Rice

— Written by Branko Veljković —

The point is to explain to the people your sleepless nights and all your agony.

You suggested this out of your own will, only then were you called — you were, were you not? And they were too, were they not?

You raised a drama, you set the chronicle on fire, you found yourself in Paris.

And then the Parisian, a native of Amiens, dispatched you back. If we exclude last year’s photo-ops, you saw Emmanuel¹ from Amiens² this time exactly as much as you saw back then that “deep state” across the sea, with which you would so love to fraternise³.

I know, everyone is laughing now, but what can I do? It was beyond my control.

Amiens, in fond memory of the tales which I actually love, has earned its place in the geography of ‘it must exist,’ because back in the days of Roman Samarobriva⁴and the exterminated Gauls, the teaching was instilled on them that the cloak is to be shared with a destitute beggar. That is why they were given a cathedral and a school with highly dedicated teachers.

That, too, has its “reason why,” but this is not for you, the self-proclaimed⁵ one.

But Emmanuel, the one who sent you back, is livid. That is precisely why he dismissed you like a spent railway-yard whore. He may be a lover of chickens, but one must not disregard the wrath of a Jesuit pupil⁶. Jesuit teachers know indeed how to select children who know how to play the game with their own wrath. This is then carefully nurtured. Mind you, I meant to say carefully, not piously!

Your bungling, the self-proclaimed one, now angers Emmanuel. It angers him most severely. And when he is beside himself with anger, he practices conversations dotted with a plethora of exclamation marks and few question marks. You see, unlike you, he at least knows how to do that.

Now I will explain to you why that is so.

When he was rising for the second time, Emmanuel was dealt one card from the deck of those 32 cards, and that card was—an economic boom! You never reached that deck, but you should know that his “Loi Macron”⁷ passed precisely for that reason. Albeit heavily criticised, it did pass eventually.

I would ask you now, “because you are smart”⁸, what does his economic boom rely on?

And here we are now in Marseille, present time. Something has arrived, but why has it not passed through?

Something, or someone, must have obstructed it.

Hm…

So, that which was supposed to please the French and which is going through customs clearance here, in our backwater quagmire, did not arrive where it was supposed to. Here and there, something was redistributed where it could be across the globe, but that’s a trivial matter. France is large, therefore it was granted diversification, let’s call it “distribution among colleagues”, but that, say, 24% is too much to ignore. Too much indeed. Too much for someone “because I am smart” to be able to promise a solution without the baptism.
It is not for the sake of the verse⁹, but that’s just how it is.

Thus, from those 24% going through customs clearance, not a single grain of rice was allocated to the pharmacies, although the naïve mortals offered that even some temporary pharmacies be opened, at least for the time of the veto on the Quarters¹⁰, but it doesn’t work like that.

I will quote a gentle world traveler, now a prominent urban philosopher: “Our rice is the best, our customers miss it, but when something is not meant to be, it is not meant to be.”

This was a mixture of a serious imperative and a spiritual need to heed the pressing need of the French of the new era for laughter and merriment. I mean, if not for that, who would still take France seriously except the merry French?

We roared with laughter.

The gentle urban one also said that we can promise that as soon as the election campaign begins, we will solve all these problems, and while they are reading this around the world, it occurs to me that indeed we will. He mentioned we can even return NIS¹¹ to the people, and we will do that as soon as we return your looted monies to Serbia. All this is told using kind words and in decent manner.

Now, since Emmanuel from Amiens with his investment is seriously and now already irreversibly endangered, and since in Gaul everything is somehow strangely connected ever since in that French Revolution everything unnecessarily was untied and then newly tied back together, France in this kind of stagnation is one big time-bomb in the heart of Europe.

A shortfall of 24% of “economy” via the economy through the course of three months will collapse everything.

Therefore, it occurs to me, you do not have those 50 days which you presented to the Russians for NIS and there, too, we somehow laughed right from the heart. You want to blackmail them, and the Russians just love it when someone blackmails them publicly, so now they won’t even let you pay, even if you had the means. It must be that some gentle people arranged that, too.

It must be grasped, if Emmanuel is nervous now, he is nervous with a reason and on time. For the result you´ve promised has already slipped away, and the unsolvable problem has already arisen. He knows well that “the place of perdition cannot be covered,” and it is not that he wants to perish because of someonelses stupidities. He does know who “spread the north over the void.” Though the void is now grinning at him, too…

A virus, self-proclaimed, you are now just a small, frightened, cocky virus.

That is why Emmanuel dismissed you without a farewell or an embrace.

Emmanuel had not planned to choke on rice. He considered that matter resolved. France considered it resolved.

There are many sad Emmanuels right now. There is no joy in their lives. And everybody knows that the blame for it rests squarely upon you.

They are also displeased that all of it is now in Marseille, on that territory between earthly and aquatic worlds, a land with two legal codes, within reach of their hand, yet never further.

One of them, some Pierre behind Emmanuel, while we were walking Iberia the other day and considering all the new and old routes around Caracas, “Dios y Federación”, said it beautifully: “We will leave him the address…”.

That is why Emmanuel summoned you, already knowing he would recall you without a glance. Or, if you must know, that is what he was told. I told you long ago that you are tragically predictable. You announced yourself, you went, and you returned. Then began, again predictably, your performance for the people.

In your impotence, wretched as you are, you even agreed to sign a new contract on top of the already existing contract, to promise the unsustainable, as if they do not know it is not possible and will not be possible.

And there you were yesterday, announcing famine, emergency vehicles that will not be able to fetch patients, announcing tragedy…

But there is no money.

That is why you are now recomposing yourself. And I know that when you compose yourself, you wholly annul yourself.
The question remains: who melted your Snowman?

Do you remember that Snowman from Davos whom you wanted to assign to the children of Serbia, your insane attempt to play with “white altars”.

And so, two years later, who disconnected all the phones that were never yours, who reduced you to Caciland 011¹² and 021 newcomers¹³?

Tell me, where did you go wrong?

Even Draganče¹⁴, by the grace of Đilas, noticed the message from “Mother of a slain Son”¹⁵, and hastily ran off to Podgorica¹⁶. And behold, he realised he had arrived where he no longer exists. While sitting in a hospitality establishment, he experienced the “Well, I would, but you see, I don’t have any time right now”. “The mobile subscriber is not available” is now just one text away from “The mobile subscriber is never available again”. But let Dragan be with his darling trifles. He might still invoke himself and even introduce himself.

Not for the sake of comparing the actors, but for the sake of comparing the ignorance, I will tell you how one of the three mistakes occurred, because of which Slobodan Milošević perished. It was at the time when Milošević was searching for his mistake, the one because of which he would disappear. Namely, before an international conference on Crete in 1997, Milošević consulted the Engineer about the visit’s plan and the scheduled address. Of everything he intended to say, the Engineer told him that the only thing he must not utter is “The Balkans for the Balkan peoples,” not because it should or should not be so, but because the time was not right for it, and also because he did not understand what something like that, so uttered, actually meant. Milošević did not listen to him. As a newly established “Prince of the Balkans,” he believed in the Balkans on the map of Europe and himself on the pages of public history. When he returned, the Engineer told him: “You have chosen instead of me! You will bear the consequences.” That mistake by Milošević opened the door to the tragedies of 1998 and 1999 and the Kumanovo capitulation¹⁷. And again, the Kumanovo Agreement, though extorted, secured some semblance of sovereignty for Serbia solely because the Engineer and his people advocated for it. Had it not been so, Serbia would have been under full military occupation. In the second decade after the Kumanovo Agreement, everything that was preserved of Serbia’s sovereignty was issued, sold, and surrendered by the self-proclaimed one.

Therefore, you have chosen instead of me. You will bear the consequences.

For further example, another one, from among so many others from this bumf*ck nowhere, who did not comprehend the word within the world of words, was Dušan Mihajlović¹⁸. Appointed to prevent the “6th October,” he also chose to transgress. Publicly. He stated that “If we need to know who killed Đinđić, we should ask the ambassadors of the USA and Great Britain.” The Engineer transferred him not to Povlen¹⁹ but into the Povlen mists, to wander there for as long as he lives. He was merciful.

And he, too, chose instead of someone else.

There, where everything is recorded, all your incoherent statements are recorded and one law you did not know about.

This is the law of the world you have desired to rule and it states – At Any Cost!

And we have seen “how the madman puts down roots” and we immediately “cursed his dwelling.”
Thus, the world came to know the incompetent and the people came to recognise the coward and “a coward is at his worst when cornered.” You are now already a face without a face. With all those narratives of yours, from “gouging out eyes with spoons”²⁰ to the umbrella that transmutes into a sniper rifle and vice versa, all that can be just another play-act, but it can also be serious. At any moment, all of it can flip into the real. Therefore transmutation can be natural, but it can also be induced by controlled processes. What do you think, which one is yours?

Everything can seem so perfect, until all that happens can no longer be ignored. You are on the lower side of the thread and you are not the one who pulls, but the one who is being pulled. And as for the puppet whose strings the devil pulls, God has no desire to help. He respects the choice. In another time, you could have known this too, but as it is, the Ineffable has recognised you by your voice. Now you can know where your lies have led you. That which you fear is now coming for you. “For evil does not grow from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground. Yet man is born unto trouble, as surely as sparks fly upward.”

That is why you now “like a slave, pant after the shadow²¹, like a hired hand, wait for your wages.”

That is why now when you lie down you say, “When shall I arise?”²²

That is why now you “meet with darkness by day, and grope at noonday as in the night.”²³

That is why you speak so and address people in such a manner.

And we, thus confronted with one so unrepentant, have no choice but to “deliver you unto your transgression!” For you are evil, and “the wicked rebel against the light; they know not its ways, nor abide in its paths,” for “to the wicked, morning is as darkness; for they know the terrors of the deep darkness that comes suddenly”.

“Now a word was brought to me stealthily, my ear received the whisper of it. Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice: ‘Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error; how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth! Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces; they perish forever without anyone regarding it. Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them? They die without wisdom.'”²⁴

You play with accounts and gold and power over those like you, while we now study the ninth configuration. There, my knowledge may be my weapon, but my faith is my shield. That is why the idea which took shape in my consciousness so easily became the Truth.

And since you so love to talk, I will ask you!

“To whom have you uttered these words? And whose spirit came forth from you?”²⁵

I will now tell you whom you have betrayed.

“The departed spirits tremble under the waters and their inhabitants. The underworld is naked before Him, and the place of perdition has no covering. He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the waters in His thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them. He covers the face of the full moon, spreading His cloud over it. He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at His rebuke. By His power He stilled the sea; by His understanding He shattered the serpent. By His wind the heavens were made fair; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Behold, these are but the outskirts of His ways; and how small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?”²⁶

And your “visions,” all those lies of yours…

“Behold, all of you have seen visions, so why are you so futile? This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage that oppressors receive from the Almighty.”²⁷

“He will lie down in his wealth, but he will not gather it; when he opens his eyes, it will be gone. Terrors will overtake him like a flood; in the night a whirlwind will carry him off. The east wind will lift him up and he will be gone; it will sweep him out of his place.”²⁸

Now, it must be so.

The gentle people will summon you and yours to return the stolen money to the country, and I will send you to return to us our dead students.

And now you should be happy, for “God does not delay when a man comes before Him for judgment.”

When He brings relief, who can condemn?

When He turns away His face, who can behold Him?

Will God give you compensation for all this as you have imagined, even though you reject His judgments?

That is your choice, not mine.

“Say what you know.”

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1. Emmanuel – French president Emmanuel Macron. ↩︎
2. Amiens – City in northern France. ↩︎
3. “fraternise” – more on this in the previously published essay´s “You shot at the people… konec”and “What the fuck are you even on about, Bole?” ↩︎
4. Samarobriva – was the Roman name for Amiens. ↩︎
5. Self-proclaimed– may refer to the politician Aleksandar Vučić, who usurps the role of President of Serbia contrary to the Constitution, breaking it and acting against the will of the people. ↩︎
6. Jesuit pupil:Refers to Emmanuel Macron’s education at the Jesuit-run Lycée la Providence in Amiens. ↩︎
7. “Loi Macron” – “loi” French for “law”. A reference to the 2015 “Law for Growth, Activity and Equal Economic Opportunity,” a flagship reform by President Macron aimed at liberalizing the French economy, passed amid significant controversy. ↩︎
8. “because I am smart”– Refers to Vučić’s statement from 2016, when asked why he financed Hillary Clinton’scampaign: “Because I am smart!” Donald Trumpeventually won. ↩︎
9. “verse” – refering to the words “solution” and “baptism” being a rhyme in the orginal serbian text “Previše da bi neko „zato što sam pametan“ mogao da obećava rešenje, a da nema krštenje. ↩︎
10. “Quarters” – refers to specific criminal activities of high material value, conducted with the assistance of parts of the state apparatus. More on this in the previously published essay “The Quarter, the mafia dealings, and the tract under the carrots”. ↩︎
11. “return NIS to the people” –NIS (Naftna Industrija Srbije) is Serbia’s national oil and gas company. A portion was sold to to Russia, Gazprom Neft and its privatisation is a highly contentious political issue, symbolizing the loss of national assets. Currently, due to american sanctions, president Vučić is attempting to sell (offer) the Russian stakes to western buyers in order to circumvent U.S. sanctions, much to the anger of the Serbian people. He could simply by back the shares from Russia and get the company back onto the national asset books of Serbia. ↩︎
12. “Ćaciland 011”  
    Caciland(Ćacilend) – in Serbian, “đaci” means “pupils”. During the early stages of the student protests, someone (supposedly one of the self-proclaimed leader’s hired thugs) angry at “pupils who want to go to school and study,” misspelled the word in graffiti as “ćaci”. This mistake became a meme of the protests. Later, when the self-proclaimed offered a park to his “students,” the protesters ironically called it “Ćacilend,” the land of the pupils. (Source: protest lore, 2020s Serbia; explained in local media reports.)
    011 – is the dialing code for the Belgrade area. ↩︎
13. “021 newcomers” – 021 is the dialing code for the northern region around the city Novi Sad, an important stronghold with many newcomers for the governing party of Aleksander Vučić and his Serbian Progessive Party (SNS – Srpska Napredna Stranka). ↩︎
14. “Draganče” – the diminutive form, polemical in this context, of the first name of Dragan Đilas –a Serbian businessman, media executive, and politician who has been the president of the Party of Freedom and justice (SSP) since its founding in April 2019. He previously served as the mayorof Belgradefrom 2008 to 2013. ↩︎
15. “Mother of a slain son” – a previously puplished essay. ↩︎
16. Podgorica – The capital of Montenegro. ↩︎
17. Kumanovo capitulation / Kumanovo Agreement – The Military Technical Agreement, also known as the Kumanovo Agreement, signed between the International Security Force KFOR, a NATO-led international peackeeping force and military of the so called Kosovo, and the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia, was an accord concluded on the 9th of June 1999 in Kumanovo, Macedonia, after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, resulting in the end of the Kosovo war and established new relations between Yugoslavia (then Serbia and Montenegro) and the Kosovo Force, created by NATO members, which would act to replace units of the Yugoslav Army in the so called Kosovo. ↩︎
18. Dušan Mihajlović:A former Serbian Minister of Police. The cited statement, implying foreign intelligence services were involved in the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, is given as an example of a fatal political miscalculation. ↩︎
19. Povlen – Povlen is a mountain in Serbia. To be sent into its “mists” is a metaphor for being removed from power and relegated to political oblivion and obscurity. ↩︎
20. “gouging out eyes with spoons” – (Serbian „vađenja očiju kašikama“) was a politically uttered slogan of the Serbian Radical Party SRS [Srpska Radikalna Stranka] founded in 1991 and led by Vojislav Šešelj, key ideologist and Alexander Vučić as his protegé and great loyalist serving as its Secretary-General and a member of its Main Committee. ↩︎
21. “like a slave, pant after the shadow, like a hired hand, wait for your wages.” – Job 7:2 ↩︎
22. “when shall I arise” – Job 7:4 ↩︎
23. “meet with darkness by day, and grope at noonday as in the night.” – Job 5:14 ↩︎
24. Job 4:12-21 ↩︎
25. “To whom have you uttered these words? And whose spirit came forth from you?” – Job 26:4 ↩︎
26. Job 26:5–14 ↩︎
27. Job 27:12 ↩︎
28. Job 27:19-21 ↩︎