Europe.view

Old rows, new book
Oct 8th 2009
From Economist.com


Albania and Macedonia quibble over an encyclopaedia
IT IS normally hard to get excited about encyclopaedias. Indeed, in the internet age, it is quite hard to sell them at all. But in Macedonia, a new national encyclopaedia has sparked a row worthy of the 19th century, with furious denunciations, forced resignations, hurried political intervention and appeals to outsiders to join in the condemnation of insulting entries.

The row underlines Macedonia’s still-fragile national identity. Here is a non-exclusive list of possible views. One is that Macedonia does not exist at all. It is simply a bit of Bulgaria, amputated by the rise of post-war Yugoslavia and then hijacked by self-interested local politicians (some Romanian nationalists see Moldova the same way). Those who think they are Macedonians are “ethno-politically disorientated” Bulgarians.


From another point of view, the country’s existence is not in doubt, but the name is an insult to Greece. Hardline Hellenes think that the “Skopjans” are cheeky Slavs trying to hijack the name of Macedonia, which was, is and will always be an inalienable part of Greece.

Another view comes from Albania, Macedonia’s western neighbour. From an Albanian nationalist point of view, Macedonia is not a state, but a compromise, and perhaps only a temporary one. A much-abused ethnic Albanian minority has finally managed, partly by force of arms and partly thanks to international pressure, to gain some constitutional rights, which must be defended vigilantly.



But what about the majority ethnic grouping in this country of 2m people? That is where the encyclopaedia comes in. Published by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, it trod hard on some sensitive toes. For a start, it asserted that the Albanians were relative newcomers to the territory, settling it only in the 16th century. From an Albanian point of view, that is exactly the wrong way round: it was the Slavs who are the newcomers, and who should behave themselves in the company of their hosts. Worse, the encyclopaedia also referred to the Albanians as “highlanders”. That, apparently, is an insult.

Another entry describes Ali Ahmeti, the leader of the ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001, as a war-crimes suspect. Many may query the methods he and his fighters used, but he has never been indicted, and he now heads the junior party in the country’s coalition government. Amid student demonstrations and other protests, Albania’s prime minister, Sali Berisha, called the book “absurd and unacceptable” and complained about “identity based on the forgery of history.”

The encyclopaedia is now being hastily rewritten. But it would be nice to think that some of the energy on display could be directed toward bigger issues. One is sorting out the name dispute with Greece. The new centre-left government in Athens may soften the Greek insistence that its northern neighbour drop “Macedonia” before joining international organisations. Macedonia could clear up a couple of troubling human-rights cases, such as that of Spaska Mitrova, a young mother who has lost custody of her two-year-old daughter, in a dispute with strong political overtones (she identifies herself as Bulgarian, and says Macedonians have ill-treated her in retaliation). From the Albanian side, Mr Berisha could be more careful in describing all of his compatriots as members of “one nation”.

Silly rows about encyclopaedia entries are not just distracting. They also damage outside perceptions of the region and thus its chances of integration into the rest of Europe. The sensible response to a bad book is to yawn, or to produce a competitor. And by complaining so loudly, critics have given the encyclopaedia publicity that most booksellers could only dream of.

Macedonia, again

Not mad, not bad, just sad
Mar 20th 2008
From Economist.com


The Macedonia name-game

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IF YOU have an unexploded bomb on your doorstep, do not hit it with a hammer, especially if you hear it ticking. That would seem uncontroversial, except when the unexploded bomb is Macedonia and the hammer is wielded by Greece.

Neither side is blameless in the two countries’ tedious wrangle about who can be called what. Ultranationalists of both flavours make absurd claims about the geographical and ethnic characteristics of “historical” Macedonia. If the Olympic games featured an event that measured stubborness and prejudice, the partisans from the Wikipedia talk page dealing with the name wrangle could form a world-class joint team.

Greece’s fears of irridentism from the north are not wholly groundless. But they are out of date and minor compared to the real threat: instability, or worse. The best way to prevent the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” from posing any kind of security threat to its southern neighbour, or stirring up trouble among the slavophone population in the northern Greek province also called Macedonia, is to bring it into the European Union and NATO.

That prospect has also scotched the notion of a Greater Albania, which would have included Kosovo and a large chunk of Macedonia. If borders look set to matter less, that idea will stay dormant.

Membership in the Atlantic alliance has proved a highly effective means of calming old rows (not least between Greece and Turkey). It is hard to argue that Greece will be more secure if it vetoes Macedonia’s NATO membership at the alliance’s summit in Bucharest between April 2nd and 4th, especially if Albania and Croatia gain membership.

America is promoting compromises (Independent Republic of Macedonia, New Republic of Macedonia, Democratic Republic of Macedonia and Constitutional Republic of Macedonia). Greece rejects these, and wants a different qualifier (Upper, Northern, Vardar or Skopje). Macedonia says it will accept an extra label, but not a geographical one.

Macedonia’s impatient-sounding stance and displays of petulance in the past have not always helped its own case, especially in Greek eyes. But a resentful and isolated neighbour will be worse for Greece, not better.

More troublingly, it may blow up. Macedonia’s precarious internal stability is teetering. The coalition government has lost its majority since its Albanian coalition partner pulled out last week; it wants immediate recognition of Kosovo, greater use of the Albanian flag and language, plus pensions for veterans of the insurgency in 2001. Only some prompt and effective international mediation saved that conflict from turning into civil war.

For now, Macedonia has been something of a success story, pushing ahead with fast tax-reform and promoting e-government. That has benefited Greek companies too, who find politics does little or nothing to dent the attractions of northwards trade and investment. Macedonia is already a handy NATO ally, with soldiers in Afghanistan (who, unlike those from some existing members of the alliance, are actually allowed to fight).

A great deal more needs to be done. Infrastructure is dismal, education inadequate, corruption still a problem. But the well-trodden path to membership in the European Union and NATO is the best route for improvement. It if works, it will benefit Greece too.

It may well be that America will bang heads together in the run-up to the NATO summit. But outside attention is a scarce commodity and needed elsewhere too—not least for the vital but chancy business of producing a convincing NATO offer for Georgia and Ukraine.

Greece’s politicians would be doing themselves and everyone else a favour if they would settle the “name issue”—or at least say publicly that they will not veto their northern neighbour from joining an organisation that will make everyone safer and freer.

End of an acronym

Europe.view

Macedonian mess
Nov 22nd 2007
From Economist.com


Time to look past archaic disputes

FOR anyone who cares about peace in the Balkans, few things matter more than keeping intact the country most of the world calls the “Republic of Macedonia”. Its perilous stability will wobble more with looming independence for next-door Kosovo, which will delight Macedonia’s Albanian minority, and stoke the Slav majority’s fears.

In theory, no rich country should care more about Macedonia than neighbouring Greece. Yet relations are hampered by an arcane dispute about nomenclature. Greece insists that “Macedonia” was, is and can only be part of Greece. The name’s use by a region of Yugoslavia was, it maintains, part of a communist-era plot aimed at destabilising Greece. Greece therefore insists that the country be called “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (FYROM).

Extremists on both sides use rhetoric (seen, among other places, in clumsily made presentations on YouTube) so ill-phrased and comical that Borat himself could claim authorship. They share the unspoken but absurd assumption that the features of the entity known as Macedonia in ancient history should be of decisive importance in modern ethnography or political geography: because an ancient kingdom called Macedonia existed, only one modern entity can claim that name. The region is still waiting for a statesman to pick that assumption apart.

It is a close call, but the extreme Macedonian nationalist position, which argues that most of northern Greece is “theirs”, is perhaps the battiest. It is as if the Greeks insisted that unicorns were pink while the Macedonians maintained, even more absurdly, that the horned beasts were of a colour found nowhere on the conventional spectrum: moonlight, perhaps.

Greek twitchiness about even mythical controversies was more understandable in the early 1990s, when the whole future of the southern Balkans was alarmingly fluid and unpredictable. Amid disputes over Macedonia’s future involving Serbs, Albanians and Bulgarians, the Greek objection to the name was part of a wider pattern of worries about borders and minorities.

But the Macedonian nuts have little effect on their government’s policy these days. The country has changed its flag and constitution in order to accommodate Greek sensitivities. The forward-looking government in Skopje is into flat taxes, e-government and attracting foreign investment (paradoxically, in large measure from Greece).

Greece, however, still insists that the mere existence of a next-door country called Macedonia “is directed against the cultural heritage and historical identity of the Greeks” and “there is no question of its neighbour acceding either to the European Union or to NATO under the name Republic of Macedonia”.

A lobby group called the “Association of Macedonians” has issued an appeal this week noting that Greece does not fully recognise Macedonian passports and that Macedonia’s state airline cannot fly to Greek airports. That, they say, adds insult to injury.

Slavophone people in northern Greece have had a tough time, not only with mass deportations in 1949 but also in their treatment by the authorities on issues such as surnames and schooling ever since. (Greeks saw the slavophone minority, with some justice, as a security threat during the Cold War, and Greek minorities have been abominably treated too in other countries. But even multiple wrongs don’t make a right).

The great tide of EU and NATO expansion that has served the continent so well in the past ten years is already running worryingly slack. Pushing ahead with Macedonia’s applications to both bodies will change the mood in the whole region. Prosperity and stability in the Balkans will benefit Greece hugely. It is time to relegate the name issue to the backwaters of bilateral diplomacy, and highlight the benefits to Greece of Macedonia’s stability and prosperity—and the dangers of its disintegration.