If the multinational coalition makes a sensation and emerges as a victorious force around which a government will be formed, on the agenda of Macedonian state policy, besides the big small European themes will be the search for everything else that as citizens unite us in a society of equal people.
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Writes: Denko Maleski
I remember a statement by an Albanian politician at the head of an NGO for human rights in the early 1990-s who said that Macedonians and Albanians had nothing in common. Nothing in common? What about the toothpaste, the toothbrush, the soap, the hot water, the air we breathe and the water we drink, the trash, the education of our children and their employment, medical care, the pursuit of happy youth and dignified old age, isn’t that in common, I thought then.
However, these small big European themes, which I was writing about in the columns at the time, were not on the agenda of the Yugoslav federation whose parties had ethnically mobilized the population for war. Then, after the breakup of the federation and the creation of independent states, national themes were on the agenda, and the winning combination of the elections was again ethnic mobilization. Small big European themes had to wait for better times. I remember the session of the first expert government and the debate on whether the Albanian language schools’ diaries should be run in Albanian.
Until then, even though the teaching was in Albanian, the diaries, according to the logic of Macedonian nationalism, had to be written in Macedonian?! The discussion lasted for months in government and on television screens illustrated, I remember, with footage of an Albanian village where dirty water was pouring across the streets, and girls in poor clothes who had grown them up long ago cheerfully skipped it.
In what domestic conditions do these girls live in, I wondered why all the energy of the Macedonian and Albanian parties is directed to the national question. I understood: in human beings, the national has primacy over the material, a fact that was confirmed throughout Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism. An answer to the question why is this so Solzhenitsyn at one time replied that such are people. It is not by accident that nationalism is the strongest ideology of our time.
So, Macedonia would be permanently on the edge or in ethnic conflict if, under pressure from the West, it did not build a political structure of equality between Macedonians and Albanians. Majorization and dominance of majority Macedonian nation over Albanian minority, in the first ten years of our independence, amid changing international and domestic circumstances, exploded in ethnic conflict in 2001
The Ohrid Framework Agreement set out the protective mechanisms for the minority community and paved the way for its full equality in a common multinational state. Although it floundered behind the events, in times of crisis SDSM was the political force pushing in this important direction of equality as a guarantee of peace. Thus, with each new breakthrough in the area of rights for Albanians, the chances of a new war were diminished, and ethnic mobilization as a mechanism for winning the elections gradually lost power.
Today, with the law on languages, we can talk about equality, though formal, if not factual, of the two nations, so the root cause of the war in Macedonia is eradicated. Nevertheless, a solution to a problem opens up new problems. Protecting the uniqueness of the Albanian people with their own language, religion and culture as a (sub) society for themselves raises the question: What is it that unites us into a common state as part of a common society?
It certainly does not unite us the ethnic mobilization of one nationalism against the other, as Zaev would say and this speaks about SDSM as a multiethnic party in such a society. DUI’s Ahmeti and his party not wanting to be without work, replicated that the war for equality is not over yet and that the multiethnic coalition is endangering the Albanian cause. Mickovski from VMRO-DPMNE thinks that the Macedonian cause for a national state of the Macedonian people and the state of minorities has long been endangered.
Therefore, with the coalition of SDSM and Besa begins an experiment that makes a new breakthrough across the borders of ethnically divided society at the expense of parties that traditionally were considered as defenders of the national cause. In the Western Balkans, as a rule, national parties dominate the policies of their countries while multiethnic ones play a secondary role, so it is most safe that parties stick to their nationalism. Everything else is an experiment. The first test of the success of this political experiment which is progress in Macedonia will be the elections.
If the multinational coalition makes a sensation and emerges as a victorious force around which a government will be formed, on the agenda of Macedonian state policy, besides the big small European themes will be the search for everything else that as citizens unite us in a society of equal people. If it loses, it will be proof that nationalism is sought on the Macedonian market and ethnic mobilization remains the party’s most effective means of winning elections.
Of course, as until now, ethnic mobilization will be at the expense of consolidating democracy understood as an accelerated process of maturing of a political system based on the principles of the rule of law, an independent judiciary, honest elections and a developed civil society.
Taken from Inbox7