Media

Do you ever half-hear a song, think that you really dig it, and finally track it down only to find out that the real song is not nearly as good as the sketch of it you’d drawn in your head?

I’m not a big consumer of Top-40s pop music. It’s hard for me to identify anything consistent about my tastes—they’re all over the map. But the scattered centers make for fairly narrow little circles. I like furious melodic punk (like Small Brown Bike), complex and organic electronica (like Múm), political and underground hip-hop (like Immortal Technique), bombastic indie rock (like Wolf Parade), and apocalyptic post-rock (like 65daysofstatic).

Okay, so maybe we can generalize afterall. I like loud and agressive stuff. Top-40s usually doesn’t fit that bill. Which isn’t to say it never happens. I like it when Beyoncé gets pissed, for example. In any case, even if most pop music falls outside my tightly circumscribed preferences, I can tolerate it. I can get with the mood of a party. But I don’t seek the stuff out.

That was pretty much the end of the story when I was in college. I didn’t listen to the radio, the places I spent most of my time in only played stuff popular with the black-framed glasses crew, and my friends’ blowouts usually had weird playlists. I didn’t have a pop consciousness. I never bothered to read the charts.

This is pretty much the opposite of Macedonians, who are hyperliterate about American pop music. They are voracious. Their knowledge of my own country’s musical exports not only makes mincemeat out of my own, but puts more pop-aware Americans to the test too. They know no boundaries when it comes to era, which results in bewildering setlists for the coverbands that play in bars all over Skopje. They don’t seem particularly interested in American rap, but that’s the only limitation. Otherwise, their radios play our songs.

Only a lot more often and everywhere. I have never felt so awash in the latest hits as I have in Macedonia. I’ve lived in two other foreign countries, but Germany’s music scene was more closely intergrated into continental Europe trends (lots of excruciatingly boring dance music) and Japan’s music scene was its own entity, dominated by interchangeable Idols singing wide-eyed innocent and neon-technicolor J-pop at an irritatingly high pitch. Macedonia’s radio stations take the current British and American hits, reshuffle the rankings, and then play those songs into a bloody pulp.

Or maybe it just seems that way because all of the stores and cafés are tuned into similar stations. You can’t go far on the streets of Skopje without hearing music, whether it’s native turbofolk or imported pop music. The turbofolk I have no sense for—I don’t know the canon, I don’t know the stars, and I can’t understand the lyrics unless I concentrate. But when it comes to American pop music, Macedonia has put me in much closer contact with it than I have had at home.

So this is how I caught myself really liking this song as it blared from the speakers at the gym. I’d been taking a break between sets for just long enough to hear the chorus, then I did another set and lost track of the song, only to have the chorus come back into focus again as I finished. I had just a skeletal impression of the song and the chorus to go by, but that was enough to hook me.

I listened for the station anouncement listing off the songs they’d just played, but it was in rapid Macedonian and I was a little confused. I thought I heard that it was a collaboration between Lady Gaga and Rihanna called “Paparazzi.”

Lady Gaga I hate. It’s like she took a trashy, drugged-up celebrity trainwreck scenario and made that her entire persona. The hipsters appear to appreciate the post-modernity of all of it, but… I mean, Jesus, woman, put some goddamn pants on.

Rihanna though, that was interesting. The chorus has this hurt, fake-cheerful desperation to it, with a sinister echo to the drumline and cold electronica backing it up. All I could hear was “something something would you love me? Papa-paparazzi.”

It made me wonder if this song had come out in the wake of her domestic assault, when she not only went through a severe beating at the hands of her boyfriend and fellow-star Chris Brown, but then had the police photos of her stomach-turning injuries leaked to the newspapers. So immediately after going through the physical violence of Brown’s assault, she had to endure the emotional violence of the whole American media obsessing over her response. As far as I know, she decided not to press charges and is back with Brown again.

I don’t know what to think about that. That is not a cop-out way of saying that I disapprove: I mean literally that I don’t know what I think about it. I’ve read articles arguing that condemning victims of domestic violence for returning to their abusive partners unfairly shifts the focus onto their actions, rather than the original violence of their abusers, and may even make it harder for them to pull themselves out. I’ve also read articles arguing that refusing to hold women responsible for ensuring their own physical and emotional safety by leaving abusive partners is a perverse sort of infantilization that ends up putting more women at risk. I do not know what to think.

I once, without intending to, caused a friend distress with my tone-deaf response when she confessed complex feelings about a previous relationship in which a man abused and raped her. I was trying to show that I had invested a lot of thought into the broader issues she was facing and that I took them seriously, but I neglected some basic empathy. Her boyfriend had to call me out on it in private. I have rarely felt so ashamed of myself. To this day I can’t really think about her without intense and painful feelings of embarrassment rushing up. That makes up part of my ambivalence.

Back to the song, I thought it was Rihanna singing this manic, menacing ballad about the paparazzi. From the few words I picked out, I guessed that the theme of the lyrics was that her love was compromised by this all-encircling prison of flashblubs and tabloid screeds. Paired with her real-life context, it struck me as beautiful and poignant. A private relationship twisted into a public spectacle, broken and rearranged as it was batted from the leaked photo to the op-ed. Or maybe it was already broken before the paparazzi even arrived, cracked by the pressure of merely anticipating them. Having Lady Gaga’s performed meta-celebraty there in the collaboration just added more layers of interesting complexity. I was hoping I’d stumbled on a piece of pop art.

As it turns out, the song is called “Paparazzi,” it’s by Lady Gaga only, and it sucks. The lyrics irritate me and the chorus is ruined now that I can hear what she’s actually talking about: she’s going to stalk her love interest like the paparazzi. And wear dumb clothes while she does it.

Oh, okay. Never mind then.

If I listen to just the chorus and let my attention wander, kind of like letting your vision go soft by looking into a distance that isn’t there, I can hear the emotional contours of the song I wish this was.

There’s a very stylish and beautiful commercial for Macedonia showing on CNN International right now as part of the Macedonia Timeless campaign:

It was directed by Milčo Mančevski, who is widely regarded as Macedonia’s foremost filmmaker. His movie Before the Rain is among my most loved movies, not just because it’s about Macedonia, but because it presents myriad facets of the country in an intelligent, provocative, and haunting manner that blurs the borders between the magical and the realistic. So it makes sense that this commercial turned out so well (certainly better than that “Macedonian Prayer”!). I would’ve been even happier if it had included elements of Macedonia’s Islamic cultural heritage (Tetovo’s painted mosque, for example, which is not only lovely, but also considered to have been painted by women, belying the stereotyped image of Islam in much of Western media), but as it stands it’s a great sales pitch for the country.

I did notice, however, that they didn’t show you Skopje in that video. For good reason, I suppose.

Update:
Thanks to my mother for the links to images of the painted mosque!

Since I’ve gotten back, it seems as if there’s been an upsurge in public displays of nationalism. The Ploštad Square in the center of town has a stage that’s been built covered with Macedonian flags and the faces of Macedonian pop stars, constantly blaring patriotic songs that sort of sound like sports anthems. I’ve seen more people than usual going around with red and gold scarves or hats or t-shirts. One of the committed nationalists who attends English conversation hour came wearing camo pants, which another of the Macedonians there pointed out was unusual for him, and he replied, “Well, we’re living in those sorts of times now.”

This all worries me, but it could be due to a conflation of several temporary and fairly innocuous factors. Macedonia has been doing well in the European handball championships. There’s a presidential election coming up. Relations with Greece have been sinking like a rock ever since Greece vetoed Macedonia’s ascension to NATO because of their objections to the country’s name. People are angry that no progress has been made on liberalizing the visa regime for Macedonians who wish to travel in Europe.

Still, the mood is throwing up some truly vile stuff, sentiments that dehumanize and attack both Macedonia’s neighbors and its own citizens. This video, which was being played on Macedonian national television, is the worst example I’ve seen. It’s a roiling mess of religious fundamentalism, jingoism, xenophobia, denial of science, and racism. Macedonians I’ve met tend to hold oversimplified and inaccurate views about race, but I’ve never heard outright hatred for people of color brought into the mix like this before.

The video is called “A Macedonian Prayer” and it features montages of various churches, archeological relics, and people praying or celebrating. The voice-over intones a ‘prayer’ to God to see Macedonians’ suffering, the injustice of their mistreatment, and the truth of their glory. Then God answers back in another voice-over, praising Macedonians and talking about how much better they are than everyone else. So far, so much standard-issue, Alexander the Great-obssessed nationalism. My Macedonian friends have a disparaging term for the kinds of people who make videos like this: Bukjefalisti, or Buchephalists, from the name of Alexander the Great’s horse.

But then the voice-over goes into “the white race.” He says, “I settled your Mother Earth with three races: the white race, Macedonoids, the yellow race, Mongoloids, and the black race, Negroids. The rest, all mulattos. Among the Macedonians, the descendants of Macedon, I conceived the white race, and from among you everything began, up to the Japanese Sea. All white people are your brothers, since they carry the Macedonian gene, and all migration from among you set off toward the North. Kokino, Porodin, Radobor, Angelci, Barutnica, Govrlevo; wherever you dig, you will find the truth about why you are and where you are from.”

And you thought it couldn’t get any better.

This is not merely nonsensical, unscientific rubbish–they decided they had to graft on vicious racial prejudice just to give it that extra touch. It’s revolting that this Nazi-reminiscent propaganda was allowed on Macedonian national television. Apparently, after a few days it was pulled off because enough everyday Macedonians were offended and disgusted by having their country portrayed in such an embarrassing way, but the editorial board of Macedonian Television, a government-founded organization, refuses to discuss the decision. It is also worth mentioning that Macedonian Radio-Television is going bankrupt at the moment and hasn’t been updating its website since January 1st.

In any case, I found out about this video from a blog post at Balkan Insight and I did a translation of it myself so you can read what’s being said. I’m including the video here not because I think this is how Macedonia should be portrayed, because certainly a significant portion of ethnic Macedonians would be appalled to have this represent them and Macedonian citizens of other ethnic backgrounds can hardly find this anything other than insulting. Nor am I saying that the anger at having one’s past denied expressed in this video is totally unfounded–the continuing attacks on Macedonian national identity and on the legitimate, well-documented history of Macedonian ethnicity and language in the Balkans are unjust. Rather, I want it to be known what intelligent, open-minded Macedonians are up against when they have to fight in their universities for an end to self-serving pseudoscience and in their government for an end to jingoistic sabre-rattling, while also having to deal with forces outside the country trying to belittle them. They should be given enormous credit for how much they’ve rolled back and kept idiocy like this at bay, and they should be encouraged both domestically and internationally to keep going in the process of marginalizing hate and building democratic, multicultural state and public institutions.

Macedonian Prayer

Lord, blessed God who is in heaven, do you see the struggles of us, the Macedonians? Do you hear the weeping of our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and our children for the babes who have perished for Macedonia? For thousands of years we have bled. The wounds of the living we pass on to the unborn babes. Lord, you the only God in heaven, only you see our Mother, pierced on four sides like the Son of God. Wherever you may go, you tread on graves and stumble over the bones.

God, speak to us now, tell the truth to us and to the world, why St. Nikola came to us in Thessaloniki (Solun in Macedonian) and told us, “I too am from the land of love and goodness. I too am a Macedonian. I too added a tear of blood to the cauldron of our pain. But the truth is on high. Ask Him, and he shall tell you, the time has come for us, the Macedonians.”

Lord, only you know that there are two truths, but only one is righteous. These neighbors of ours have distributed throughout the world thousands of books that tell false history and obscure the truth about Macedonia. Lord, only you know our righteous truth; who we are, where we are from, and why we are Macedonians.

You also called St. Paul the Apostle a Macedonian and told him, “Come to Macedonia and help me.” And St. Paul listened to your request and came to us, the Macedonians, first. And now here, for two thousand years we have only believed in you and we pray in two thousand churches and monasteries and we await only you from eternity.

I do not recall anymore, but I know, I, Macedon, from Govrlevo, have been alone with God eight thousand years, and I pray before the largest cross in the world. Lord, blessed God who is in heaven, hear our prayer, come in Armageddon, give us your hand and tell the truth of that which is golden and good, to us and to the whole world. Because the blood in us does not remain anymore for our great Mother, Macedonia.

Heavenly blessings upon you, my Macedonians. Thousands of years I have waited for you to call upon Me. Always with you, I now come from eternity. I am already among you, because here neither time nor space exist. Here with Me, time is still, but with you it has come time for me to explain to you after so long.

I settled your Mother Earth with three races: the white race, Macedonoids, the yellow race, Mongoloids, and the black race, Negroids. The rest, all mulattos. Among the Macedonians, the descendants of Macedon, I conceived the white race, and from among you everything began, up to the Japanese Sea. All white people are your brothers, since they carry the Macedonian gene, and all migration from among you set off toward the North.

Kokino, Porodin, Radobor, Angelci, Barutnica, Govrlevo; wherever you dig, you will find the truth about why you are and where you are from. Souls possessed by the devil have sought to hide the truth and lie to the world for thousands of years about how much you have suffered and what travails you have passed through, because I sent temptation to you, but you, the faithful, remained.

My little ones, my children of the sun and the flowers, blessed with joy, love, and goodness, for thousands of years I have sent you kings, and now I send you another. You give so much to others and do not keep it for yourselves. Oh, how many kings are there now with Me, and how many of them are Macedonians? As many as stars in the sky and sand in the sea. Let the angels sing for all those who are with Me, who for love of Macedonia exchanged their lives for eternity and share the Kingdom here with Me.

And the angels already sing for all of you who understood how to worship Me, for all of you whom I will give a part of paradise, for all of you whom I gave the gift of love and peace, for all of you who awaited Me and did not wait in vain.

Hark! I come now to Macedonia, I am now among you to tell you the truth of truths that lies beneath you in the earth, to open to you the grave of Alexander the Great, king of Macedonians, and to bring the whole world to you in homage. So many Macedonian graves remain for me to open to you, because souls who are with Me are digging for the truth. Love your greatest enemies, because I sent them to you to help you most, so that the world would come to know the truth about Macedonia and about you, the Macedonians. Because you were the first among the first, the most worthy among the most worthy.

The time of Macedonia has come, the time for the whole world to know that it is an honor and a blessing to be a Macedonian, a descendant of Macedon and son of the God of all things. My children, be blessed and joyful, here where the sun and the flowers rule. Let there be eternal joy, love, and goodness. Among you I am noble and you are blessed in eternity. Amen.

I was profiled for a news article, one of four Fulbright students featured. The article is called The Abassadors and it’s for the University of Chicago quarterly magazine.

I sound like I know exactly what I’m doing from the article, which is amusingly discordant with reality.

Pictures from the charity play Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves that I played a part in (as mentioned previously).

It has been an eye-opening and perspective-broadening experience to read coverage of the same happenings from the perspectives of two different countries’ media.

I keep track of current events in the US media through the internet, since I’m an inveterate news junkie. But I also read the Macedonian newspaper Dnevnik to practice my Macedonian. Originally, this was the only goal, but now I also read it for the alternative perspective Macedonian reporting brings to the events I’m hearing about.

For example, the conflict with Georgia. In the US media, the highlight was Russia’s invasion of Georgia. Particularly noted was the crossing of Russian troops out of the contested areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and into areas of undebated Georgian sovereignty. There was brief mention that the war was predicated by Georgian shelling of South Ossetia, but this was lightly dwelled upon only in the middle of any given report. The beginning and the ends, where people pay most attention, were all about Georgia’s suffering under the Russian onslaught. When the war ended, coverage moved on to displaced and ethnically-cleansed Georgians from the breakaway regions.

In contrast, the Macedonian media highlighted the Georgian attack on South Ossetia that preceded the war. They showed pictures from the capital of Tskhinvali of destruction and civillian casualties, mostly derived from Russian reporting. They also printed interviews with South Ossetians cursing the Georgians for killing family members and hailing the Russians as their saviors. I hardly read any of this in the American press.

In the aftermath, as the US and Russia have begun to exchange barbed words and veiled threats, I’ve gotten the impression of a media consensus in America that our government’s recognition of independent Kosovo and Russia’s recognition of independent South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not equivalent. The position seems to be that Russia has no justification citing Kosovo as a precedent for its actions. Arguments for this position range from the miniscule populations of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in comparison to Kosovo to the poor quality of government in Russia to the fact that Russia handed out passports to the Ossetians and the Abkhazians. My impression of this overarching agreement on the non-equivalence of Kosovo and Georgia’s breakaway regions may come from failing to read widely enough in the US media, but what I have read more or less held the above as a party line.

Dnevnik, in contrast, had a summary article that quoted the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, and a few American experts all lamenting the Georgia-Russia War as an inevitable consequence of Kosovo’s unilateral secession and the US government’s refusal to prevent it. From the Macedonian article, you would’ve gotten the impression that the US media and most US experts were all in favor of comparing Kosovo to Georgia’s breakaway regions, with a negative reflection on Kosovo’s independence. The Macedonian and the American media were describing the same events, yet I received dramatically different impressions from both.

Exposure to Macedonian media about this conflict at first lead me to side with the South Ossetians and to feel that their declaration of independence was justified. The American account felt one-sided and overly weighted toward our ally, as if Georgia’s government, and specifically its president Saakashvili, were wholly blameless victims. Comparing the facts presented between the American press and the Macedonian press, though, I’m starting to see distortions on the Macedonian too, many of them parroted directly from Russia. Now I’m puzzled and ambivalent about the conflict. Russia’s behavior since the end of the war certainly hasn’t inspired confidence in its intentions.

Interestingly enough, even though Macedonia’s press seems to reflect a deep distrust of America’s behavior in regards to Kosovo and a feeling that Russia’s invasion of Georgia wasn’t utterly indefensable, the war seems to have only sharpened the clamor for Macedonia to join NATO. There is a simultaneous suspicion of the US government and a desire to be considered its true ally—witness Macedonian soldiers in Iraq and Macedonian workers in Baghdad. The complexity of the attitudes of people here toward my own country still surprises me. Sometimes the attitudes are heartening, sometimes they’re depressing, and occasionally they even anger me. But they certainly aren’t dull or predictable.