Nikolaidis: Let the three-fingered master Nešić raise three fingers on the Split Riva or Zagreb's Prisavlje, and then see how he'll fare

(Patria) - So, the guy really got a hard-on. He really wanted to raise three fingers in the middle of Sarajevo. He enjoyed it so much that he repeated it on Sarajevo television. And did anything happen to him, God forbid, in that Sarajevo full of Islamic radicals, Bosniak nationalism, oriental darkness, and similar monsters? Did anyone, God forbid, hit him or kick him in the ass? Did anyone give him a corrective slap, like that unknown young man gave Miomir Marić this summer in Budva, so convincingly that Marić didn't even think of reporting him and seeking punishment for the attacker.

On the contrary, Marić himself vehemently denied that anything had happened. He almost said, "May his hand be golden." Did anyone, God forbid, run him over in Sarajevo, like the guys in Cetinje did to Vukanović from Trebinje, when he went to see the Montenegrins live, like a white tiger in a zoo?

After all, what kind of country would it be if citizens attacked the Minister of Security – which would undoubtedly be treated as a terrorist attack.

Thank God, none of that happened. Nor could it have happened. But still: Sarajevo is bad. It's still a "dark valley," it's still boiling with "hatred," it's still "Tehran"...

What if the master tried to do that on the Split Riva – that is, in Europe, civilization, democracy, and amidst Christian kindness? And then, immediately after that, on Zagreb's Prisavlje, in some prime-time political show on Croatian state television?

The only thing that happened in Sarajevo was some parliamentary declaration condemning the master's actions. Which was adopted by the parties that brought the three-fingered man to power. Let's go back to the basics of parliamentary democracy. When you don't want to solve something, form a parliamentary committee to deal with it. When you've decided to eat what shouldn't be eaten – condemn it with a parliamentary declaration, writes Andrej Nikolaidis for Slobodna Bosna

Here's what our three-fingered master knows.

When you lie, lie big. Let your imagination run wild: let it fly, like a bird released from a cage. The credibility of the lie is irrelevant. People, after all, will not believe a lie because it is credible, but because they want to believe it. The bigger the lie you give them, the more they get what they want. A big lie will be sold faster than a small one. So: when you do something with the intention of offending someone, lie that you are offended by their reaction. Be offended because they are offended. Portray their offense as a sign of their primitivism and bad intentions towards you.

And our master knows this too: when you insult, insult big. Insult so big that the one you insulted has trouble accepting that someone insulted them as brutally as you did. Show people the symbol under which snipers and artillerymen killed them for four years, and then tell them that there is no reason for them to be offended by it – not one, except for their pathological hatred. And then fuel their suspicion with some bizarre comparison, for example, the one about the three-fingered salute on the monument in the Emirates, or wherever... Some comparison that will raise doubt: is it possible that someone, like you, is so brazen to say that? The offended person's doubt always works in your favor.

When our Minister of Security makes the sign of the cross, he does it with three fingers. Joined three fingers. Which signify the unity of the Trinity.

When he raises three spread fingers, although he doesn't know or understand it, our minister revives the Arian heresy. Arius and his followers had trouble accepting the concept of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, with three spread fingers, they showed that the Trinity was not unified for them. It was a strong heresy, for which the Council of Nicaea was convened to be refuted and destroyed. But Arius's teaching was so influential that the fight against it extended to the Council of Constantinople. There, supposedly, Meletius of Antioch, in order to explain the mystery of the Trinity to the audience, first raised three spread fingers. When he brought them together into one, lightning flashed from those fingers: it was supposedly God himself who decided who was right.

Here is my proposal for the Minister of Security. The next time you come to Sarajevo and raise three spread fingers, and someone complains about it again, forget the stories about the Emirates... Say this: that it was a greeting of understanding and respect, because you showed that you believe Islam is right. You showed, namely, that there is no Trinity as the church teaches. After all, you know what they say: when in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Tehran, do as the Tehranis do.

Today's Sarajevo is truly like the "Jerusalem of Europe"... Only, like Jerusalem seventeen or even twenty centuries ago. Because, look, a man is walking through the city spreading Arian heresy. And behind him follow new rulers riding on donkeys, just as Jesus entered Jerusalem, to their health.

To me, as a "cultural Christian," as they say today, there is nothing funny in that scene. I understand the intention. Namely, at that time, among the eastern peoples, there was a custom that a king, when he wanted to show that he was coming in peace, would enter a new city riding a gentle, patient animal, not a powerful, proud horse. That is why Jesus did so.

I understand the idea behind the scene of a king on a donkey, just as I understand the idea of turning the other cheek when you receive a slap.
I understand, but I don't practice. Because the others, those who slap, don't understand. Because after the second comes the third, and after the third, the fourth slap... That's one thing. And the second: the last place you could ride in on a donkey and be greeted with applause instead of laughter was Woodstock. The year was sixty-nine. But a hundred Eids have passed since then...

I also understand the liberals' need to feel guilty for everything in this world. I understand – and if not, Žižek explained it to us – the need to walk through this vale of tears constantly apologizing. Because thereby, in the perverse economy of privatizing all world guilt, they do not show their own humility, but a masked display of their superiority. I understand why, even when someone tells them: "Stop apologizing already, you're driving me crazy," they say, "Okay, I'm sorry." I understand what kind of pleasure lies behind that. I understand, but I don't practice.

I once wrote a short story about this, based on a news item I stumbled upon. It goes like this:

Once, a man from Thailand dreamed of a scorpion. He woke up suddenly and sat up in bed. He could hear his heart pounding, a heavy disco beat coming from him. He looked at his wife: she was sleeping peacefully at the other end of the bed. He would tell her everything in the morning.

The man from Thailand loved to eat scorpions. He ate thousands, millions of scorpions, whose meat he enjoyed more than anything else. When a scorpion appeared to him in a dream and accused him of bringing a curse upon himself and his descendants through crimes against its kind, he was overcome with guilt that he could not shake off. He knew: if he wanted to sleep peacefully again, he would have to atone to the scorpions for the harm he had done them.

So, the man from Thailand populated the ground floor of his house with scorpions. He boarded up all the openings of the house so that the scorpions posed no danger to his family. And, no less importantly: nothing from the outside world posed a danger to the scorpions in their shared home. He, his wife, and children lived upstairs, while scorpions crawled where the kitchen and living room used to be. The children protested at first, but over time they got used to the new housemates. Friends avoided them for a while. The cruder ones, who didn't understand, told him he was crazy. And then close people started visiting their home again...

The man from Thailand read that scorpions love to eat flies above all else. Therefore, he caught flies and bought flies. He brought home bags full of dead flies, which he threw to the scorpions.

For years, people and scorpions lived in peace and harmony in that house.

And then, one hot night, the man from Thailand dreamed of a fly. He woke up suddenly and sat up in bed. He could hear his heart pounding, a heavy disco beat coming from him. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he said.