation of my dissatisfaction with the politics of our management top, he could only look at a series of socially oriented shows in any past period. Whatever the authorities decide there, I will sign without hesitation. I admit that I was thoroughly convinced by that "tycoon" television. There would be more mentions of worthy media that successfully "propagandize" me, but space does not allow the publication of the complete register, and I want to avoid selectivity, with the exception of the media that is currently under particularly strong pressure from the authorities.
TOWARDS COMPLETING THE CRITICISM OF AUTHORITARIANITY - A FEW CONCLUDING NOTES: In order for this text not to be concluded with this passing remark, let it be noted at the end of one typical trait of our PR's behavior that I particularly do not approve of. It is a way of responding to the questions of competent and intelligent journalists from the media that are not to his liking. It must be admitted, the questions are almost always very awkward, they touch the wounds that are insurmountable in our PR. To, one would say, almost every one of those more provocative questions, PR responds in a content-free way that does not offer any agreement on the question itself. Instead of answering, the PR attacks the questioner with heavy scoldings, real invectives, pointing out either the alleged false bias of the media from which the questioner comes or the poor quality of the media itself with its alleged permanent focus on content that will cause as much damage as possible to the state of Serbia. Another variant in which he lashes out at the one who asks questions is to emphasize how the person in question works in the "tycoon" media, with the implied lack of patriotism and commitment to the general public interest. In both variants, the implication is that PR is identical with the state and that it is unpatriotic to annoy and pester it with such inconvenient questions.
In such communication, PR completely looses its tongue and enters into long philippics about how much these "tycoons" have stolen, how much they have in their accounts, how much they have damaged society in other ways, and how they have the courage to even show themselves in public. PR is a lawyer and should know that: Quisque praesumitur bonus donec probetur contrarium. If he already knows for sure about such misdeeds of these "tycoons", why doesn't it happen that court proceedings are initiated against them or even initiate it himself? Won't he, if he doesn't take those measures, act and turn out to be their accomplice? Speaking of tycoons, the blasphemous thought comes to mind that the biggest tycoon in this country could possibly be himself. Who can give away sports stadiums to some towns in Serbia, who can start an initiative to build a giant stadium in Srem, which experts have calculated could cost around one billion euros together with the associated infrastructure? An important note follows - whatever they do and whatever ventures they undertake, Đilas and Šolak stand behind those actions with their own money; our PR bases its grandiose plans on taxpayers' money, i.e. all of us.
It's hard not to be a bit boring when you start analyzing the role of our PR in the social life of this country. It must be because he is involved in almost everything that happens in this country in his hyperactivity. Whatever man takes to analyze, he encounters. And this matter has its good sides: in the search for the causes of many important and complex processes and phenomena, it is certain that the largest number of connecting threads goes towards the top of the government, and that is where He is.¶
