When unresolved issues keep
accumulating in a country, and this is precisely
what we are notorious for, it is a certain sign
that institutional, governmental decision-making
is in a deep crisis. Over the past month, a new
crisis was created or recreated in Serbia almost
every day: the previously signed energy agreement
with Russia is again being reviewed, a similar
fate has affected the year older agreement on
Horgos-Pozega highway; while old tensions in the
country's relations with the international community
and neighboring states have again emerged. After
an expert opinion arrived recently from the USA,
an old issue was reopened: who murdered the two
guards in Topcider barracks four years ago and
what secret force prevented the truth from being
uncovered for such a long time. There was more
government's dirty laundry yet to be cleaned -
who burned the archives of secret services on
6 October 2000, but also - why did we reach a
point where we almost lost University Olympics
to Athens because of our sloppiness.
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The incomplete list
of current government scandals is followed
by the so-called outstanding issues that
the government keeps generating, but is
unable to resolve them or can do it only
halfway. After the IMF visit, we will
see whether the pensions will reach 70%
of the wage or whether it will only remain
a farce staged to pull through the election
campaign. How the government will reestablish
law and order in the wake of layoffs that,
they say, will affect 120,000 workers
by the end of the next year. The authorities
were so apt in fooling us with their lofty
patriotic ambitions for Kosovo for years,
if not decades, that it only recently
became evident that some of the local
bragging patriots had as much as six salaries
(paid from the Serbian budget, of course),
while the rest of us cannot even get a
job. We can continue then with other open
issues: why was Serbian budget late this
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year and why 50 percent of employers fail to pay
contributions for they workers.
If the list appears unbelievable to someone, they
should recall how the Constitution was adopted
unanimously in the Serbian Parliament two years
ago, while the MPs had no idea what was written
in it. Sometimes, then, the would-be state resembles
a tragic impotence, or farcical cynicism. There
was a lot talk recently about cutting (halving)
the number of civil servants in Serbia, and there
are allegedly 28,000 of them. Of course, the credit
for the cut would go to the parties (here lies
the cynicism) that had been expanding the army
of the clerks until recently by finding jobs for
their relatives, friends and many others.
Our entire problem lies in the fact that we have
almost never had an accountable and expert administration,
or honest politicians with statesmanlike visions.
That is why we have been forfeiting for two centuries
the state as the legal regulator of relations
in the society, while legal guarantees for both
citizens and organizations are constantly at lowest
level.
We have become notorious in the world for our
whimsical and wavering foreign policy. On the
one hand, we celebrated the successes when we
won the majority in the UN General Assembly to
ask for the opinion of the International Court
of Justice on the Kosovo status, and when we agreed
with the UN about the six points for the EULEX;
on the other hand, our hot-tempered minister of
foreign affairs likened the Montenegrin and Macedonian
policies to a stab in Serbia's back, while warning
rudely the international community that "what
is enough is enough". The affair with Montenegro
and Macedonia will end in sending of new ambassadors
to Belgrade, though no one realized what the previous
ones were responsible for. After Croatia's lawsuit
against Serbia for genocide allegedly committed
in the war and our counter-accusations for genocide
committed in the military operation Storm, our
two countries, unable to find a more decent and
better solution, reentered the diabolical circles
of powerlessness and ravenous litigations. The
only light at the end of the tunnel were Milorad
Pupovac and Serbs in Croatia, who outspokenly
refused to again become hostages to the policy
of manipulation, as they had used to. This will
not overturn our situation, but can be an infectious
precedent for many others.
We, however, are changing slowly and ghosts from
the past keep haunting us. The recent presidential
elections in America and response of countries
in the world to the global crisis showed that
others are readier to rise up to new challenges
and to push with more determination the boundaries
of ideological and racial prejudice. Unfortunately,
our mind frame is not worldly and ambitions of
our political parties mostly come down to base
and vicious policy of cutting others to their
size. The crisis in the government's decision-making
has its roots in the political system, but also
in our customs.
