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:
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