The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed
Part 15
Lacking Uncertainty in Political Culture – Serbia
Local Political Climate Change and Political
Heating Deniers
Transposing emblem by Vuka
Ш’а има б’ате?
= Wuzzup bro?
‘Ладим јаја…
= Just chillin’...
Legend says that the Serb idiom “‘ladim
jaja” (lit.: “keeping my testicles cool”)
has its etymology derived from the system
of small trenches carved into Roman Senate
seats to run fresh water through them for
the purpose of, by cooling participants’
private parts, keeping the political discussion
vigorous, but not heated.
Serbs’ popular conception of the ancient
Roman political system involves an interconnected
pool of bidets where representatives were
supposed to get comfortable.
Serbs’ popular conception of the contemporary
local political system is radically different
than our western pra-con-continentals.
This is a story of my experiential short excerpts
of life between pre-electoral campaigns in
a country run by a person who has a hard time
keeping their position with a full mandate.
Think not.
Over the past 20 years Serbia has been one
of the countries with the highest number of
early elections in this millennium.
Maybe we will end up in the Guinness Book
of World Records.
There’s a sense of urgency heating up the
Politics of the Motherland’s System (PMS)
in a country of highly racist, highly particularistic
compatriots at the western side of “Middle
East meets West” (central = Greece; eastern
= Turkey; western = Italy) and no outdated
coolin’ water trench system, whatsoever.
Let us not dig deeper into the clogs deposited
in the pelvic area of our politicians’ lymphatic
system.
And let us take time to lament unattended
drainage systems in farming areas that are
so clogged with weeds and unwittingly deposited
garbage that every snow-melting season, no
matter how mild the snow was, it produces
massive tragic flooding in suburban and small
town areas.
And, of course, calls to campaign for crowdfunding
to help out.
And then there is the normalization of lingering
on the receiving end of humanitarian aid while
obtaining expensive loans for luxurious projects
– that is also one huge part of the Current
Political Climate.
Ever since I learned Boris Buden’s view
on Yugoslavia being part of the avant-guard
in the EU (with respect to the rise of the
alt-right), I feel like a weather-lady reporting
worst-case forecasts, while in my face I’m
as wet as one of Bowie’s News Guys.
Tears for the Balkanization Affect Fears.
Sooooo, what else became normal in the dominant
cultural identity of the neo-traditional,
post-truth political climate of our PMS?
While worldwide investments in institutional
scientific research shrink and accessibility
metrics slowly slide into their own perversion,
our politicians in power keep purchasing high
academic titles from not-so-certified academic
institutions.
Then they proceed through public life, firmly
convinced that relevant knowledge is automatically
implemented in their minds.
Unlike the old-school PhD's, a great many
of whom can’t stop sharing their enthusiasm
about research and scientific exploration,
our new traditionally uncertainty-lacking
members of higher levels of the academic community
as well as holders of high government positions
- they keep firmly shut up about the science
behind their degrees.
A kind of self-sufficient node in a self-absorbed
niche of the global academic network and international
politics.
The philosophy behind their political moves,
executed in utmost certainty, is very тићу
у кафићу (hush-hush)
Even though Наташа Кандић* is
shortlisted for the next Nobel Peace Prize,
she’s not our new Madiba.
And it is not just because she has straight
hair, white skin and blue eyes, but also because
she’s free to wander around the world while
her thirsty-for-uncertainty compatriots, from
prisons of their convictions, firmly hold
that her project of finding peace and reconciling
with the truth of Kosovo is about some Albanian
Pride Street Party now regularly held around
the Belgrade LGBT Pride or during the opposite
equinox.
With no dilemma, doubt, fright or worry, they
firmly hold to the conviction that the RECONCILIATION
is NOT about finding peace with one’s OWN
SELF regarding the fact that:
Despite all the rivers of vocalized hatred
for Albanians as such, Serbs know nothing
of current life in Albania, but know everything
about Kim Kardashian and Soraya.
There’s no media outlet that would report
from Albanian communities and be accessible
in central and northern parts of Serbia.**
That’s one disregarded fact, and the lacking
uncertainty around its (ir)relevance is decidedly
never examined.
Again, not because official faith forbids
or recognizes such a thought entertainment/experiment
in any negative manner.
So we get truly emotional about the tone with
which one buzzword or another, googled out
in cyr/lat, resonates.
It is as if Pavlov’s dog vocalized its saliva
and printed it to circulate nationally.
As the most recent winner of Serbia’s most
respectable book prize would say, the corporal
archiving manner reflectingly depicts the
holder of official truth.***
Then, there’s comforting uncertainty also
present in our current PMS phase.
The most obvious example can be seen in political
statements by public personas discussing left-wing
politics.
Even though they claim to be totally atheist,
they talk of “new people who will come and
build a better system for all of us.”
Those new people (according to the politicians
and intelligentsia in the national political
opposition) will have unstained but rich professional
resumes and be competent, experienced and
relevant – despite the fact that one can
either work for our crumbling system and have
a rich professional resume or be new.
The uncertainty of why those left-wing atheist
so firmly believe in a sort of collective
Second Coming is never seriously examined.
Instead, this particular uncertainty is cherished
as fuel for their self-righteousness and as
grounds for their relevance.
The certainty is that, although they don’t
know much about the New People, they are absolutely
convinced and uncertainty-lacking that it’s
not them personally.
Nor them, personally, are the people who should
try to push beyond their denigrating diagnosis
of our PMS, and, instead of ridiculing the
dominant political option, try devising a
way to heal and reconcile.
Maybe even open some space for building a
functional system.
Obedience in hatred and in ridicule, no matter
how uniform and massively present the uncertainty-lacking
conviction is in our society, it is a conviction
that officially doesn’t have its place in
state-recognized religion, nor in philosophies
which self-perceive as liberal and progressive.
It’s just our PMS phase.
Why open up space for solidarity and learn
better political solutions if we can just
sit and wait for someone to have the system
of our liking served to us?
In Belgrade, early equinox 2018,
Vuka
