POLITIKA, 04.04.2004.

UNDER MAGNIFYING GLASS: WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE FIRST IN SERBIA

A year of new hope

Writers and artists on how it could be better for us in the days to come

Matija Beckovic: The return of the Crown

In the New Year we should listen to the advice given by the Church: just as the decision on depriving the Karadjordjevics of their property and citizenship has been nullified, so should its other part be nullified, the one on abolishing monarchy. Of course, the Kingdom of Serbia is just a name for a great democratic project of moral, economic and cultural revival and social renaissance. The Crown, as a part of the democratic body, is only a symbol of its credibility, on the cover page of this project. It would have the place the Crown has in today’s European kingdoms.

It is usually said that Serbia had never been a republic except under the communists. But it would not be wrong to say that Serbia was not the republic under communists either. Then it was an absolutist monarchy ruled by an absolute monarch incomparable with European kings, but comparable to socialist despots. Serbia should not be a monarchy like that, but a constitutional and parliamentary monarchy.

Would the return of monarchy lead to divisions in Serbia? Nowhere in the world the Crown is a symbol of divisions. The Crown that divides is not a Crown, and it would not be in Serbia either. That is why there are no other arguments against the Crown except the ideological ones. When it is discussed how many monarchy supporters in Serbia there are, it is often forgotten that monarchy has been the most persecuted word for sixty years. And I believe when one asks a Serb if he is for monarchy or not, he thinks the person is not a poller, but a provocateur, and that being put on the list of suspicious elements, and not being included into statistics, depends on the answer.

Would the reestablishment of monarchy create new problems in the relations between Serbia and Montenegro? Even if Montenegro would deter from it, and I see no reason why she would, such union is possible. The greatest allies in the world today are the United States, as a republic, and Great Britain, as the United Kingdom. In today’s world, the Crown, just like the Church, is separated from the state which runs all public affairs. It is a symbol, and we perhaps have nothing more necessary than to have a symbol. For, it could be said that the flag is a piece of cloth, the anthem is a melody and the Crown is a badge, but whoever does not have that cloth, that melody and that badge, is but a barren land, or worse, a desert.