From: zoltan@psychnet.psychol.utas.edu.au (Zoltan Schreter)
Subject: Re: Skopje's Swiss Dreams (was: MACEDONIA: A SWITZERLAND...)
Summary: Avoid posting HUGE articles, please!
Organization: Psychology Department, University of Tasmania
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 01:28:28 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.233114.28008@cs.mcgill.ca> filippou@cs.mcgill.ca (Dimitrios FILIPPOU) writes:
>Xref: newsroom.utas.edu.au soc.culture.yugoslavia:11225 soc.culture.bulgaria:1081 soc.culture.greek:10116
>Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.greek
>Path: newsroom.utas.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!mojo.eng.umd.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!homer.cs.mcgill.ca!filippou
>From: filippou@cs.mcgill.ca (Dimitrios FILIPPOU)
>Subject: Skopje's Swiss Dreams (was: MACEDONIA: A SWITZERLAND...)
>Message-ID: <1992Aug12.233114.28008@cs.mcgill.ca>
>Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
>Summary: Avoid posting HUGE articles, please!
>Sender: news@cs.mcgill.ca (Netnews Administrator)
>Organization: SOCS - McGill University, Montreal, Canada
>Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 23:31:14 GMT
>Lines: 45
>In article <93426@bu.edu> [Date: 12 Aug 92 07:59:29 GMT]
>Lou Bouis (buis@buengc.bu.edu) wrote:
>
>> Some people on this panel pointed out the analogy between Macedonia's
>> and Switzerland's cases in the European history. 
>
> [...]
>
>> These are the excerpts from Ivan Mihailoff's book "Macedonia: A
>> Switzerland of the Balkans", which he published  right after World War 
>> II. The English translation was copyrighted in April of 1950 by the 
>> translator, Dr. Christ Anastasoff. 
>
>[HUGE posting deleted]
>
>Ms./Mr. Bouis, 
>
>  you'd better forget your Swiss dreams. As far as I know, the
>Balkans are not yet so much *civilised* to dream of federations and 
>confederations. On the contrary, Yugoslavia was a (kind-of) federal
>republic that fell apart. So, now, stop dreaming and better take a 
>close look at the very next hot spot of x-Yugoslavia, i.e., Kosovo. 
>

For quite some time I saw here postings by Greeks on the Macedonian issue.
Without an exception, these postings followed the official Greek political
line. Not only that, most of them had an arrogant tone, similar to the
one I answer to here. A rather common thing coming up in these postings
is the idea that Macedonians are "less civilised" (presumably less than
Greeks. Is this one reason they should not "usurp" the name "Macedonia"?). 

I wonder, might this perhaps reflect some cultural inferiority complex on 
the part of these Greek people? Could this be because Greece IS part of the 
presumably so "not yet so much *civilised*" Balkans?

> stuff deleted

>  Finally, I don't think that cross-posting such huge articles from 
>God-knows-how-respectable-sources is very healthy neither to you 
>(you waist your time, unless you have a scanner at your disposal),

The well-known arrogance again. Mr. Filippou knows better what is good for
Mr. Bouis than himself. 
 
>nor to the USENET readers (most of them get immediately tired and press 
>"next article" after a couple of screens).

Mr. Filippou knows better what is good for other netters, as well.
 
>
>My friendly regards,
>
>Dimitrios Filippou
>
>Disclaimer: The opinion expressed here are of the above-signed person
>            and *not* of his employer.


Zoltan Schreter
University of Tasmania at Hobart
Asutralia