Post by depletedreasons on Apr 14, 2008 2:03:36 GMT -5
It's about us, the Macedonians
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Greece is pursuing ethnocentric politics.
In this context, Greece is against stable Macedonia (the entrance of Macedonia in NATO would have meant stabilization of the region) – Greece would not accept any solution, except one that would guarantee long term instability of Macedonia.
What is such “solution” that would offer long term destabilization of Macedonia (at the same time a bonus for closing the questions of; territory that Greece acquired in 1912 and the Aegean Macedonians)? Of course, the solution would be such that no country, people nor language would be called Macedonian.
Lets not fool ourselves, from what we have seen and heard so far, the only solution to solve the greek problem is to accept the greek blackmail and to not only change the name of our country (with communication to third countries), but (most importantly) the name of the language and nation. Don't misunderstand me, in no way do I say we need to accept their blackmail. I am only saying that this would be the only way to solve the name problem. There is a problem that Greeks have with us (and not just with the name) i.e. with our existence, and with their concept for national interests in the Balkans where for various reasons we are not that welcomed. This, lets be honest, is easily noticeable from their behavior, not just in the past 17 years, but in the past 100-150 years.
It is clear, now, Greece will continue with its pressure, lobbying, vetoing, until a 'solution' is found that will suit Greece only, and no one would care of this (perhaps a little bit, for a short time, the US). The reactions from Greece after Daniel Fried's statement that Macedonian nation and language exist, was the icing of the cake. The reaction was swift and had nothing to do with “geography”. Finally, we know the real negotiations are not about the name. While our politicians sweated copiously around “Skopje” with parenthesis or a dash, the Greeks were quietly focusing on the most important thing to them -the name of the people and the language. When the 'negotiations' didn't work, the veto came. And nothing is wrong, the Greeks are just getting warmed up.
VETO for EU
Do we need to solve the problem with Greece? A normal person would say yes, we do. There are several practical gains if the problem is solved. Greece invented a problem and now everyone is mocking Greece. However, it's not important who is mocking Greece. The important problem, however, is not the name. If North Korea had a problem with our name or our existence, it would be ok because North Korea can not influence us. Greece on the other hand, does. With Greece's veto, means Macedonia will not get into NATO, even though it fulfilled its criteria, and even though the most important NATO member (US) lobbied for our admittance. All right, lets say -it is not important to be a member of a military alliance which has lots its reasons to exist. However, Greece will veto Macedonia's EU path (is already doing so) if their blackmail is not accepted. The difference between EU and NATO is that there isn't a country that would help Macedonia in a way the US did in Bucharest. (Europe, continent of decisive leaders and honest relationships, see : Sarkozy Nicolas, Chemberlain Neville). What is worse is our empirical self pitty. Is it a problem if we don't enter the EU? Some would say: no one would die, the mountains will stay the same, Vardar will continue to flow. However, according to all poles, almost all Macedonian citizens want economic prosperity through EU integration. True, without the EU, the possibility to speed up economic prosperity in Macedonia would be reduced. Some say more Macedonians would move out of the country, the psychological pressure on the citizens would be great, which will ultimately affect the economy.
From the other side, there has to be a way to prosper outside the EU. Obviously, this will be difficult and I am not sure if we have the capacity for this. Until know, we have not shown much. Of course there are people, more informed than me who can perhaps explain how we would pull this off. As an example there are numerous countries outside the EU: Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Norway, Switzerland, Taiwan is even out of the UN. Some of the richer countries (Norway) have defeated the idea of joining the EU through a referendum, twice. Switzerland has no desire to ever enter the EU. Life doesn't end with European aspirations. As for NATO, the real solution for us is political and defensive solutions for all potential problems, and not putting all eggs in NATO. In other words, NATO won't show up to clean Brodec or Tanusevci.
Identity Naming
Is it important for us to keep the constitutional name, and most importantly the name in our heart! According to formal and informal polls almost all citizens would like to keep the constitutional and historic name. Perhaps there is small number of individuals that would accept Republic of Macedonia (Skopje) or Upper Macedonia or Republic of Skopje, or Republic of Macedonia (Stobi) !?, however there are no people that will accept change of identity and language. Accepting a change of IDENTITY (no one can change your identity) will probably have long term, terrible repercussions. Psychological, political, practical repercussions. To be concise, the feeling one would have for self would be something of empirical proportions and something that can't be explain in a column. Of course, there are people who would say our UN acronym did nothing to us as everyone knows us as Macedonians. This is true, however, now that we know what Greece is demanding (it wont back down because it doesn't have to and doesn't want to), we have to VOLUNTARILY give up using terms “Macedonian” in naming our language and nation. (uppermacedonian?, vardarian, skopjean, bitolaean language and people?) as well as ourselves to ask 123 countries who have recognized us under constitutional name to “not call us Macedonian”.
The issue is, 95% wants in the EU, and 95% don't want to change the name. There are talks of genuine and moral compromise (Yes, 'excellent idea' as Gandhi would say for the western Civilization). Except there is nothing genuine nor moral in the current negotiations. Until now Greece has annulled the compromise and the potentials of diplomatic thinking, fair play, trust in help from the stronger, patience and hope.
The saddest part of all is that Greeks are not bothered by hatred. It is all right to hate and with it to create adversaries in its neighborhood for a long time. Hatred is like a virus, especially if nationalistic. The internet, media, is filled with hatred (particularly from Greek surfers and media) who in a nightmarish way reminds us of the Balkan Wars, when in Greece, plaques were sold with an image of Greek soldier biting and ripping flesh from the face of a Bulgarian soldier, like an animal, with a title “BulgaroEater” (in the 20th century), or from the letters from Greek soldiers to their mothers in which they proudly tell their mothers how savagely tortured and killed civilians (see 'Carnegie Commission', 1914). Greece can continue to behave this way, because for its dangerous behavior in the past 17 years there were absolutely neither short nor long term repercussions to Greece. Those active politicians in the past 17 years gained only points with the (greek) public. This continues today.
European partners are whistling around, practicing demagogy. From the same reason dog licks its testicles, because it can. So they can continue on this path, without problems, they can only gain from it.
Snake and Donkey
Things are simple: If Macedonia wants to become a member of the EU, we have to change the name of our country, identity, language and people. Everything else is avoiding the real situation. And this is a very bad situation. Worse than the old saying to pick between the snake or the donkey. Or is it? We need to give this answer to ourselves. The goal of my text is to (try) and show the real situation. Those people seeking a solution where we are going to eat the cake and then would have some left over for tomorrow (as Americans would say) are naïve. I am not here to cheer (for the name or Europe). At the moment, the way it stands we can not gain both with small compromises. Of course, now we can analyze if we could have done something different in the past. But, it's more important to analyze why Greece behaves: aggressive, hysterical and irrational. This will lead us to conclude that Greece behaves only aggressive, and not at all hysterical and irrational. If in our analysis we include the Greek fascist claim and insisting they live in ethnically pure state (on the ethnic salad, the Balkans!), their continuous and unlawful pressure on Macedonia (remember the embargo), not acknowledging the genocide of Aegean Macedonians, as well as their foreign policy where they meddle in internal affairs of Turkey, Cyprus, supporting Slobodan Milosevic, then we conclude the bigger picture is different. Maybe it is not about the name at all, maybe we'll conclude that Greece follows through on an especially ethnocentric politics and in such context is against stable Macedonia (NATO admittance of Macedonia would have meant peace on Greece's doorstep), and Greece wouldn't accept any solution, except one that guarantees Macedonia's instability for long time to come. What is the “solution” that would result in long term destabilization of Macedonia (and as a bonus closes the question pertaining to territory Greece acquired in 1912 and the Aegean Macedonians)? Of course, the solution would be such in which neither the country, nor the language, and its people would be called Macedonian. Best example is Greece's reaction to Fried's statement, that in this 'negotiations' new points, new requests of different nature arose. Was it not about geographical term? When Macedonia said it would accept Republic of Macedonia – Skopje, Greece bounced the solution as a ball in volleyball. Now all of a sudden it is not about the name, rather, about adjectives!!! For the rights to forbid the term? As if someone can forbid me to use it in a column for instance, I don't understand. We could change the name to Upper North Vardar Macedonia, or Macedonia 41,50” (longitude, latitude). We must keep the term Macedonian, as well recognizing the Macedonian minority in Greece, something that is a fact, proven by numerous international organizations.
Now let's go to the beginning, we have two choice. (1) Don't change the name of the country, people, language; and (2) EU entrance.
Everything else we will spend a long time talking about and end up with the above questions.
What do we choose?
Milco Mancevski, author is a Film Director and professor at NYU
(interview for Macedonian Daily, Dnevnik, translated)
macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/848/1/
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Greece is pursuing ethnocentric politics.
In this context, Greece is against stable Macedonia (the entrance of Macedonia in NATO would have meant stabilization of the region) – Greece would not accept any solution, except one that would guarantee long term instability of Macedonia.
What is such “solution” that would offer long term destabilization of Macedonia (at the same time a bonus for closing the questions of; territory that Greece acquired in 1912 and the Aegean Macedonians)? Of course, the solution would be such that no country, people nor language would be called Macedonian.
Lets not fool ourselves, from what we have seen and heard so far, the only solution to solve the greek problem is to accept the greek blackmail and to not only change the name of our country (with communication to third countries), but (most importantly) the name of the language and nation. Don't misunderstand me, in no way do I say we need to accept their blackmail. I am only saying that this would be the only way to solve the name problem. There is a problem that Greeks have with us (and not just with the name) i.e. with our existence, and with their concept for national interests in the Balkans where for various reasons we are not that welcomed. This, lets be honest, is easily noticeable from their behavior, not just in the past 17 years, but in the past 100-150 years.
It is clear, now, Greece will continue with its pressure, lobbying, vetoing, until a 'solution' is found that will suit Greece only, and no one would care of this (perhaps a little bit, for a short time, the US). The reactions from Greece after Daniel Fried's statement that Macedonian nation and language exist, was the icing of the cake. The reaction was swift and had nothing to do with “geography”. Finally, we know the real negotiations are not about the name. While our politicians sweated copiously around “Skopje” with parenthesis or a dash, the Greeks were quietly focusing on the most important thing to them -the name of the people and the language. When the 'negotiations' didn't work, the veto came. And nothing is wrong, the Greeks are just getting warmed up.
VETO for EU
Do we need to solve the problem with Greece? A normal person would say yes, we do. There are several practical gains if the problem is solved. Greece invented a problem and now everyone is mocking Greece. However, it's not important who is mocking Greece. The important problem, however, is not the name. If North Korea had a problem with our name or our existence, it would be ok because North Korea can not influence us. Greece on the other hand, does. With Greece's veto, means Macedonia will not get into NATO, even though it fulfilled its criteria, and even though the most important NATO member (US) lobbied for our admittance. All right, lets say -it is not important to be a member of a military alliance which has lots its reasons to exist. However, Greece will veto Macedonia's EU path (is already doing so) if their blackmail is not accepted. The difference between EU and NATO is that there isn't a country that would help Macedonia in a way the US did in Bucharest. (Europe, continent of decisive leaders and honest relationships, see : Sarkozy Nicolas, Chemberlain Neville). What is worse is our empirical self pitty. Is it a problem if we don't enter the EU? Some would say: no one would die, the mountains will stay the same, Vardar will continue to flow. However, according to all poles, almost all Macedonian citizens want economic prosperity through EU integration. True, without the EU, the possibility to speed up economic prosperity in Macedonia would be reduced. Some say more Macedonians would move out of the country, the psychological pressure on the citizens would be great, which will ultimately affect the economy.
From the other side, there has to be a way to prosper outside the EU. Obviously, this will be difficult and I am not sure if we have the capacity for this. Until know, we have not shown much. Of course there are people, more informed than me who can perhaps explain how we would pull this off. As an example there are numerous countries outside the EU: Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Norway, Switzerland, Taiwan is even out of the UN. Some of the richer countries (Norway) have defeated the idea of joining the EU through a referendum, twice. Switzerland has no desire to ever enter the EU. Life doesn't end with European aspirations. As for NATO, the real solution for us is political and defensive solutions for all potential problems, and not putting all eggs in NATO. In other words, NATO won't show up to clean Brodec or Tanusevci.
Identity Naming
Is it important for us to keep the constitutional name, and most importantly the name in our heart! According to formal and informal polls almost all citizens would like to keep the constitutional and historic name. Perhaps there is small number of individuals that would accept Republic of Macedonia (Skopje) or Upper Macedonia or Republic of Skopje, or Republic of Macedonia (Stobi) !?, however there are no people that will accept change of identity and language. Accepting a change of IDENTITY (no one can change your identity) will probably have long term, terrible repercussions. Psychological, political, practical repercussions. To be concise, the feeling one would have for self would be something of empirical proportions and something that can't be explain in a column. Of course, there are people who would say our UN acronym did nothing to us as everyone knows us as Macedonians. This is true, however, now that we know what Greece is demanding (it wont back down because it doesn't have to and doesn't want to), we have to VOLUNTARILY give up using terms “Macedonian” in naming our language and nation. (uppermacedonian?, vardarian, skopjean, bitolaean language and people?) as well as ourselves to ask 123 countries who have recognized us under constitutional name to “not call us Macedonian”.
The issue is, 95% wants in the EU, and 95% don't want to change the name. There are talks of genuine and moral compromise (Yes, 'excellent idea' as Gandhi would say for the western Civilization). Except there is nothing genuine nor moral in the current negotiations. Until now Greece has annulled the compromise and the potentials of diplomatic thinking, fair play, trust in help from the stronger, patience and hope.
The saddest part of all is that Greeks are not bothered by hatred. It is all right to hate and with it to create adversaries in its neighborhood for a long time. Hatred is like a virus, especially if nationalistic. The internet, media, is filled with hatred (particularly from Greek surfers and media) who in a nightmarish way reminds us of the Balkan Wars, when in Greece, plaques were sold with an image of Greek soldier biting and ripping flesh from the face of a Bulgarian soldier, like an animal, with a title “BulgaroEater” (in the 20th century), or from the letters from Greek soldiers to their mothers in which they proudly tell their mothers how savagely tortured and killed civilians (see 'Carnegie Commission', 1914). Greece can continue to behave this way, because for its dangerous behavior in the past 17 years there were absolutely neither short nor long term repercussions to Greece. Those active politicians in the past 17 years gained only points with the (greek) public. This continues today.
European partners are whistling around, practicing demagogy. From the same reason dog licks its testicles, because it can. So they can continue on this path, without problems, they can only gain from it.
Snake and Donkey
Things are simple: If Macedonia wants to become a member of the EU, we have to change the name of our country, identity, language and people. Everything else is avoiding the real situation. And this is a very bad situation. Worse than the old saying to pick between the snake or the donkey. Or is it? We need to give this answer to ourselves. The goal of my text is to (try) and show the real situation. Those people seeking a solution where we are going to eat the cake and then would have some left over for tomorrow (as Americans would say) are naïve. I am not here to cheer (for the name or Europe). At the moment, the way it stands we can not gain both with small compromises. Of course, now we can analyze if we could have done something different in the past. But, it's more important to analyze why Greece behaves: aggressive, hysterical and irrational. This will lead us to conclude that Greece behaves only aggressive, and not at all hysterical and irrational. If in our analysis we include the Greek fascist claim and insisting they live in ethnically pure state (on the ethnic salad, the Balkans!), their continuous and unlawful pressure on Macedonia (remember the embargo), not acknowledging the genocide of Aegean Macedonians, as well as their foreign policy where they meddle in internal affairs of Turkey, Cyprus, supporting Slobodan Milosevic, then we conclude the bigger picture is different. Maybe it is not about the name at all, maybe we'll conclude that Greece follows through on an especially ethnocentric politics and in such context is against stable Macedonia (NATO admittance of Macedonia would have meant peace on Greece's doorstep), and Greece wouldn't accept any solution, except one that guarantees Macedonia's instability for long time to come. What is the “solution” that would result in long term destabilization of Macedonia (and as a bonus closes the question pertaining to territory Greece acquired in 1912 and the Aegean Macedonians)? Of course, the solution would be such in which neither the country, nor the language, and its people would be called Macedonian. Best example is Greece's reaction to Fried's statement, that in this 'negotiations' new points, new requests of different nature arose. Was it not about geographical term? When Macedonia said it would accept Republic of Macedonia – Skopje, Greece bounced the solution as a ball in volleyball. Now all of a sudden it is not about the name, rather, about adjectives!!! For the rights to forbid the term? As if someone can forbid me to use it in a column for instance, I don't understand. We could change the name to Upper North Vardar Macedonia, or Macedonia 41,50” (longitude, latitude). We must keep the term Macedonian, as well recognizing the Macedonian minority in Greece, something that is a fact, proven by numerous international organizations.
Now let's go to the beginning, we have two choice. (1) Don't change the name of the country, people, language; and (2) EU entrance.
Everything else we will spend a long time talking about and end up with the above questions.
What do we choose?
Milco Mancevski, author is a Film Director and professor at NYU
(interview for Macedonian Daily, Dnevnik, translated)
macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/848/1/