Serbia - why Monarchy?
Written by: ALEX, Belgrade.
The Kings of Europe today are different than the Kings of Europe 200 years ago. These Kings and Queens now are LOVED by their people, whereas democratic presidents are RESPECTED. Because the Royals are there longer, one sort of gets attached to them, to what they do.
The Royals have become more a recognized symbol of tradition than the mighty rulers in front of whom people tremble with fear. The key role in leading a country rests with the Government, while the King or Queen is in today's Europe a symbol, or, as Vuk Draskovic likes to say: "The Monarch is the dot on the letter "i", the roof of the home, the unifier of political aspirations and the calmer of political tensions".
I feel that the Royals of Europe are great positive-image promoters of their countries. Somehow they share so many more feelings with their "subjects" (the term which has lost its former meaning even though it has remained). Of course, there are good Republics and bad Republics, just as there are good Monarchies and bad Monarchies. What we in Serbia have now - and it's the only Republic we know - originates from communist Tito. There is no way I will ever accept to live in his legacy.
What are my principal reasons for Serbia to be a Monarchy? We have had our own path of history and development. We have settled the Balkans in the 7th century. By the 10th century we had some kind of an organized, unified state, a Monarchy. Since then, we have always been some form of Monarchy, except during the Ottoman Turks and the Communists. The Serbian Republic, as democratic as it may now be in terms of Western standards, is based on the bloddy foundations of Josip Broz Tito, a communist who started a brutal civil war during an unfortunate time, then grabbed power and continued killing his oponents in the so-called peace and freedom after WW 2. That is the legacy of the Republic that we know.
Our Church is also for the Monarchy, because the King and the Patriarch are unseparable.
Whereas the Serbian President today belongs to one party or the other, the Crown Prince does not belong to any party. He supports pro-democracy options in general, but you will never hear him mention a particular party. Apart from our politicians who have all been raised in communism, he does not have that "virus" in him, he does not have their way of thinking, not even a tiny percentage of it. He is an advocate of democracy, human rights for everyone, peace, prosperity, tolerance - regardless of religious or ethnic background... In other words, it's just what we need and what Europe wants to see from us. He is out of daily political quarels and tries to keep neutral when it comes to political strifes. He is well mannered and well educated, he speaks several languages, is respected in the West and - also a big plus - is RELATED to almost all Royal Families of today's Europe, and those royal connections can only help Serbia. President Boris Tadic or any other politician is NOT related to, say, Queen Elizabeth II.
Here is an example of just how tolerant the Crown Prince is. Even though the communists have created hell for him and his family, taking away ALL their rights from them, he is not angry at communists, nor does he hate them (as I would if they did all that to my family). He often says that it's all now part of our tragic history, that we must move on and that "we must first crown democracy, before we crown a King". That is my all-time favorite sentence of his.
In fact, he could have been King (in exile) the moment his father died. But, instead, he chose to have a lesser title of Crown Prince (next in line to inherit the throne). He said that there has, sadly, been a 60 year discontinuity in the Monarchy and that it will be up to the people to one day freely say what they want (the communists never gave us that chance). That is why he chose not to take the title of King, which would normally belong to him from the moment of his father's death.
Here is another example of his tolerance: in the backyard of the Royal Palace is the grave of Tito's wartime mistress, Davorjanka Paunovic. Tito had buried her close so that he could look at her graveyard from his window (of the Royal Palace, where he moved in after the war). Imagine how upsetting that made Tito's wife Jovanka Broz... Anyway, that grave is still there. When asked if the misfortunate partisan woman will be moved from Royal Property, the Crown Prince said, and I am paraphrasing --- No. That, too, is part of history. She will remain to rest there, until someone from her family claims that her remains should be moved to some other place. So far, none of her family has come forward. Perhaps there is nobody left in her family, and so she will remain to rest where she is now... The Crown Prince has even laid flowers on her grave. Also, he laid flowers on the graves of the last Obrenovic Royal Couple, who belonged to the rival Dynasty that "disappeared" (was brutally murdered) in 1903. When asked why he was placing flowers on the graves of what used to be the rival Dynasty, the Crown Prince said, and I am paraphrasing again --- We must put an end to all our tragic divides: the Obrenovics vs the Karadjordjevics, the partisans vs the chetniks, etc. We must learn from and cherish our history, no matter how pleasant or ugly it may have been from time to time, but we must look ahead and move forward. We must unify around what we want to do as a nation, where we want to go, and we must work together to accomplish those desires - and the most important desire is a strong, democratic, peaceful, respected Serbia within the European family of nations. We must stop this quarelling, we must keep the educated young people in this country, we must provide new jobs, we must improve the care of our children and the elderly... But we have to stop dividing ourselves over past issues, as if we haven't had enough problems already...
Too bad his Serbian language skills are poor - that is the main objective the people have regarding him, although he has improved. He can now speak without holding a piece of paper, but the pronounciation and grammar sounds more English than Serbian. He is trying, though. He is travelling all around Serbia, trying to get to know the people, the regions, the customs. He and his wife are invited on various tradtional, historic, religious, cultural and sports events. They sponsor talented students or cultural manifestations. They bring in A LOT of humanitarian aid - and they never ask who belongs to what religion or nationality. They have brought medical aid and supplies, medicines, computers for schools etc... Just recently Princess Katherine donated a blood analysis machine to the Children's Clinic, previously she had opened a ward with her name, previously she had gathered money in the US to help reconstruct an entire hospital in the town of Smederevo, where US Steel Serbia has its factory... The Royal Couple was one of the first to send trucks of aid to the flooded region of Banat, Vojvodina. There, not only do the Serbs live, but also Hungarians, Romanians, etc. The Royal Family sent aid to everyone who was affected, they didn't ask about nationality or religion. In short, they are doing a wonderful job, and they are slowly getting into the hearts and minds of the Serbian people. They are promoting investments and a generally positive, optimistic image of Serbia. They are today our biggest ambassadors of good will, and so is Princess Jelisaveta. And they do not take a cent from the Serbian people for what they do. When asked what her reward is in all this, Princess Katherine said: "Just seeing a refugee child smile is enough a reward for me. Just seeing the way an orphaned child smiles when he or she receives a hug, a toy or a candy is the biggest reward one can get".
In short, yes, I want a Monarchy, no different than, say, the Monarchy of Spain (a good example, since they too have had a civil war and a dictator and are now democratic and respected). The idea of Monarchy, however tarnished by communist propaganda, is, I believe, still deeply rooted within us, it's what we've always been, it's our roots and tradition, of course we must adapt all that to the modern world, and hopefully more people will realise this, as I have. A democratic Kingdom of Serbia within the European Union. Modern and yet traditional, with a free market economy, with a flourishing level of democracy, tolerance, respect, a country proud, successful and happy, a country whose people can feel proud and not punished, accepted and not isolated or despised, a country whose people can travel freely to whichever country they wish, without visas, in short - a happy country.
Of course, we could achieve all that with a Republic - this country is going to the EU one way or the other, but with a Kingdom it adds much more style, romance, glamor, ceremony and fairy tale to the concept.
