Jeremy's travels: ZDRAVO from Skopje, capital of Macedonia (or FYROM, or Greece’s Northern Neighbor, or whatever)

The reason for the name confusion is – you guessed it – nationalism. Northern Greece is also known as Macedonia, and the Greek and Slav Macedonians have been bickering over whether Macedonia can call itself by that name, and some Greeks instead call it “Fyrom,” i.e. “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.” I, however, am going to call this country what the people here call it, without making a political recommendation.

This country is a little nuts. And that’s a very loose definition of a little. I thought I’d arranged an apartment with a real estate agency, but the night before I took the bus through Kosovo I found out the apartment was no longer available, so the agent found me an “under the table” set-up with her mother’s dentist’s uncle (well, duh – who else would it be?). It’s a great apartment right in the center of the city, a short walk from the big new mall that may be built on top of the site of the house where Mother Teresa (Albanian from Skopje!) grew up. The agent made a “contract” by crossing out and handwriting over a form she had. She asked Jovan, the owner, if he wanted a copy in Macedonian. His reply (in Macedonian) was approximately, “I don’t give a shit. In Macedonia, we still do things with a handshake.”

I’ve started my research – I’ve had a bunch of interesting conversations, including one with a female parliamentarian from a nationalist Albanian party in government with a nationalist Macedonian party - sounds like there's some tension. One concept that seems to be important is vrski, which basically means the network of all the personal and familial connections one has. Vrski seems to run just about everything, which means much of my research will have to be quasi unofficial, since it often involves helping others do illegal things. I’ll wait to compile some more interviews before giving detailed stories, but here’s a quick one to give you a sense of this place:

I met 3 American students here on Fulbrights the other night who welcomed me to “The Mack,” as they call this country, One is dating a Macedonian woman, known in Macedonian as a “Makedonka” (apparently Peace Corps volunteers call dating a Macedonian “Makedonkin’ it”). A couple nights ago, the trio was hanging out in one of their apartments during a storm, when all of a sudden they heard a loud crash. They went outside and saw that the entire roof of the apartment building across the street had been ripped off by the storm, and lay in a heap on the street. The Makedonka’s Fulbright boyfriend was so excited to tell his girlfriend’s family about this crazy thing he had just witnessed. But the father of the woman was nonplussed, responding matter-of-factly, “It was a new building, yes? Ok, that makes sense.” Building codes haven’t been well-enforced since independence, in case you couldn’t guess.

The stories I really wanted to tell you, though, are a couple more things from Montenegro. First, just briefly, I had a really interesting conversation with Ivana and the US Ambassador to Montenegro for about 45 minutes in his office. We talked about a lot of Balkan political stuff that I won’t get into – including his personal, unofficial views on the Greek-Macedonian name dispute – but I’ll send you my notes if you’re interested. He summed up his views on the pace of progress and European integration in the Balkans as follows: “It’s very slow – frustratingly slow,” he said. “Every day some stupid issue – like a naming issue – comes up. But I’m optimistic – if you think about how bad this area was during the 90s, and how far it has come…. I would say that for the first time in a long time – maybe ever – there is a general vision for the region.”

And now the good story: the day before that meeting, I gave a presentation for a group of primary school teachers involved in one of Ivana’s inter-ethnic dialogue programs. It was in a small town called Tuzi, which is mixed, but mostly Albanian. The town has many Albanian Catholics, and the religious division (Catholic v Muslim v Orthodox Christian) may be stronger there than the ethnic division (Albanian v ethnic Montenegrin).

The presentation had two parts. in the first section, I talked about minority rights in the US, focusing a lot on how (at least in theory) US law is organized around individual rights and doesn’t want to know your group identity, whereas in the Balkans and other nation-states group rights are crucial. There were some interesting questions, including one about racism in US immigration policy. I asked the teachers about their impression of minority in the US. “We hear a lot from our relatives,” said one teacher – there is a large diaspora from Tuzi in the Detroit area. “They say they like the constitution, but not the economy.” Sounds about right to me.

But the next responses to the question were barely relevant. “We think the kids here are smarter,” one female teacher said. “And American kids have freezers full of food,” added a mustachioed man near the door. “So they get very fat.”

In the second section, I talked about religion and inter-faith relations in the US. This section was much more interactive. When I asked how religious diversity is managed – or not – in Tuzi, there was an awkward silence filled with finger-twiddling and head-scratching. Eventually, an older female teacher said only, “It will be fine.” When I asked her to elaborate, she said, “Uh…no comment for now.”

Moreover, Ivana told me before the event that the only thing members from all religious communities in the group could agree upon was that there should be no mixed marriages. “Look at Sarajevo,” they argued. There were tons of mixed marriages there, and it turned into a disaster. It seems sadly ironic to me that the only thing members of the different communities could agree upon was to stay separate from each other.

The questions started to get a little more ridiculous as the second hour wore on. One balding man in the front asked, “I have applied for a visa to go to the US 6 times, and they have rejected me 6 times with no good reason – why is that?” I told him seriously that I was sorry and jokingly that I would step outside and call President Obama to see what I could do. Another teacher chimed in. “Listen, he’s a friend of mine,” he said with a smirk on his face, “but if I was in charge, I wouldn’t give him a visa.” And then: “but we had another question amongst ourselves earlier – are you married?” A woman from the back then added, “If you married a Montenegrin or an Albanian, it would be very interesting, wouldn’t it?” Great, I thought. I’ve got a whole room of yentas in front of me – so much for avoiding mixed marriages. A senior essay AND a wife in one trip – now that’s efficiency. On that note, please keep your calendars free for Sundays next June. Her name is – don’t worry, just kidding!

Wishing you all the best, and lots and lots of VRSKI!!

And now some pics: