Jeremy's travels: 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)