politics

My professor, Victor Friedman, was in Athens to help promote the publication of a new Macedonian-Greek dictionary.

The conference was stormed by a group of about twenty Greek nationalists, some wearing masks. They disrupted the proceedings, screamed nationalist slogans, harrassed the presenters, stole promotional material, damaged cameras, and physically threatened my professor. Balkan Insight has an article about the attack.

The attackers appear to have been associated with the Greek organization Golden Dawn, originally a neo-Nazi outfit that has rebranded itself as a defender of Greek national identity and religion and capitalized on a swell of anti-immigrant feelings.

Golden Dawn does not have representation in parliament as far as I’m aware, but they are closely connected with another nationalist, right-wing party called Popular Orthodox Rally that does have representation. A key point shared between these two parties and the current conservative Greek government is that a Macedonian-speaking minority in Greece does not exist, that the Macedonian language has never been spoken on Greek territory, and that any claim to the contrary represents a threat to Greek national security.

Prof. Friedman and his colleagues were promoting a dictionary. A list of corresponding words that allows someone to translate from Greek into Macedonian or vice versa. Merely making translation possible was enough to provoke the violent rage of these nationalists, who insist that not only does no one within Greek borders speak Macedonian, but that the Macedonian language itself does not even exist. The current government itself refuses to even accept that its neighboring state has an official language, instead referring to Macedonian as “a Slavic idiom.”

The attack was a revolting act of violence by a group of self-deluded extremists. But they function within a mainstream that tacitly endorses their provocations.

I expect that the Greek government, if it responds to the attack, the destruction of property, and the threats against my professor and his colleagues at all, will disavow everything and insist that it is not responsible for the misconduct of individual Greeks. This is true, but it also remains true that the position of the Greek government itself concerning the Macedonian language, the rights of its ethnic minority citizens, and the rights of Macedonian citizens to its north is not only unjust, but creates an environment in which nationalist sentiment can boil over into violence.

And they are responsible for that environment.

I want to say that you cannot eradicate a language with violence, because a language is an abstract system, a complex interrelated network of ideas. But individual people are the essential vessel for a language, and people can be intimidated, injured, murdered. Violence can crack the vessel and let the language spill away.

Which is one of many, many reasons why such instances of violence as this, however small, must be protested furiously. We must not allow even a step down that road.

The Macedonian police аre planning to press charges against the organizers of the student protest for “disturbing the public peace.” In their original statements, they said that the organizers were supposed to inform the police of their plans 48 hours in advance, whereas the organizers only gave warning 24 hours in advance. Now, the chief of the police academy, Frosina Taševska-Remenski, has clarified that protesters actually only have to inform the police 24 hours in advance, but that for large and dangerous protests, the requirement changes to 48 hours in advance. Police maintain that they were not able to prevent the violent attacks on the students because they did not have enough time to prepare. Dnevnik reports this statement from Taševska-Remenski:

It appears that the intent [of the students' protest] was not to prevent, but rather to provoke incidents. Whoever the organizer is, no one has the right to prevent him from expressing his opinion publically. The protest was organized to express an opinion about a certain architectural question, but it turned out to be against the [new] church. That is malfeasance and politicking.

The newspaper Utrinski Vesnik reports that a local television host, Janko Ilkovski of “Jadi Burek,” encouraged the counterprotest the night before and my friend Seth found leaflets for the counterprotest in the alley behind his apartment the morning of the protest. Counterprotesters were also bussed from towns outside of Skopje such as Gostivar and clergymen of the Macedonian Orthodox Church were present to organize the counterprotest.

Nonetheless, the police have no plans to investigate the organizers of the counterprotest, though they admit that they received no warning of it, because they maintain that the counterprotest was “spontaneous” and an “expected reaction of the citizens to abusive and politicized provocation.” While reports say that the counterprotesters numbered ten times as many as the protesters, the police say that students should have been aware that their behavior would be threatening and should have cancelled their protest and dispersed when they saw that the counterprotesters were already gathered on the square.

You see, counterprotesters had gathered from out of town, with extravagant religious accoutrements, blessed by priests in full attendance, “spontaneously.” In reaction to a protest that hadn’t happened yet.

Man, that spontaneity, it really gets the job done.

Just to be clear, this is what the police consider to be spontaneous:

And this is what the police consider to be organized, preconsidered malfeasance and provocation:

It also appears that the police have no plans to identify or press charges against those who assaulted the students. They have declared that the students caused their own beating and that they will probably be prosecuted for it.

I am continuing to post about this because it is clear that the current Macedonian government is unwilling to act against those of its supporters who are fanatics and violent. In fact, the institutions of this government appear willing to deploy state power to suppress dissent and punish activism in opposition to its plans.

The Macedonian government has shown to be incapable of restraining itself. However, it remains acutely aware of its international image due to the country’s ambitions of joining the EU. The diplomatic complexities of Macedonia’s conflict with Greece over its constitutional name also render the government sensitive to suggestions that it is behaving unjustly and undemocratically. While this blog is mostly read by my family and friends, the more information in an international language like English about what happened on March 28th that is available to public access, the better. Simply because Macedonia is a small, obscure country on the world stage and simply because only a small number of people were affected by the violent attack on Saturday does not mean that this country’s authorities should be allowed to pretend as if it didn’t happen.

“All publicity is good publicity” applies to celebrities, not governments. The more that this ridiculous behavior and these people’s ridiculous ideas are named and shamed, the better.

(images are from the Dnevnik article “Pravo na slobodno izrazuvanje kjotek” from March 30th, to which they link)

I’m hearing more from my friends and from the media now about the protest that was attacked by religious fanatics on Saturday. That previous post has a detailed comment from a Macedonian reader that you should check out, to get some perspective. I can’t vouch for whether what s/he says is true or not, but I don’t want to give the impression that I’m fervently in favor of SDSM. The only thing I’m fervently in favor of is the right to peaceably assemble and protest.

In any case, BalkanInsight has more information about the attack. Highlights include the fact that a local TV host asked people to stop the event the day before the protest, calling the protest’s organizers “faggots and athiests.” The newspaper Dnevnik has a more detailed report of the event, but it’s in Macedonian. I will just translate here the section where they described the protest and the violence.

Around two hundred students came to the protest, according to [the protesting organizations], with the idea of standing on the parcel of land where the construction of the church is planned in order to show how much room the object would take up and to give the message that the building will choke the Ploštad space. They carried signs on which was written, “Do not rape Skopje.” When they came to the protest at the prearranged time, the counterdemonstrators were already assembled there and they did not allow the students to approach the parcel of land. The students, among whom were included other citizens, withdrew to the Stone Bridge and with raised signs yelled “Do not rape Skopje.” The more numerous counterdemonstrators set off toward the students. The miniscule police “cordon” of ten policemen only held back the counterprotestors for a short time. The protestors sang, “The city will spring up beautiful again,” and the other group began to yell “Albanian filth!” “Blasphemers!” “Traitors!” “Devils!” Then a portion of the counterdemonstrators bypassed the police and began to kick and punch the students. Among the counterprotesters were clergymen, and some of that group were carrying crimson flags.

Околу 200 студенти излегоа на протест, како што тврдат, со идеја да застанат во парцелата каде е планирана градба на црквата за да покажат колкава површина ќе зафаќа тој објект и да порачаат дека со нејзината изградба ќе се задуши просторот на плоштадот. Тие во рацете држеа транспаренти на кои пишуваше „Не го силувајте Скопје“. Кога во закажаното време за протест дојдоа на плоштадот, таму веќе биле собрани контрадемонстрантите и не им дозволиле да се приближат до парцелата. Студентите, на кои им се приклучија и други граѓани, се повлекоа кон Камениот мост и со кренати транспаренти извикуваа „Не го силувајте Скопје“. Помногубројните контрадемонстранти тргнаа кон нив. Малобројниот полициски „кордон“ од десетина полицајци само кратко ги задржал. „Градот убав пак ќе никне“ пееја протестантите, а другата група почна да извикува: „шиптари“, „богохулници“, „предавници, „сатани“… Потоа, дел од контрадемонстрантите ги заобиколија полицајците и почнаа да ги удираат студентите со клоци и со тупаници. Меѓу контрапротестантите имаше и свештени лица, а некои од таа група носеа и црковни знамиња.

To change tack, Skopje 2803, a site that is aggregating posts about the protest, has linked here. To any new readers arriving through that site, hello! Nice to have you! As long as you refrain from being abusive, I welcome your comments on what I’ve written, but abusive comments will be devoweled.

One of my friends was apparently at the protest and I’m gonna meet up with him tomorrow for a beer. More to come as I find out.

The current conservative government of the party VMRO plans to build a new Orthodox church with public financing in the center of Skopje’s main square. Many Skopjans, both those I know and those in the media, are critical of this project. There are many reasons: it is waste of government money when there are already three churches very close to the area, it is a provocation of the Albanian community centered just on the other side of the square, it reflects an exclusionary attitude toward Macedonia’s Muslisms and other people of non-Orthodox faiths, and it emphasizes symbolism over good urban planning by interrupting a public plaza that has already been crowded in by many new buildings.

This last objection has been raised by students of the Faculty of Architecture at Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, who organized a protest on the main square against the new church yesterday. The students were strongly discouraged from wearing any party-affiliated articles or carrying signs that referenced the two largest political parties, conservative VMRO and liberal SDSM, so that the focus of the protest would remain on the building of the church itself. Several hundred gathered on the main square, called the Ploštad, and carried signs. One widely reported sign said, “Do not rape Skopje!” (Ne go siluvajte Skopje!).

Counterprotestors gathered in the square as well, numbering many times greater than the students. BalkanInsight reports that many of them were bussed in from towns outside Skopje such as Gostivar, and that these busses were parked near one of the buildings owned by the Macedonian Orthodox Church. They carried signs, religious flags, and crosses and chanted nationalist and pro-VMRO slogans. Utrinski Vesnik and the other reports I’m reading say that the smaller group of protestors were then brutally attacked. The religious counterprotestors rushed them, kicked them, and beat them. Some had head injuries. The protest was scattered under the attacks as the religious counterprotestors screamed “Traitors!”

There are no reports yet about whether the police were at the protest and if they were, whether they made any attempt to prevent the violence. Either they clearly failed, or they refused to stop the counterprotestors from beating the protestors.

It is strange to think that later in the day when I passed through the Ploštad multiple times, I had no idea any of this had happened.

The Skopje police have announced an investigation into the smaller group of student protestors and is holding their organizers responsible for “disturbing the peace and public order.” The Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski of VMRO, did not condemn the attack on the protestors, nor did he express any sympathy or concern for those injured. Utrinski Vesnik reports this as his only comment:

For this side, which I suppose you reckon as politically motivated on our part, I can you assure you that it is not. I personally think that this is the work of Miroslav Grčev, who is directly against all projects of the curent government. He is a member of SDSM, he was mayor of the Centar ward at the time of SDSM, and he opposes every single project that the our government initiates. That is my opinion, but I am deeply convinced of it.

Премиерот Никола Груевски рече „за оваа страна, за која што претпоставувам сметате дека е од нас политички мотивирана можам да ви потврдам дека не е. Јас лично мислам дека се работи за проект на Мирослав Грчев, кој е директно против сите проекти на Владата. Тој е член на СДСМ, беше градоначалник на Центар во време на СДСМ и се спротивставува на секој проект кој што го прави Владата“

„Тоа е мое лично мислење не мора да е така, но јас сум длабоко убеден во тоа“, додаде Груевски, пренесе Македонското радио.

In all other respects he blamed the protestors for the violence.

This incident heavily reinforces an already thick wall of silence around the activities of the current government, through which no criticism may be permitted to penetrate. Any criticism of the state is at best basely politicized shilling for a corrupt opposition unfit to govern, at worst religious heresy and national treason.

Macedonia is not Russia, nor even Serbia. There remain vigorous voices of opposition in the press, the most recent round of elections were free and relatively fair according to international observers, and the country is still oriented towards integration with Western democratic institutions.

But with VMRO likely to win the upcoming presidency contest and with its dominance in the parliament, more room has been made for people who believe that Macedonia’s territory should extend to the Aegean and into Bulgaria, that the Macedonian Orthodox Church should have a special and close relationship to the government bankrolled by all the country’s taxpayers, that Macedonian is not a Slavic language but rather the direct descendent of the language spoken by Alexander the Great, and that the Rosetta Stone was actually written in Macedonian. These people are deluded, dangerous, and utterly opposed to secular democracy and the participation of Macedonians of all ethnicities in the country’s institutions.

The current government is giving them more power and influence, extending into many corners of Macedonian society. This includes the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences, with which I am affiliated, and the Ministry of Culture, with which my fellow Fulbrighter Seth is working. Both are having their scientific work subverted and distorted by nationalism and politicization.

I am not a Macedonian. The violence that happened yesterday on the Ploštad does not directly affect me. But it does affect my colleagues and friends. They deserve better than this from their government.

I support Sen. Barack Obama for president of the U.S. Part of that support is rooted in his ability to connect with people my age. Like a lot of progressive Americans, I was star-struck when I first heard him speak. As the campaign has worn on, some of the luster has rubbed off, which if not real-life experience then at least reading experience tells me is an inevitability of politics. Still, my support rests on more than just his charasmatic appeal. I think he is mature and intellectual, values that the last eight years have shown to be sorely missing from the American administration. I like the coalition that he has forged. I agree with his stances on most issues and with his opponent’s on almost none.

Tonight though, I’ve discovered that there is at least one truly rotten plank in Obama’s platform. It was Macedonians who warned me about it, and I stepped right through it anyway.

Obama has lent his personal and committed support to anti-Macedonian legislation.

Along with Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who apparently write rather vile essays in their spare time (I’ll save a deconstruction of that rubbish for another post), Sen. Obama was the sponsor of Senate Resolution 300, which accuses Macedonia of irredentism, inciting of ethnic hatred, and war-mongering on the basis of a YouTube clip, a map drawn in the 1800s included as part of the history section of a textbook , and the fact that the Skopje airport is named Alexander the Great. This is all, according to the Greeks, part of a threatening campaign of oppression and terror by the Macedonians which will eventually lead to a brutal invasion of northern Greece as part of Macedonia’s ruthless plans for territorial conquest.

Who knows if Greece will be able to defend itself against this blood-curdling onslaught, what with a military budget 44 times that of Macedonia’s? It’s a miracle Macedonia hasn’t sent the tanks rolling over the border already.

The Greek administration’s insistence on an existential threat posed by the constitutional name of their northern neighbor beggars belief. Blind, sometimes vicious nationalism is a serious issue in both countries and it’s nothing to be ignored or waved away. And Macedonia has done some things that were at very least in poor taste (one does not generally put landmarks located in another nation’s territory on one’s own nation’s currency). But the insinuation of the Greek government that their country is about to fall victim to a barbaric Macedonian occupation unless something is done to stop the Mighty Macedonian War Machine should be the punchline to a mediocre joke, not a matter of serious and respectful consideration. Yet in the real world, because Greece is already a veto-wielding member of NATO and the EU and these institutions offer Macedonia’s best route out of poverty and instability, this farce of a political position is played with utter solemnity.

One of the things that the Bush administration has done right is drop the pretense and call Macedonians by the name they’ve chosen for themselves (whether Greek, Slavic, or another ethnicity that feels a tie to that regional designation). It is American policy to recognize Macedonia by its constitutional name, rather than by the belittling provisional name of “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” chosen for it by the UN. I would bristle if the world insisted I was a citizen of the “Former British Colonies of America,” and I’m betting you would too.

Sen. Obama, sadly, doesn’t appear to have any empathy for the Macedonians’ position. He didn’t just sign on to the straight-faced endorsement of Greek paranoia that is S. Res. 300. He introduced it.

I have to admit here that I dismissed Macedonians’ objections to Sen. Obama at first. His base is in Chicago, a city with a heavy Greek-American population. I suspected he had said something appeasing to them some time during his Senate run and had more or less forgotten about the matter thereafter. The internet being as it is these days, someone must’ve unearthed the stray comment and, since Macedonian national identity is not exactly a key issue in the American presidential election, elaborated a whole baroque anti-Macedonian plot from the sparse pickings. I wasn’t making this assumption without basis. As I’ve written before, the Macedonian press reports on American politics in a distorted way, sometimes even forwarding outright factual errors, things that would make an American anywhere on the political spectrum go “…huh?” I assumed this was the reason for Macedonian hostility to Sen. Obama.

I assumed incorrectly. Grossly incorrectly. Other issues in American politics are more important to me than the Macedonia-US relationship, and this discovery won’t change my vote. But it’s still deeply disappointing to find Sen. Obama having advocated a position that, I think, goes against the principles that have attracted people to his campaign. There are Macedonian-Americans who make this point rather poignantly—they support him, but with the fear that they’re voting for an attack on their heritage. I disregarded what Macedonians were telling me because I had an image of Sen. Obama that I didn’t want to see dirtied by reality. In the process, I showed that I’m still generalizing about Macedonian culture in my head. The generalizations still don’t anticipate what I actually experience of it.

Which means I still have a lot of work to do toward understanding this place I’m living in. Reminders are good, but this one came with a rather harsh delivery.