Bolivarian Balkans?

Another victory for Hugo “Why don’t you shut up” Chavez, another step towards dictatorship in Venezuela. The successful referendum allows the president to be reelected again and again and again and… The next logical step would be to institutionalise the Bolivarian revolution and to declare elections to be an unnecessary capitalist relic. 

The problem is not limited to Venezuela. Chavez’ allies in the effort of throwing Latin America back into the ideological middle ages – especially Evo Morales and the eternal Sandinista Daniel Ortega, will hardly resist the temptation to imitate his success. And I won’t mention Cuba.

Venezuela has become a study case of what kind of power cheap populism, control over media and practically endless resources can produce. And a great example of how little “free and fair” elections have to say about the internal democracy of a state. 

Yes, you may have guessed – here’s the link to the Balkans. It is yet another year of elections: Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, possibly Kosovo (although rather unlikely). In any case, a costly exercise to demonstrate that the ruling, ethically and morally bankrupt elites enjoy the legitimacy to govern their countries. And this is regardless of their current role as government or opposition.

In the end, the people will go through the exercise, the West will observe and monitor and what will have changed? These elites are in no position to turn their fiefdoms into blooming democracies. One might even question their will to do so. And they don’t need Chavez’ tactics – they have recycled the old communist habit of rotation of cadres. A favourite is to switch between the position of prime minister and president – Berisha, Đukanović, Crvenkovski, I wonder who next… What makes them different from the self-styled Bolivarian revolutionary is that they don’t have endless resources to bribe the entire population. All they have left is promises, media control, intimidation – and the good, old and efficient systems of cronyism and clientelism. Thus they ensure a status-quo in terms of being indispensable and in charge, while the societal decay is creating havoc. Just take Skopje’s latest architectonic landmark – the museum of Mother Theresa, or the plan to have a statue of Alexander the Great on the main square surrounded by a fountain bouncing to the music of Toše Proeski! Ah, and I can’t wait to see the plans for the new church next to the main square. An elite gone haywire, followed and cherished or despised by an isolated, economically, socially and culturally impoverished population.

All this of course has nothing to do with the process of European integration. Because this one is driven by a strictly bureaucratic approach, it ignores these realities. But can we afford to bring more failed societies into the Union? As if Italy and Greece, Romania and Bulgaria didn’t cause enough problems already. Wouldn’t it be time to start addressing some of these problems as well? Wouldn’t it be time to start to perceive and conceive Europe as a cultural project in the widest sense?

If we don’t, it will be us paying the bill anyway. And in the meanwhile we will monitor many, many more meaningless elections. Unless someone in the Balkans holds a referendum…

 

Vision? Yeah, right…

NATO Celebrates Dissent

At the Bucharest summit, celebrated in that disgusting monument of megalomania, which is the palace built by ten thousands of prisoners and soldiers to the glory of a tyrant, NATO has displayed a picture of division and dissent, which makes the desolate situation of the alliance more than obvious.

Two major messages came out from this summit. The first is that Russia can happily continue considering its sphere of influence as guaranteed. Notwithstanding the hurried and somewhat immature initiative of US president Bush, the Europeans, and there especially France and Germany, sent out all wrong signals. Pro-Russian forces in Ukraine and Georgia will be happy to know that they have nothing to fear in the mid-term. Not that this would come as news to them. But the blatant lack of political spine displayed by NATO today will not fail in producing results. Certainly not a contribution to the stabilisation of the Caucasus. Maybe it is a, – however unintended – contribution to the future of the European Union, though. The clear signal to Ukraine that it cannot count on the West beyond fluffy verbal commitments might help defining the Eastern borders of the Union.

It comes almost as a miracle that the Europeans managed to agree on the missile defence system. Comments suggest it was done in order to avoid a total defeat of Bush’s agenda. Face saving as strategic policy making. Bravo! Or may there have been a hardly secret wish that a possible Democrat president would scrap the whole plan?

As for the Balkans, a black day, for Macedonia’s public humiliation will have long-term repercussions. A Pyrrhic victory for a disastrous and destructive Greek foreign policy, for the results of which they will have to be held responsible. And lastly, a shameful picture of nonchalance and ignorance on the side of the members and the executive of the European Council.

The second message coming out from the NATO summit is that being constructive is not worth the effort. Greece played out the destructive card until the last moment, and with apparent success. And it may feel that it has won. Macedonia, which very much needed this signal for its internal stability, will shake. And Greece will not profit from this, on the contrary. The dream of a stabilisation of the Balkans has moved one step away today. All those forces, whose primary interest is the status-quo of the precarious situation in the entire region, have reason to fiest. And they are legion.

What is striking is the refusal of the Europeans to pressure Greece. Again and again. It produces a valuable blue-print for the future conflicts to be dealt with within the EU and in its immediate neighbourhood. It is interesting, how far the ignorance in the European Council can go. The same council, that invested substantial amounts of time, funds and energy into stabilising Macedonia a few years ago, is now ready to sacrifice exactly this stability on the altar of a meaningless European consensus.

May they be warned. There are currently two members of the European Union, who have a problem with parts of the Macedonian identity. Greece triumphed today. What makes us think that Bulgaria will hold back in the future? Denying Macedonia its European perspective by the same means that came to be used today would be playing with fire. Mind you, I am not talking about possible Kosovar or Albanian dreams, I am not talking about tribal reflexes, which persist in the region, on both sides of the EU border. I am talking about the security of the Union itself.

But back to NATO. Today’s picture of a weakened and weakening alliance, of an ailing supremacy of the one superpower left, of European disunity has gone out. And it has been understood, of that I am sure.

Vision? None whatsoever…

What a day!

Macedonia is denied its rightfully earned invitation to NATO because of tribalism prevailing in 21st century Europe.

Ramush Haradinaj is acquitted of all charges because of the prosecution’s incapability (or will) to build a strong case.

And on top of it all, Madonna  is planning a remake of Casablanca…

Looking forward to tomorrow, really.

Vision! Duck and cover…

Beware, Iconoclasts…

 

This is what has caused a major diplomatic row between Athens and Skopje yesterday. A billboard announcing an exhibition of a young Macedonian artist, Atanas Botev, showing the Greek flag “enhanced” by a swastika and by members of his family, who have been expelled from Greece at the end of the 1940ies. Had this come at any other time, the Greek embassy probably wouldn’t have bothered. Or it would have been one of many minor incidents. In other words, it is not the work of art in itself, but the context – the hopefully final phase of this absurd name dispute – that defines the amplitude of the event.

It is bordering stupidity to think that this type of billboard will do nothing but provoke in this period of heightened sensitivity. There is no doubt that it produces damage to the Macedonian cause, offering additional arguments to Greek opponents of a deal. Cheap arguments. The organisers of this exhibition should be aware of the consequences of their deeds, especially as state employees, which they are.

But: it is not up to the Greek government to judge them, the artist, or the Macedonian government for that matter. A democracy as strong and tolerant as Greece claims to be should be able to stand beyond this small act of provocation. I remember numerous demonstrations of anarchists on Athens’ Eleutheria square, where the Greek government was denounced as “fascist”. Greek society survived those provocations. How much less should it feel challenged by a work of art?

Not all art is good art. Far from it. But we have to stand firmly in favour of the right of artists to express themselves, whether we like what they have to say or not. The Danish Mohammed caricatures are miserable as pieces of art. Nevertheless the newspaper had a right to publish them and to withstand pressure from a bunch of medieval-minded imams. The film on Islam by Dutch MP Geert Wilders is ridiculously simplistic and poor in quality. Nevertheless he has a right to publish it if he chooses so. And LiveLeak should be applauded for bringing it back on-line, after initially succumbing to threats.

Atanas Botev as an artist has a right to deal with his family’s history in which ever way he chooses fit. It is up to us as public or critics to judge his works. It is the right of a gallery to organise an exhibition and produce advertising billboards for it. It is their right to misjudge the political impact of their deed. The right to express ourselves freely is a human right, intelligence isn’t.

Vision? Hiding again, come on…

No End to Tribalism? The Dispute Around the Copyright on “Macedonia”

No solution in the name dispute between Macedonia and Greece. The latest round of negotiations, which was held in New York this weekend, did not yield any tangible result. The Karamanlis government is now openly putting Macedonia’s adherence to NATO in question  and suggests a Greek veto. At the very least, the Greek side seems to have acknowledged that there is no threat to its territorial integrity coming from Macedonia. A stunning discovery!

I have said it before. It is an absurd fight over an absurd issue. Both sides are to blame for this deadlock, but there are limits to what still can be considered decent, even within a Balkan context. Greece will have to live with the fact that Macedonia is a shared name, with the exception that for the Republic of Macedonia, the name defines nation, region and state. And the three do not coincide. For Greece, Macedonia is just one of many regions, and by the way one, which had been shamefully neglected for decades, until the remote and underdeveloped North of Greece has been revitalised thanks to generous European Union funds and programmes. Far too generous in the beginning to be managed properly, if my memory doesn’t play tricks on me.

By no means is Greece’s existence threatened by the name issue. Macedonia’s may be. And this is where both NATO and the EU have to start taking their commitments seriously. If stability is what we want in the Balkans, this game has to stop. The Macedonian government has shown good will to a certain limit. It is time to speak up and publicly pronounce what could be heard in the couloirs in Brussels for years: that the Greek attitude is at best incomprehensible. It is time to exercise gentle, friendly, but resolute pressure on the Greek government to put an end to this charade. And it is time for the UN to mediate more aggressively.

The issue is not as singular as Athens and Skopje try to portray it. There are other regions, which by the caprices of history ended up being shared by two or more states. Take Moldova, take the Banat. People and peoples in the Balkans have a shared history. A shared history of violence, of population shifts. This is for instance why Salonika is not predominantly Turkish and Jewish today, but Greek. This is why Smyrna is today Turkish Izmir. The list is endless. The creation of the Macedonian state, and the recent adding of an independent Kosovo (not to forget Montenegro) to the equation are just the logical consequences from this history. Here it has to end, though. And Greece bears a great deal of responsibility for making it stop.

If Greece does not realise where its strategic interests lie, it should not be surprised if the next issue on the agenda of Balkan conflicts will be the Epiros region – or Çam to the Albanians.

Tribal reflexes are getting us nowhere in the 21st century. Balkan nations, of which Greece is one, will have to quickly shift their attention to the real issues. To me it is much more exciting and promising that one centre of ultra high-speed computer infrastructure for the European science network GEANT will be the Balkans. Scientific and technological progress is so rapid and its impact on daily life so immediate that this dispute seems like a story from yesteryear, if I were to put it mildly.

For fifteen years I have been hearing that Greece wouldn’t move on this issue because it was a sure recipe for losing elections. In that case, maybe the Russian “guided democracy” is a thing to contemplate: no need for real elections frees your head for tough decisions…

Vision! Come on, where are you hiding?