montenegro

Rupert and family are moving from the wilds of London to the far more civilised Vancouver Island in Canada, which I believe used to be part of the British Empire until they had their membership revoked for being too close to the US. (Geography fact: Vancouver Island has a larger population than Montenegro.)

I’m proud to say that I knew Rupert before he became a big vlogging star and sold out to The Man - he directed our award-winning (ahem) short film “Tracks”, back when we were in short trousers. For a while I was worried that he would drop out of film-making completely, but he came back from a completely unexpected angle - using his mobile phone camera to shoot and edit short films about his life.

Video-blogging can easily turn into navel-gazing, but he managed to avoid this when he started out by posting what were essentially comedy sketches about a movie geek trapped in a dull office job in his dad’s company. The fact that Rupert was in fact a movie geek trapped in a dull office job in his dad’s company only made the sketches funnier. And sadder. But mainly funnier.

Now he’s all growed up - married to Kate, father of Amy, and no longer working in the dull office job - and his vlogs focus on his real life as opposed to his fantasy life. It’s great stuff, mainly because his slightly manic delivery makes for compelling viewing, but he’s also just a great bloke. Witness one of his recent posts, where he laments the annihilation of the local Post Office and interviews his local PO manager Mrs Patel.

The Minute wishes him the best of British in the New World. Please do keep videoblogging - I would join you, except my cellphone is nowhere near as flash as yours.

My life: a goat and a bag of cement.

Please, no obscene jokes.

Whoop-di-do. That’s about the level of euphoria I can muster.

As of 11pm this evening, Filip Vujanovic had cleared the 50% threshold required to keep him in the Montenegrin presidency - which of course means that Milo Djukanovic is still the power behind the throne in Montenegro. As I’ve said before, I don’t think that the Djukanovic / Vujanovic administration is the worst option for Montenegro, especially at this critical post-independence pre-EU stage. However this does mean business as usual, and that’s not a terribly good thing. Given that they’ve been in power for the last 17 years (I think), the blame for the host of problems that Montenegro faces can be laid squarely at their door. (Richard Cowper ran down a list of those problems for the Montenegro Times.)

Anti-corruption candidate Nebojsa Medojevic ran an interesting campaign, maxing out his photo opportunities and trying to emphasise that he’s accessible and personable - as opposed to Vujanovic, whose PR always seemed to put him in front of some flags looking presidential. Nobody really thought Medojevic could win - but with 15% of the vote, he’s trailing third behind the main Serb candidate, Andrija Mandic, who scored at least 19%.

This suggests two things. First, the Serb vote is stronger than many observers initially thought it would be - although Mandic played up the Kosovo question (to recognise or not to recognise?) considerably in the final stretch of campaigning. This will have some (but not major) implications for how Vujanovic conducts foreign affairs - it’s not as if Montenegro was rushing to recognise Kosovo anyway. Second, the anti-corruption ticket wasn’t as strong as the PzP were counting on, despite the fact that most Montenegrins recognise the problem of corruption as the most obvious one which intrudes on their day-to-day life. (Freedom House’s Nations in Transit report suggests that in more general terms Montenegro is at best standing still in terms of developing a healthy democracy.)

This was a “safe pair of hands” vote; it seems likely that Vujanovic was the beneficiary of the independence honeymoon, particulary following a few years of rude economic health for the country. That health is likely to worsen considerably in the next couple of years, and the question is only how well the DPS will handle it. I think they’ll handle it quite well in the sense of protecting their own financial interests - which in many cases are not that different from Montenegro’s financial interests - but whether they’ll be able to provide leadership that goes beyond that is another question.

The level of interest in this election internationally appears to be almost zero, which is understandable - there’s plenty more interesting things going on in the Balkans, like Ramush Haradinaj being acquitted and Greece administering a diplomatic beatdown to Macedonia. In the long term, however, this result isn’t good for the health of Montenegrin politics, and that has implications for the entire region - remember that Montenegro neighbours Serbia, Kosovo and Albania, and has its own significant Serb, Bosniak and Albanian minorities.

On the other hand, Madonna’s playing Jaz beach this summer. She’ll be 50, you know. Frightening.

Transitions Online runs an interesting story on that most familiar of Balkan melodies, the rewriting of history. With its independence last year, Montenegro now has to somehow drag itself out from the shadow of big brother Serbia while making too may people angry, a trick which is hard to pull off:

A recent poll suggests that many Montenegrins share Abdomerovic’s moderate nationalism. Conducted in September and October by the independent Center for Democracy and Human Rights, the poll showed that about 35 percent of respondents favored renaming the official language Montenegrin, edging out Serbian by about 5 percent.

There’s a problem with this sort of poll in a country where demographic affiliation can be so contentious. The 2003 census estimated that at least 40% of the population is Montenegrin, while only around 30% are Serbian, and that poll result looks suspiciously like a split along those lines. So many Montenegrins Montenegrins might share that “moderate nationalism”, but they’re likely counter-balanced by Serb Montenegrins who feel short-changed by the whole deal.

The problem is that the Serbian voice isn’t very credible in Montenegro (as far as I know), despite the lack of rancour over the separation of the two countries. A good example of this is given in the article itself, as a Serb intellectual unwittingly demonstrates:

Aleksandar Stamatovic, a pro-Serb historian who lives in Montenegro, said every student in the Balkans should learn one true history, difficult as that might be to reach. Stamatovic would like to take on the job but knows that some of his claims, including that the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated, if not made up, would scuttle any such opportunity.

Possibly his lack of job opportunities aren’t related to being pro-Serb, but being an apologist for war crimes, but the idea that there is “one true history” is an interesting one for a historian to make. History is always a matter of interpretations, and anybody who tries to tell you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

There’s nothing wrong with revising history textbooks, simply on the basis that our understanding of history changes over time. The problem is that such revision implies that the previous history was false and that those who presented it were liars, which is what makes somebody like Stamatovic angry. If only he - and so many other people in the Balkans - could realise that history doesn’t have to be war by other means.

I’m pleased to report that I survived the first Montenegro Adventure Race. Thanks to Croatia Airlines, I got into Herceg Novi at midnight. Having found Hayley and Jack’s place, I crashed on their sofa until I was woken up at 6am by their baby boy. Suitably refreshed, we all pulled on the relevant gear and headed down to the Hunguest Sun Resort Hotel, where the race was starting at 7am. (We should have set our watches to Montenegro time, since we actually started at 8.30.)

Having been a late entry, I was placed in Ed Milbank’s team “The Dandies” with Ed, Charlie and Natalie. I’d never actually met any of them before, but all were excellent company throughout the day - which was lucky, because it was a team race and we had to stick together the whole way. You can view the race map here, but let’s break it down:

1. KAYAK. With 9km to paddle, Team Dandies were undaunted by the fact that 50% of the team had never been in a kayak before. I paired up with Natalie in a double, and she turned out to be a natural. Charlie had a few problems at the start, but Ed stayed with him and after the turn at Mamula Island they came in smooth to Zanjice. At this point in the race we were last but, apart from some saltwater chafing, still feeling quite good about ourselves.
2. CYCLE. Natalie and I went off before Ed and Charlie and stormed ahead, narrowly avoiding death by truck several times but enjoying a relatively relaxed ride over the Lustica peninsula. Once again, Ed and Charlie didn’t have much luck, since one of their bikes had a broken saddle. Ouchtown. Undaunted, we covered 27km of hill riding comfortably, realising that we weren’t going to win but enjoying it anyway.
3. RUN. We reached the Vrmac Fort in a group, took a break for peanuts and raisins, and jogged off for the final 12km of running on the top of the ridge. To our astonishment we passed three other teams along the way, with only one setback - I turned my ankle on rough ground, which made the rest of the race complete agony a little uncomfortable. I managed to continue solely thanks to the support of Team Dandies, and we romped home like true Olympians.
4. FOOD AND DRINK. The race participants and supporters recovered in the eco village at Gornja Lastva, another place I’d never been before. The weather had been warm but overcast most of the day (perfect race weather) but the sun came out for us at the end. The village itself was lovely, providing us with a hall to recuperate in and plenty of food and drink to get us back on our feet in time for the party that evening.

There’s a long list of people to thank: the organisers at Black Mountain Adventure Travel and Kayak Montenegro, Jack and Hayley for letting me sleep on their sofa, the kids of Montenegro Forum for cleaning up the route, Marija Nikolic and the preservation society in Gornja Lastva for their hospitality, the Sports Cafe in Herceg Novi for hosting the after-party, the other sponsors of the race, and of course - the other competitors. God, I sound like an Oscar winner.

Verdict: the Montenegro Adventure Race was an absolute blast, and I’ll definitely take part again next year. This year it was strictly for fun - next year we’ll take home the trophy (probably).

Since I missed the London Triathlon this year, I decided it would be a good idea to take part in the Montenegro Adventure Race. Right now, I can’t remember why it seemed like a good idea, but there you go. So on the 6th October I’m going to kayak across the bay, cycle up a mountain and then fall off it while trying to run along a narrow ridge. I’m also going to be doing this with a team of 3 people that I don’t know, since I signed up late for the event. I haven’t trained for nearly three weeks and I’m going to be arriving in Montenegro at 11pm the night before the race.

Let’s roll!

Courtesy of Tim, I’ve now discovered the revamped website of the European Stability Initiative. I have an inherent distrust of think tanks, and if you suffer from Balkan Derangement Syndrome then you’ll hate their politics, but I was loving this report which pointed out that Montenegro

is a country without an ethnic majority, two Orthodox churches and no agreed name for the language most of its people speak. The national currency of independent Montenegro is the Euro. Its 620,000 citizens are Orthodox Montenegrins and Orthodox Serbs, Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic and Muslim Albanians, as well as some Croats and other minorities. Upon re-establishing statehood, Montenegro drastically downsized the armed forces it inherited from the joint state with Serbia to 2,500 and destroyed all except one of its 62 tanks.

If that’s the definition, then I guess Montenegro is indeed a post-modern nation, although I’m not sure that ESI have really understood what post-modern means. Independent Montenegro is a really strange beast, but the Balkans isn’t short on those - Bosnia or Kosovo, anybody?

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BBC Radio 4’s Crossing Continents went out last Thursday, on the subject of the Mediterranean coastline. I was interviewed for the programme by Julian Pettifer, as one of a group of expats, although tragically I didn’t make the final cut. This is a shame because I was witty and insightful - in fact if they’d kept me in, the programme would probably have had more listeners. Please feel free to write and tell them this.

The programme asked whether the Mediterranean can be saved from mass tourism. You can already see the BBC baggage that question is carrying - the environmental and social impact of “mass tourism” have been a cause of concern for the middle class, as well as basis for ridiculing the working class, since its very beginnings. The article that accompanies the broadcast ends with the question “Is the only salvation for the Med to go up-market?” without a trace of irony.

People who know me only slightly already know that I’m hardly oblivious to environmental issues, but this strikes me as being a faintly idiotic question to ask. In the case of Montenegro, tourism offers one of its few sources of income, income that’s needed to pay for environmental protection and improvement. The only salvation for the Med (in the case of Montenegro) is fairly consistent investment in the country, and if going “up-market” is the way to do it, then that’s great.

But if mass tourism is also the way to do it, then it’s hard to deny Montenegro the chance to build its economy and give people some holiday pleasure at the same time. Everybody here, locals and expats alike, is concerned about the impact of tourism, and we all wonder how the situation is going to develop - perhaps none more so than our local billionaire benefactor, Peter Munk. Munk has sunk a lot of his money into a scheme to develop Tivat Marina (or rather, the old Navy base next to Tivat Marina) into the biggest inland sea marina on the Med - a high rollers’ paradise.

Everything I’ve heard tells me that Munk is serious about his investment, and not just in terms of getting a return on his money. He’s also interested in the social and environmental development of the country, but the BBC can’t help themselves, asking “is this massive foreign investment really in the interests of the Montegrin environment and people?” The short answer is yes, since the alternative is presumably very little or no foreign investment.

Of course Montenegro is plagued by problems of corruption and lawlessness which are touched on in the programme, and which confuse these discussions. It’s hard to make the case that “Montenegro” needs to make its own choices when in reality the government isn’t particularly responsive to the wishes of the people, and it’s also hard to make the case when the people themselves are clearly going to go for the quick buck. The large number of locals complaining about the foreign invasion while driving brand-new sports cars after selling a plot of land that’s been in their family for 200 years is testament to that.

Anyway, the programme is quite an interesting pop comparison between Montenegro (will it go the same way as Spain?) and Spain (can it recapture the peasant charm that Montenegro still has?). The question of what is the “real Mediterranean” (and who owns it) also links thematically to an interesting post at A Fistful of Euros which discusses cultural uniformity in Europe, if that’s your thing (note: for some reason, that link is broken, but you’ll find it on their main site).

You can listen to the BBC broadcast here and read the accompanying article here.

I knew that there were a frightening number of cellphones here in Montenegro, but I had no idea that there are more cellphones than people.

Montenegro has a population of around 620,000 citizens — with an average monthly salary of 326 euros. According to the Telecommunication Ministry, the number of mobile phones in use in the country numbers around 700,000… This growing phenomenon shows that to Montenegrins a mobile phone is not just a phone, it is a status symbol… Instead of trying to afford the newest Mercedes, Renault or Peugeot every several years, a cell phone can be switched every few months for a lot less money.

All very interesting, but what I want to know is why the entire population of Montenegro has entered an arms race to find the most offensive ringtone available and then play it as loudly as possible.