The Ugly Face of National Pride

It was bound to happen. And it did. I can’t really say finally, but here I am, perplexed and unsurprised.

This article originally appeared on 11 March in BalkanInsight

This weekend, I was driving through the very busy streets of Thessaloniki, in a car with Skopje license plates. After more than fifteen years of regularly visiting the city, fifteen years of dreading this moment, knowing it would happen, I was verbally and physically assaulted for what the assailant thought I was: a Macedonian.

I won’t give the bigot the credit of recounting the entire story. And in the end real life rarely makes for a good story anyway. No, I will use the incident as an introduction to my text. And this is as far as this kind of people will make it into my world: an intro, and at the utmost a coda. The festering appendix that needs to be cut out.

The thing is that his action was aimed at someone who in reality is not at all or very little different from him, a Greek. Here we have two nations competing for age and exclusive rights to physically and mentally possess a territory and its history, unloading uncounted amounts of poison at each other, while happily doing business together, especially the good, old, pre-national cross-border stuff that fills pockets and leaves state budgets empty. And the result? Lots of poisoned minds, full pockets. Well, some pockets.

Greek, top-down nation-making always set its priorities on forming a compact and uniform nation by negating ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. Of course it went beyond negation, and enforced a policy of at times violent assimilation, even of its “own” population, for instance the refugees from Asia Minor.

While they were forced to speak Greek and only Greek, the actual refugee camps continued to exist for decades. I have reasons to believe that to those people it mattered very little whether they were of ancient descent or not. Many of them faced discrimination until the end of their lives for not speaking Greek properly.

Macedonia is trying to impose a state view on descendence, according to which now all of a sudden Macedonians are to ignore their Slavic identity and feel the ancient vibrations rippling through time from Alexander and his men. Oh, and women, sure, yes, sure.

Given the energy and resources allocated, and given a level of education not different to the Greek one, it might turn out to work. National engineering with a century and a bit of a retard effect. Sure, it might just work. Why not? Is there anyone holding reason against it? Not really strongly, no. And what about the quarter or so of the population that doesn’t see itself in this picture? Well, they claim to have the rights on Alexander’s mother, so there we go. Equitable representation, as guaranteed by the book.

In both cases the results are relatively irrelevant to the wellbeing of the people. Nation-making in the ethnic sense in a globalised world is as relevant as the proverbial sack of rice falling off a truck in China. It is much more challenging and important to find an answer to the burning economic and social problems of the population. And here neither Greece nor Macedonia seem to have found an answer.

Greece though has profited from the naïve and romantic sympathy of a Western European bourgeois and classically educated class, which until very recently and in the tradition of Byron and others equated the modern Greek Balkan type of state with the grandeur of Hellenic civilisation. That and of course the country’s geo-strategic position in the cold war earned it a membership in the European Community at the time.

Only in the current crisis has this sympathy received a serious blow when it became more than obvious even to the most benevolent that at the core of the modern Greek state there is little space for Hellenist ideas. This space is taken by a political, religious and economic oligarchy, managing the system in the good, old traditional cynical ways of clientelist systems.

The revolting and saddening result is to be witnessed every day in the streets of Greek cities. Personalised politics, dynasties leading the country to ruin and a church that had managed to establish itself above the law. That is the reality, and there it matters not whether the impoverished former member of a frail middle class in the street is a descendant of an antique civilisation or merely an offspring of people who happened to be in a certain place at a certain period.

What matters is that this middle class was created by people living off the almighty state administration, a machinery that at a certain stage got out of hand and only reproduced itself, producing a crisis. A simple story, and it happened in front of everybody’s eyes, with EU subventions feeding the monster.

To anyone in the know about Macedonia’s reality, the description above does not sound unfamiliar at all. A hypertrophic state sector, being fed both by political power groups and the requirements of equitable representation of minority communities, is failing on a daily basis to produce a social and economic reality that would ensure a decent living to a vast majority of the population. And so does an identity imposed top-down, especially when it implies wasting valuable resources on projects like “Skopje 2014”.

Economic failure and national hubris are the ingredients that spawn movements like the Greek “Golden Dawn”, which feed on hatred and envy, the classic values of the anti-urban low-life. The recent clashes in Skopje should be a warning that inciting hatred and violence can very easily become the spirits one can’t recall.

As for the piece of human filth that inspired this text, well, I stick to my promise. I would have liked to see the look on his face had he found out that I am German. Coda & end.

Vision? Hmmm…

Navel-Gazing at the Wall

This article originally appeared in Balkan Insight, www.BalkanInsight.com

 

The world’s eyes were turned to Berlin these days. This is the line, which many journalists used to open their articles on the 20 years anniversary of the wall coming down in Berlin.

And they were, the eyes.

More than 30 world leaders were present, most of them physically, Obama by satellite – although I am sure he wanted to go, which could earn him yet another prize for good intentions. The event has its deep symbolic meaning as it commemorates the irreversible end of a sick system.

The end was not initiated by the Germans, but once the wall was destroyed, it became clear that we were looking at this very end. And it does not harm to celebrate it, especially in times of economic and financial crisis, when silly opinion polls like the one conducted for BBC or Slavoj Zizek’s New York Times op-ed try to invoke the failure and implicit end of capitalism, to be replaced by – what?

Maybe by this: Mikhail Gorbatchev receives the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards Free Your Mind Award. I so wished he had received it from Bono and Bob Geldof holding hands. The three of them could then have sung “Winds of Change” by the Scorpions.

In times of cheap populism it is important to remind each other that the Wall was not only a symbol, but harsh reality. For those of us who by the accidents of biography were born and lived on the wrong side of the iron curtain, it represented a real, deadly barrier, keeping us from living the way we wanted, banning our wishes for a self-determined life into the realm of dreams. Or behind bars, for that matter.

The world as a guest in Berlin. The provincial perspective taken by many German journalists, especially by Berlin-based ones. The city that will always strive to become a real Metropolis, and will always fall short of it. Size does matter, sometimes. A hopelessly provincial and narrow-minded political class has led the city into ruin. Partly also due to the reunification, the story of Germany condensed into one city, the economic, financial and political legacy included. Despite of having become a major touristic attraction and despite desperate and stuck-up attempts to (re)construct a perceived glorious past, the soul of the real Berliner has remained rather provincial. And as such, it is deeply flattered by being in the centre of the world’s attention, even if for just one day. And it does not matter. For one day, the city that is, that lives, that does not obey, can be the star. In the end, it is the city and its people, who have endured decades of being not at the frontline of two systems, but actually BEING that frontline. They deserve to be celebrated for having provided the world with the symbolic act of literally obliterating that frontline.

I am writing all this from Skopje. I watch TV, I read the newspapers and all I see is navel-gazing. The world’s navel. The fall of the wall is merely a metaphor, used and misused by both politicians and journalists to address internal issues. Whether the wall is still in the heads of people, as the president put it, or whether it still prevents Macedonia from being part of Europe, as I read somewhere, they refer to the wall as a physical or mental barrier. Ah, the temptations of cheap rhetoric!

Let me set a few things straight, which might enrich the metaphor. The fall of the wall provoked a chain reaction of events in Germany. Almost everybody was taken by surprise, at least officially. The event required action, answers. Some were happy, but hesitant. Talk arose about helping East Germany to stand on its own feet, to stabilise as a state and to enter some sort of partnership with West Germany. In other words, don’t do too much, let the events drive your decisions and see, where the boat of history takes the whole thing.

But there was the other stream of consciousness, which came from the streets of East Germany, demanding immediate unification. Most politicians were hesitant, some did take the risk and made the bold move. Helmut Kohl will not be remembered for his sixteen years of poor governance, for being yet another politician who couldn’t keep his promises, but for being the chancellor who unified Germany. And quite rightly so.

What I am trying to say is that bringing down a wall can happen, when the constellation is right. But managing the aftermath requires leadership, power of decision-making and a clear vision. Macedonia is in that seat now. The European constellation was never more favourable in the last two decades.

Now is the moment to be grasped. A solution with Greece on the name will open the doors to another dimension. Macedonia has a choice now. Stay alone and isolated, become a failed province, driven by frustration and more navel-gazing. Because the horizon would be walled. Or take a bold step into a future that will be not rosy, but at least joint, European, and safe. Choose wisely, but do it quickly. The clock is ticking.

 

Vision! Now…

Tribal Patients and Ghosts

Setting: the mental institution in Bardovci, close to Skopje. Our inmate has become aware of the power that lies in social networks. 

Scene: Night. Our patient breaks into a dark office room, where ten computer work places are properly covered, so the ubiquitous Skopje dust won’t destroy them. While our inmate uncovers one of them and boots the computer, the screen on which we see this scene unravel splits and in the right half appears the director of the psychiatric hospital, talking on the phone:

“Yes, of course we are computerized. We just received this donation from this ‘American Association of Christian Psychiatrists’. Yeah, I didn’t know such thing existed, either… Weird, eh? Americans… Have in mind they’re new. Ok, we can talk about compensation. My staff? They don’t need computers. The few who know how to work them, have their own. And the inmates are crazy anyway, haha! So, what’s your offer?”

The director fades out and we see our inmate creating a blog and writing a first entry. It is a story about how construction workers accidentally find the grave of Alexander the Great. He deviously smiles as he sets the location at a fictitious border crossing between Macedonia and Greece. With the work being done, our patient retires to his room, which he shares with three other inmates.

Within a day, Macedonian and Greek media go havoc. A ferocious debate erupts all over televisions and newspapers, whereby Macedonia’s most popular archaeologist threatens to lay down all his functions if this project is not passed on to him immediately.

An insert shows our inmate having a deep look into a mirror and smiling pensively. Slowly, his face turns into the face of the archaeologist, then into that of Alexander and back. He trots back to his room, where it is time to take his medication.

In the meanwhile, Greece is starting a diplomatic offensive, trying to prove that the site is actually on the Greek side and thus they would have the exclusive right to exploit it. To this end, they revive an old border dispute with Yugoslavia, which was never settled and which actually goes back to territorial claims from the time of the Second Balkan War. Maps are shown all over the media, the Macedonian side is very busy trying to find counter-arguments, archives are being searched, just to find out that probably all documentation about the dispute has been taken to Belgrade and disappeared.

The situation threatens to escalate. The Macedonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues a travel warning, appealing to its citizens not to travel to Greece for security reasons. TV stations show empty border crossings. The rhetoric is heating up.

Our inmate decides that it may be time to come out of the closet of his mental institution and denounce the whole story as a hoax, as a product of his otherwise under-employed imagination. The makes the necessary calls, send e-mails around, but only one not very popular TV station picks up the story and reports in half a sentence.

Close to despair, our inmate decides to play the media by their rules and to fight fire with fire i.e. to produce another hoax. “In a world of madness, only the madman is lucid”, he thinks, not being able to remember who had said this before him, but being fully aware of talking in quotes. Because he cannot travel due to lack of money and visa, and not because he is locked in a mental institution, he decides to act by proxy. He calls a cousin in the US and convinces him to take on the identity of a Macedonian historian and to arrange an urgent meeting with a clairvoyant in Florida. There, the cousin/historian makes the clairvoyant invoke the ghost of Alexander the Great. Alexander’s ghost gives out a message of love and peace, explains that he never conquered for the sakes of glory, but to bring civilisation onto far away lands. He of course also shows interest in the language of his heirs.

The media interest is enormous, the reactions from all sides are positive. Peace is about to break out between the two countries. But then, the church reacts, banishing our inmate from its community for having desecrated national symbols. Of course, nothing happens to our patient, as he is already a patient in a psychiatric hospital.

After a moment of almost peace, the national archaeologist is reinstated in all his functions and the tribal wars can continue. The rest is silence.

 

Vision? Not an artifact…

Si tacuisses, Dora…

In a reply to an initiative by Macedonian Foreign Minister Milososki, his Greek counterpart Dora Bakoyannis dismissed the idea of a joint commission of historians. Media quote the following:

The history of the ancient world had been already written and documented for centuries through painstaking scientific researches by world renowned historians and archaeologists. A bilateral commission cannot re-write history…

Ah, Dora, si tacuisses… Let us look at what you have to say:

History has been written and should therefore rest. This would mean that hundreds of faculties of history around the world should be closed right now, because everything about antiquity has been said and done. Great idea. Why not abolish the profession of historian and for that matter that of archaeologist as well, since probably everything of any value to mankind has already been found, classified and interpreted? Why not start an initiative of the OSCE presidency in this direction and see how intellectuals worldwide will react? Ah, Dora…

A bilateral commission cannot re-write history. Why not? Because history is owned by nations? Or is it because the official version of historic events as portrayed in the historiography of the countries involved would risk revision, and thus break some of the national taboos? Dora, you should be reminded that your own country – not your government, of course, but nevertheless – has already done the same with Turkey. Dora, you should look beyond your small, Greek world. Germany has had these kind of commissions with both Poland and France and their work has sustainably changed the way history is looked at in all these countries and in Europe. Needless to say that these are ongoing processes, just as history is an ongoing process.

History is the story of its authors, Dora. Those who make history and those who write it down. It is a narration, in which the narrator is just as much a participant as the subjects of the narration. Here was your chance to make history. Here was your chance to interfere directly. Here was your chance to have some of the national myths in both countries questioned by serious experts. Well, you blew it, Dora. Which is understandable. Your party is under pressure, and short term gain seems to be more important to today’s politicians, who fear nothing more than vision. At least here you are no different from your Macedonian colleagues.

I am curious how history will judge this letter of yours, once the unavoidable will have happened – normal relationships between Greece and Macedonia. We shall see. Well not us anymore. Because, remember, Dora, history is a process, a long process…

Vision! Ah, go away…

Tribal Patients

‘The setting: The psychiatric hospital in Bardovci, close to Skopje, Macedonia, the entrance.

Scene: A bus with 30 visitors from Greece demand entrance. They are “human rights activists” and represent the fringe party Democratic Revival.

Insert. A commentator, standing, with a microphone in her hand: ‘The party leader of the Democratic Revival, Stelios Papathemelis, is a former minister for public order, who, to the great pleasure of the Greek public, stumbled upon trying to impose a strict curfew on bars and clubs. A former socialist, then conservative, he more recently tried populism in the form of left-winged nationalism combined with a good portion of orthodoxy, to little success so far.’

Scene continued: The group demands to see an inmate of the hospital, and to have him examined by a psychiatrist they brought along. They claim the patient is kept in hospital against his will, because of a pro-Greek blog he wrote. They are denied access by the director of the hospital, who is invoking legislation and rules not allowing ad-hoc visits. 

During the duration of the scene, a TV screen in the janitor’s empty shelter is featuring an interview with the patient’s family, who claim they had requested police assistance to deliver him to the hospital, as they had done before.

Inside the hospital premises, in the courtyard, the janitor is raking leaves. An inmate is talking to him. He tells him about his dream, in which he learned that he would be out of the hospital soon, because there was an organised effort by Greek activists. They had started a campaign to free him and would thus unmask the fascist regime in Skopje with the help of the media and of European dignitaries. The janitor smiles at him blandly.

To be continued…’

This is the first episode of a TV soap directed by a patient and inmate of the same hospital, who is suffering of delusions of grandeur, and featuring his fellow inmates as actors. His raw model and obsession is the Marquis de Sade, himself a director, while being an inmate in the hospital of Charenton.

During the airing of this first episode, watched by the entire staff of the Bardovci hospital, our inmate/director escapes and embarks onto a new adventure. Mysteriously, he surfaces in Uganda, where he starts working on a satirical TV play.

In a first trial scene we see an improvised press conference in an open-air pavilion, where the spokesman of the Allied Democratic Forces, a Muslim rebel group, announces to the gathered journalists that his group has chosen former Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj to mediate peace talks with the government in Kampala. He says the main reason for the choice was that Haradinaj had experience “of rebels and difficulties.”

The camera zooms in on the screen of one of the journalists’ laptop, where a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia explains the circumstances of the acquittal of Ramush Haradinaj: “the Chamber encountered significant difficulties in securing the testimony of a large number of these witnesses. Many cited fear as a prominent reason for not wishing to appear before the Chamber to give evidence. In this regard, the Chamber gained a strong impression that the trial was being held in an atmosphere where witnesses felt unsafe, due to a number of factors set out in the Judgement. ” 

Our inmate/director vanishes from this set as well, not without leaving a note behind:

 

Vision? What the hell…