Macedonia: “Washin’ shit with piss”

I don’t know if it’s the lack of thrice-daily coffee meetings, but I’m feeling a bit of Skopje withdrawal (symptoms include: thinking clearly. Or maybe not). Seeing as how I spent many weeks laughing at Macedonia’s expense, I thought I should probably write down a few summarizing thoughts. Here are four, which is approximately equal to the number of times I had something strange happen to me in Skopje, I went back to my apartment, sat down in a chair, stared straight ahead, and said out loud to no one in particular, “Where am I?”

In no particular order, and with no claim to expertise:

1. Solve. The. Damn. NAME ISSUE! This isn’t even the thing I came here to research, but I couldn’t avoid it because it’s messing up EVERYTHING!! EU and NATO integration, relations between Macedonians and Albanians, the economy (in ways such as lack of foreign investment), and the list goes on. The name issue permeates political discourse, and doesn’t fail to leave a nice trail of frustration and mutual animosity in its wake.

Let me take this opportunity, though, to urge Greece to lighten up a little bit. Greece: you are in the EU. You are in NATO. You are the “Cradle of Democracy.” You are a regional powerhouse. You even won the Eurocup soccer tournament when not even Alexander could have seen that coming. SO CHILL OUT! Or at least recognize the power dynamic at work here. Right now you can afford to be as stubborn as you want, while Macedonia (the other one) is left to wallow in the murky waters of its 30m tall singing fountain statues.

In other words, Greece has nothing to lose because nothing is at risk. Macedonia has nothing to lose because it has nothing. It might be hard to make any real progress until both these circumstances change.

2. Shmoliticians – I met a woman in Ohrid last week, a friend of a professor at Yale, who is a complete exception to the Kunu mentality I described last time (in fact, she helped make me aware of that way of thinking). She has a plan for the country: take all these “useless” politicians, buy them a one-way ticket to anywhere in the world they want, tell them, “Macedonia doesn’t need you, don’t come back,” and start over with people who intend to stay in Macedonia and are dedicated to the country’s people.

It’s hard to miss the disconnect between the hyper-proud nationalist narrative VMRO is trying to weave and the 18-year-old Skopjian cab driver who tells me his country sucks and that there’s no work here. I get frustrated when I hear things like that because this country doesn’t suck, or at least it doesn’t have to – it’s a beautiful country in a strategically important area full of awesome people who want to see their country “join Europe.”

I guess the people must share some responsibility since after all, they keep voting for these loser politicians, but it’s not like there’s a whole bunch of great possibilities waiting in the wings. Indeed, voting abstention rates are high and growing. One Albanian man offered a telling opinion: “What do you think about the new Albanian parties that are forming?” I asked him. He shrugged, raised his eyebrows, and rolled his eyes. “They are washing shit with piss,” he said.

There are a few possible exceptions (and I emphasize my uncertainty). One is the new mayor of Tetovo. I’ve heard good things about him from locals and internationals, Macedonians and Albanians. And I’ve only heard two accusations of corruption against him (it’s all relative!). Seriously, though, from what I hear, the mayor is the first to substantially employ people of all ethnicities, and he’s really accomplishing stuff – even some things that are outside his jurisdiction.

I do find it a little mind boggling that there are so few others who people admire. I mean, it’s not like the bar is set high. As one expat working in Macedonia explained how people judge politicians: “Your party didn’t shoot anyone during the last election? Wow, you guys are a real class act!”

As that statement shows, many politicians and political activists also currently lack the capacity to deal civilly with one another. I asked a municipal officer from an Albanian party about the other major Albanian party. He spoke for a few seconds before he stopped, sighed, lowered his head, and said in a manner both dismissive and weary, “I don’t want to speak about them anymore. They are terrible people.” Real mature, buddy.

3. Speaking of Maturity… - I hope this next thought doesn’t come off as condescending, but I heard it from a Macedonian, so hopefully that will clear me of any potential wrongdoing.

Macedonia achieved independence in 1991, which means that it is turning 18 this year. Perhaps, then, it will soon shake off some of its “childhood diseases,” to use a Macedonian’s term for the problems currently facing the country. Some of the parties are inching towards constructing a platform, or at least hiring political scientists (maybe they’ll have a job for me – quick, can anyone get me a doctorate?). Moreover, while decentralization is proceeding at an absurdly slow pace, it is proceeding. More decision-making power on appointments, for example, has recently been transferred to municipal governments.

But a few expats to whom I talked think it’s still a while before Macedonia can be left to manage its own affairs, let alone buy itself a drink. The last parliamentary elections, in July 2008, were a violence-plagued disaster (though the presidential and municipal elections earlier this year went more smoothly). One western diplomat described the ’08 election as “horrible. I mean, just awful. I feared for my life.” Another western diplomat put it more bluntly and colorfully: “the 2008 election tells you all you need to know about how to fuck up an election.” He said he witnessed incidents in which women in headscarves and coats were taken to vote at one polling station, then bussed by a party to another poll, where they took off there headscarves and coats, were given new IDs, and voted again (the poll station monitors were from the same party, and thus were a little, well, lackluster in enforcing the rules).

And it’s not only the internationals who want to keep their day jobs in Skopje. One Albanian man in Tetovo told me that he wants Macedonia to become an international protectorate. And an ethnic Macedonian man in Skopje said he wants Macedonia to join the US as the 51st state for a while so we can “fix it” – I’m sure that’s not the majority opinion among Macedonians, but its existence at all says something. I responded that Macedonia is his country, so he has to fix it; as depressing as the current situation is, I still have hope Macedonians will work to do just that.

4. Stuck in the Group Rights Muck - It’s easy to condemn nationalism when its incarnation is Adolf Hitler or Slobodan Milosevic. But the Wilsonian ideal that “all nations deserve the right to self-determination” seems a little more difficult to challenge. And targeting rights to disadvantaged groups – who could argue with that?

But Macedonia has demonstrated once again that the latter two ideas are, in fact, very problematic. It’s not hard to show why: Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians all claim the right to a state for their respective nations, and if the international community grants them that right, it cannot be denied to the Macedonian nation. But privileging the status of ethnic Macedonians disadvantages citizens from other ethnic groups, most notably the Albanians, who faced particularly long-lasting and severe oppression at the hands of Slavic majorities in the former Yugoslavia and who make up by far the largest minority community in Macedonia. But granting special rights to the Albanians to make up for their unequal position leaves the Roma in a disadvantageous position. Granting them special rights would neglect the Turks. Granting the Turks specific group rights would ignore the Bosniaks. Granting…I think you get the idea. And even if you managed to find and assist all the ethnic groups in Macedonia, you still couldn’t guarantee equality for all citizens. What if five, I don’t know, Zimbabweans decided to move to Macedonia and become citizens – are they not entitled to the same treatment as all other citizens?

That was a very long-winded way of stating a simple idea: societies based on group rights cannot guarantee equality for all citizens. In fact, they guarantee that equality cannot be achieved. The only way for all citizens to be equal is to make all blood-based groupings politically and legally irrelevant.

Of course, this transformation is WAY easier said than done. Breaking the chain – or more accurately, stopping the domino effect – described above is not something that can be accomplished on paper alone. Simply changing the constitution from enshrining national and group rights to civic individual rights will not change reality – on the contrary, doing so would probably serve only to reinforce the majority ethnic group’s dominance. But there is still a major change in the way that many of us politically correct peaceniks think that needs to occur: too often we see developments like targeted rights for disadvantaged groups such as Macedonian Albanians as a good idea. But I argue that these group rights are at best the least bad idea, the most practical idea, and a temporary semi-solution to a much deeper problem. They are like putting a band aid on a wound that needs stitches when there’s no hospital nearby.

That deeper problem is a society in which group identity dictates legal-political standing and affiliation and social status. Undoing this situation will not occur overnight (sorry, all you revolutionaries and social engineers), and I have no idea how to spark this change. But perhaps a first step is recognizing that actions like supporting the right to a Macedonian nation-state and special rights for its Albanian community are not going to turn Macedonia into a country where all citizens are equal. Not even close.

And lastly, to all my new vrski in the Mack: thanks so much for everything! I can’t get you a civil service job through a political party, but I’d love to show you around the States if you visit!

Keep on keepin’ on, Macedonia.
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Pictures: I’m tourist-ing briefly through Slovenia and Croatia. Check it out:

Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia (correct pronunciation gets you automatic citizenship)


Lake Bled


Castle above Lake Bled


Zagreb, capital of Croatia


Rovinj, Croatia


Hvar island, Croatia


In conclusion: you can’t spell “Slovenia” without L-O-V-E, baby.

HAWAIIAN SURFER-DUDES ARE RUINING MACEDONIA!!!!

If you’ve seen the cinematic masterpiece Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you may remember a scene in which a Hawaiian surfing instructor named “Kunu” tries to teach the protagonist how to get up on a surfboard. “Just do less,” Kunu advises his student over and over again. “Just do less, man.” After listening to a few repetitions of this time-tested suggestion, the protagonist just lies down on the board, immobile. “Well, now you’re not doing anything,” says Kunu. “You gotta do more than that!” Kunu eventually decides that they’ll just figure it out when they get in the water, and indeed the first-timer does ride a wave semi-successfully.

I’m seriously starting to wonder if Kunu spent a few years as some sort of consultant or adviser in Macedonia. It seems that this country is excelling in doing just a little bit more than nothing. I know that sounds harsh, but listen to this, for example: I had coffee the other day with a Peace Corps volunteer working for an NGO in Skopje (placement in Skopje is known as “Posh Corps” by other Peace Corps people, including her friend who is living in a mud hut in Niger 6 hours away from internet access). This woman has a four hour work-day – as do most of the other working people she knows. On top of that, the conservative religious nationalist party in power has been adding a boatload of new holidays to the calendar. I’m barely exaggerating when I say that almost every weekend is three days long thanks to a commemoration of some saint that many people I talk to didn’t know existed. On top of that, Macedonians, like all good Europeans, take off the month of August.

Macedonia, it seems, has all but perfected the art of doing less.

That is a heinous over-generalization, of course, as tons of Macedonians work extremely hard while much of the political elite camps out in main square cafes. Many waiters in said cafes, for example, work 10-12 hour days, seven days a week, and make around 5 Euros a day. While they do more, their employers pay less – almost nothing at all – and they’ve gotta pay more than that!

Another area of less-doing in which I don’t have to worry about offending good hardworking people is in the arena of political ideology, or lack thereof. I have asked so many people about the difference in ideology and platform between the two major Albanian parties, and no one can seem to tell me – not even party members! All I get is “DPA is a center-right party.” Ok, and what does that mean in practice?... crickets. I think a veteran member of DPA summed the situation up well when he said to me, "The main goal of a political party is to win elections.” And that whole thing about governing with a plan and underlying platform? Ohhh yeeaahhhh – I’m sure he just momentarily forgot about that part.

But don’t think it’s just the Albanian parties that haven’t realized governing is about…governing. I met an (ethnic Macedonian) academic who worked for the ethnic Macedonian mayor of Skopje for a year and a half. He said to me, “I’d ask people in the office, ‘so, what’s your policy for this?’ or ‘how will this policy lead to whatever outcome?’ ” A typical response: “What the fuck do you want? Get off my back!” Visionary.

But the 2009 Kunu Award has to go to…drumroll, please…: the Minister of Local Self-Governance! Decentralization of power to municipalities is one of the single most important political processes in Macedonia, both for interethnic relations and for European integration. Yet according to an interpreter I met who works with all sorts of officials, if you need this minister’s signature, don’t call in the morning – he doesn’t show up before noon.

Last April, internationals working on a World Bank and USAID project on decentralization asked the interpreter to come to a meeting they had scheduled with this minister. “Can you come to a meeting at 9am?” they asked the interpreter.
“9am?” he responded.
“Yeah.”
“You won’t have a meeting at 9am. Call the ministry again to make sure.” A half hour later, they called him back. “OK, the meeting’s been changed to 1 pm – how did you know they would change the time?”
He didn’t want to say anything bad about the minister, so he made something up. “He is meeting with the prime minister to discuss some things in the morning, I think.”
“I think you’re bullshitting me.”
“You’re right, I am. But let me ask, what did the ministry tell you?” asked the interpreter.
“They said he was busy with a meeting in the morning.”
“Haha, what did I tell you?”

At five minutes to one, the minister arrived at the ministry. The delegation rode the elevator up to his office’s floor. He sat the visitors down in a conference room and popped into his office – and didn’t return for 27 minutes!

Once the meeting finally commenced, the internationals began to discuss the project at hand. But the minister clearly had no idea about the project. His responses were so nonsensical that a man from USAID gave a look to the interpreter as if to say, “Are you translating everything wrongly?” But an Albanian woman who works for USAID was present and vouched for the interpreter, telling the others that he was translating everything perfectly.

Congratulations, Mr. Minister! Like nobody else, you embody the ineffectiveness that defines the Kunu spirit we have come to know so well.

If only building a successful country was just like riding the Hawaiian surf...

On another note, the Peace Corps volunteer also recounted the complaints her Albanian co-workers have regarding the political situation. Nothing new – just the usual complaints of “that stupid statue of Alexander is making everything worse” and “what do they think they’re doing trying to build a church on the site of Mother Teresa’s house?” (yeah, I know she was Christian, but she was also Albanian, and Albanians are mostly Muslim. More to the point, many Albanians see the church as a further expropriation of her legacy by Macedonian nationalists – not to mention a clear violation of church-state separation.) I got to thinking, though: it seems like everyone - Greeks, Macedonians of all sorts, Albanians, and most other ethnic groups in conflict – complain about the other’s nationalism while responding by becoming more nationalist themselves. I guess that’s not too surprising, but the hypocrisy is still something to think about, especially for all of us with a stake in an ethnic conflict.

Nationalism appears to be the one area many of us are hyperactive. Luckily, I once got a great piece of advice from this guy I know: dude, just do less.

Word.
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Pictures: Lake Ohrid is the reason I came to Macedonia. I mean, oh, yeah, that whole research project thing. Right. But to be a really good Macedonian Kunu, the best thing to do is to go to Ohrid and do absolutely nothing. That’s what I did last weekend, and in the course of my minimal doing, my breath was taken – not by my real estate agent, but by scenery like this:


And this:


Peacocks on an ancient church (!):


And a bit farther to the north, my personal favorite, Lake Debar (Dibra):


Macedonia is famous for its monasteries and lakes. And sometimes, monasteries on lakes. And occasionally, monasteries in lakes:


Mr. Do-Less himself – the one and only Kunu:

On premed power politics, and other tragicomic phenomena

Before going to Greece, I met the brother of a Yalie from Skopje who graduated a couple years ago. The bro, a medical student at the main university - Saints Cyril and Methodius University - took me on a whirlwind tour of Skopje. First, the old city. "Have you eaten yet?" he asked as we passed his favorite kebapci place. "Yeah." "OK, sit down," he said, apparently not listening. Then after we finished, "you know what bosa is?" "No." "Ok, we'll get some" - we went to what he said was the oldest sweets shop in Skopje to drink the sickly sweet liquid and to attempt to consume more plus-sized pastries than Homer Simpson himself could face alone.

We were deciding between grabbing a drink by the river or at a traditional Macedonian restaurant when he got a call from the president of the university student body. "Change of plans," he told me. "No drink. I must go meet the president."

Backstory: my friend is running for president of the medical school student body. But student elections here ain't no Yale College Council "who the hell even knows who's running" walk in the park. The major national political parties endorse candidates, and a successful campaign often means employment with the party (which, as we have seen, seems to be what the parties are primarily useful for). My friend thus was quite the freewheeler when he decided to run as an independent (I guess he'll have to employ himself). His opponent is from VRMO.

But last summer, while the entire country was on vacation, the current med school student president - also VMRO - somehow sketchily enacted changes to the student body constitution extending his term for one year. My friend, naturally, just about went Balkan-crazy on him, while the prez soothed the other candidate's unease by hinting (according to my friend), "Don't worry - you're VMRO, I'm VMRO: you'll be a president one day, too." Now the Medical School Dictator (or, “The Meditator,” as I’ve taken to calling this elusive foe) is getting sued in the national court system. It's Third World-style power usurpation at the undergraduate level! START 'EM YOUNG, that's what I always say!!

Now we headed to the president of the overall student body's office to discuss some next steps. Entering the office, I felt like I was in an important government ministry or the office of a mafia boss (according to many Macedonians, there's not a whole lot of difference). The Don greeted me and my friend, while his two assistants sat playing games on their iphones, waiting for orders. Above my head on the wall were posted seals of the Great State of Macedonia, including, of course, Aleksandar. (If Alexander the Great's last name was Waldo, this part of the world would be the easiest game of Where's Waldo ever.)

I'll let you know if the situation progresses. Reporting live from Skopje on the Macedonian Medical Succession Crisis, this is Xheremi. Now back to the studio for more on the Greece-Macedonia name dispute:

In recent conversation with an academic known for being unbiased and level-headed, I received the following piece of sarcastic wisdom: "Alexander slaughtered thousands of Greek civilians. If the Greeks want to claim the identity of a man who massacred their ancestors, I guess that's fine with me - just don't tell me what to call myself." Touché, assuming that's historically accurate. But just one question, which I wish I had asked him: if Alexander was such a serial killer, why exactly do you want to claim him as your ancestor or national hero? Jeremy - 1. All sides of nationalist disputes in the Balkans combined - 0.

Not to be outdone in praise for mass murderers, a Greek neo-Nazi organization harassed some "Slavophones" a few days ago during a ceremony in Athens celebrating the publication of the first Greek-Macedonian dictionary. (remember: since non-Greek Macedonians don't exist, their language doesn't exist either. duh.) I was just trying to relax and soak some rays on a Greek island, when I got an excited text message (think: :~))))) from my jolly TV anchor friend in Skopje telling me that something had happened. You can read about it here and watch a video here - there's no subtitles on the video, but luckily fascist yell-grunting sounds the same in any language.

Now, I know that many people in the Balkans are crazy, but I also know that most of them aren’t that crazy. I assume, for example, that the meatchunks in the video don’t represent the Greek consensus. Nonetheless, it takes some serious diplomatic fortitude to completely avoid associating those guys at least somewhat with the Greek stance on the name dispute. That reaction leads to an idea that is worth some mental marinating, especially for those of us who are members of communities in conflict (cough, all us Jews and Palestinians, cough): conflicts rarely exist in a vacuum. And since peaceful resolution necessitates a compromise that is often brokered by a third party, winning the image battle is a crucial aspect of strengthening one’s position at the bargaining table. When VMRO makes plans to build a 30m-tall singing fountain statue of Alexander the Great in the main square of Macedonia’s capital, that lends credence to Greece’s complaints and undermines Macedonia’s claims; similarly, when angry off-duty linebackers barge in on an esoteric intellectual gathering to verbally assault a bespectacled renowned American linguist, that makes the Greek side look a little, ahem, overzealous. As a result, it may well be that a group in conflict’s worst enemies are not the members of the other side, but the extremists in one’s own camp.
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Pictures: Would you believe me if I told you that my real estate agent stole my camera again? Neither would I. Luckily, that didn’t happen. Honestly, though, I don’t have a whole lot of new interesting pictures. But for good measure, here’s a photo of my apartment building, just to prove I’m doing the post-communist thing furrealz:


I bet the architect studied at this place(I hear the dorm food really sucks):

Greece is cool

Here's a series of 1,000-words's to prove it:

Sunset at the Athens port













View at Delphi













Change of the guard - members of the 27th Goofball Brigade













Insightful sign in Athens













A horde of riot police at Parliament - waiting for demonstrations regarding EU Parliament elections













The glory that was Greece













The glory that is Greece













Pigeons, the main feature at the Athens zoo

Just kidding. I'm JUST kidding

The real glory that is Greece: Santorini













Santorini - the town of Oia (inaccurately pronounced "oh yeah!")













Santorini - Firostefani













Volcano by Santorini













Church in Oia













Thessaloniki - center of "the real"/"that other" Macedonia - with its rendition of Alexander the Great of Macedon.













White Tower- symbol of Thessaloniki - guarded by a statue of King Philip...of Macedon













I arrived in Thessaloniki at 1 am, and couldn't get my phone to call the owner of the hostel, who had told me, "You won't be able to find us on your own." Luckily, she found me, and as soon as she checked me in, she went on three days' vacation. The other guests left in the morning. So I had the hostel all to myself - no guests, no owner.

That's all for now. Back in Skopje now, interviewing more wackos (and some sane people, too!). I'll try to post again in a few days.