Is Vučić coming? Ignore!

The president’s entourage also arrived. Admittedly, not exactly the diplomatic one, as expected: advisors, protocol, PR teams, people with folders and diplomatic smiles. No. A different kind of “delegation” arrived on a charter flight: patriotic decor, cadets, cheerleaders, Crimean folklore and an accompanying ensemble for the production of incidents. They were returned to where they came from, short and simple, which is perhaps the most beautiful sentence in this whole story.

But the question remains: what were they looking for in Montenegro?

As far as we know, even common sense has not yet been completely abolished, these people were not invited to the EU Summit – Western Balkans in Tivat. They do not participate in panels. They do not negotiate regional cooperation. They don’t write declarations. They do not harmonize European policies. Their expertise is not diplomacy but pressure. Their specialty is not dialogue but threat. Their function is not to say something, but to look like a message.

And the message is old, worn out and already seen: if the leader’s chair shakes at home, the problem is exported to the neighbors.

It is a recipe from the well-preserved kitchen of Slobodan Milošević. When the inside burns, the enemy is sought outside. When nervousness, protests, affairs and fatigue from one man who turned the state into an extension of his own ego accumulate in Belgrade, then the tabloids immediately turn on the tabloids. Suddenly there are enemies on duty: Shiptari, Ustaše, “Montenegrins”, traitors, mercenaries, separatists, embassies, services, dark forces and all the other extras in the longest bad show in the Balkans.

The same narrative, spent 100 times, only the targets change.

But this time something is not working! Montenegro responded to Vučić, at least these days, with what hurts him the most: ignore. By cold, civil, almost insultingly calm ignoring. A man who is used to having his world set up like Pink’s studio arrives, and a reality awaits him in which he is not the main character.

And there’s the problem.

Aleksandar Vučić is a politician with so much ego-trip that he no longer differentiates between the state and the mirror. He does not enter the proctor, he expects the space to become a stage. He doesn’t talk – he directs. The summit, the protocol, Tivat, the region, the European agenda, all these are just props if he is not at the center: the worried father of the nation, the lonely statesman, the man who “knows everything”, “suffers everything” and “keeps everything under control”.

Except it doesn’t hold anymore.

That’s why we’re looking at this worn-out manuscript: a little rattling, a little tabloids, a little crying about endangered Serbs, a little pumped-up “patriots”, a little diplomatic overreach. Once that machinery looked dangerous. Nowadays, it looks more and more like an expensive apparatus for producing noise that no one seriously listens to anymore. The big-state machine was reduced to a “dangerous” charter flight that ends with the return of passengers from the border. Regional fear and trepidation landed on the front page of the tabloids and a couple of insulting announcements for domestic consumption.

Another example? Watch that famous media stampede: announcements, threats, specials, “exclusives”, documentaries, historical truths from the editing room and patriotic tears in HD resolution. And the result? A few days of noise, a little poison in public space, then silence. The film about the referendum, that “masterpiece” of regime historiography, was supposed to shake Montenegro. In the end, it shook mostly those who ordered it.

Of course, now the tabloids will cry over freedom and human rights. It will be a great festival of hypocrisy. When Montenegrin intellectuals are arrested, interrogated and expelled by BIA agents, is that protecting Serbian national interests?

When Montenegro sanctions tabloid-political poisoning and propaganda works, then it is the “darkness of democracy”. When Belgrade humiliates others, it is state policy. When someone tells him no, it’s anti-Serb hysteria.

That pattern is not even treacherous anymore. He’s just boring.

And that’s exactly why it’s important not to fall for it. Vučić’s camarilla, it is clear to anyone who has lived under Serbian hegemony for more than one election cycle, will try to create nervousness in Montenegro. Movies, charter flights of high-profile “diplomats”, tabloid campaigns, subterfuges, announcements and patriotic cries are not incidents. These are interventions. These are small destabilization operations. It is an attempt to turn Montenegro into someone else’s training ground again.

But, Aco, you’ve lost your touch.

Montenegro is no longer impressed by your performances. She’s not fascinated by your tone. She is not hypnotized by your conferences. Don’t faint in front of your tabloids. And the worst thing for you: more and more people understand the trick.

And when the audience understands the trick, the magician becomes just a man waving his hands nervously.

So, Vučić is coming.

Welcome to Montenegro, a country that has survived much more serious empires than your media arbitrariness. The land that you have insulted, appropriated, blackmailed and declared sometimes yours, sometimes treacherous. The country you predicted the end of every time it didn’t serve you.

And here it is again.

And the best response to the arrival of a man who feeds on drama is exactly what humiliates him the most: peace, distance and contempt without shouting.

Is Vučić coming? Ignore!