Centre for Civic Education (CCE) condemns the announced memorial service for the former leader of the Chetnik movement Draza Mihajlovic, organized by Srpski Soko (Serbian Falcon), which will be served by the clergy of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral. Such an act seriously damages the already threatened anti-fascist spirit of Montenegro, which has been painstakingly built and which we all have to conserve.
Such events also cannot contribute to the needed social harmony. It is an undeniable historical fact that Draza Mihajlovic was an associate of the fascist occupying forces. Celebrating him in any organisation or institution is intolerable and insulting to all of those who courageously gave their lives during the anti-fascist fight, to all of those who resisted the evil that Nazism and Fascism represented, but also to those who still preserve antifascist heritage.
Religious communities have a special obligation to be a pivot of gathering, not of dividing. Such moves, as well as the earlier labelling on a national basis by some priests of the Metropolitanate, are damaging the society which must be led by Montenegro as a civil state, without national and religious tensions, and with a dialogue on its European future, without excluding or insulting those who think differently but also without denying facts.
The ideas of equality, tolerance and coexistence were the messages that anti-fascist fighters had been spreading, and on which many generations were raised and imbued themselves in development of democracy in Montenegro. The role of the state of Montenegro is to preserve these values and not allow even the smallest incident of this kind because young generations must know who did what during the Second World War, who deserves to be celebrated and who should be condemned.
The CCE continuously gives contribution to the strengthening of anti-fascist values and in particular points out that much more work is needed in order to educate young people on anti-fascism, but also in order to build a democratic political culture in which there will be no place for such incidents or compromise about anti-fascism.
Damir NIKOCEVIC, Development Coordinator in Centre for Civic Education (CCE)