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By M. Bozinovich
The assassination of Serbia's Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic should stand as a reminder that no matter of the goodness of one's intentions, the means of getting them do come to haunt you - unless you haunt them back first. For Zoran Djindjic, the means came in a pair of sniper bullets.
So we Serbs retell the dramatic story of nerve-wrecking heroism and deal making hours before Milosevic fell from power: it was Djindjic's deal with Milosevic's paramilitary tough man Milorad Lukovic, aka Legija, that assured the honor of will of the people. Paradoxically then, democracy arrived in Serbia from the barrel of the gun.
While Legija's shifting loyalty should have signaled to Djindjic that the interests of this brutal man are incongruent with the objectives for the country, Djindjic - now under pressure from the West - utilized Legija to arrest Milosevic.
It should have been clear to anyone at that point, let alone a Western-educated philosopher Djindjic was, that Legija is politically flirting with the Hague court so to take him off the war crimes list while Serbia's democracy was very far from his mindset. However, the latest round of Western pressure probably convinced Legija that Djindjic is impotent to save him from the Hague Court and decided to kill the horse he was betting on.
Western Pressure vs. Own Naivet�
Littered with aging, unemployed and otherwise skill less warriors of the past Balkan wars, the memories they perpetuate come laced with seductive romanticism of the brutality that made them famous. These men enjoy enormous respect in the circles of the Balkan gunslingers made into national heroes by a ruling thug - be it a Christian or Muslim.
As a ruling tyrant fell from the throne, behind was left a subservient judicial system, decapitated economy, servile representative political body, nearly paganized society lacking sound moral guideposts... Gunslingers remained standing in place of the fallen leaders in all of these decapitated social segments of the Balkans: they had their own judges, they had the money and capital, gunslingers had political parties, their lives were dramatized into TV sagas of struggle for national liberation...
Legija apparently decided that he'd have himself an own president.
Western pressure upon Djindjic to arrest these men appears then as a well-intentioned gesture by someone who has no clue of the prevailing ethical guideposts and the post-communist mores of the Balkans. What's worse, it is so well intentioned that Carla del Ponte does not know when to stop: even the most reformist minded of the Serbs, Goran Svilanovic, remarked that Carla's presence at Djindjic's funeral exceeds the bounds of good taste.
To irritate the issue further and not just by dramatizing the need to arrest these scary guys, the Hague and the West ties the arrest demand to the economic help they wish to offer Serbia.
Yet, Serbia needs to financially break free from the criminal stranglehold by making judges financially independent, political representatives financially independent of criminal enterprises... Depriving financial independence ex-ante renders Serbia paralyzed to achieve this reform.
Signals and the Responsibility
As for Djincic...
First, he should have known that a shifting political powerbroker Legija wanted to be could have just as easily turned on him as he has turned on Milosevic.
Second, resting one’s political and existential fate upon a mercy of an idle Balkan gunslinger whom he owes a 'favor' is not a wise government policy.
Third, philosopher that he is, Djindjic should have known the social inheritance he has been bequeathed: a judicial system subservient to the ethos praising the cult of banditry and the money thereof... Exemplar, murderous 'clan' leader has been let out on bail on charges of attempted murder of the Serbian Prime Minister just a week before the assassination.
These clear signals of atavistically tribal behaviors of the criminal 'clan' are enough of an incentive to the metropolitan and modern Djindjic to initiate a statewide crackdown on Balkan mafia. While West would have welcomed Djindjic's decisive action against the Balkan underworld, especially in the age of anti-terrorism, much of the means with which Djindjic came to power would have been wiped out.
Was Djindjic hesitant for the lives of men that were so instrumental for getting him the power?
Perhaps... and perhaps indeed given Western incentives and subsequently the style of his burial.
The Ending
The burial of Djindjic, as much as incidentally and so much as tragically, sends a powerful moral guidepost to the Serbian society that the good old ethics preserved in the Orthodox Church are no longer a phantasm of criminals invoking it readily to deify their banditry... but that the Church is the intricate matter of existence.
Although a son of a communist officer, it sure had to be Djindjic's wish so that the Christian priests bury him. For all of the accusations of his own vainglorious athleticism, incisive intellect, good looks... well, the man had it all indeed... even a hesitation for lives of criminals of the country he wanted to lead.
Djindjic then failed himself not because he did not have the power to change and control his environment and the criminals he has been bequeathed. On the contrary, his burial shows that, in life’s retrospect, he had too much heart and too many sound ethical guideposts to simply walk all over the criminals.
Djindjic killed himself because he simply refused to be a criminal.
