From: cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe
Subject: Re: IRA-OSE, British behavior, and a "clean sheet for Paeonia"
Date: 29 Sep 92 10:15:13 GMT
Organization: Keele University, England

From article <1992Sep29.042342.23857@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>, by dk0a@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DIMITRIOS KOUVATSOS):

>>         I wonder if Andy would change his position if he finds out (if he
>>didn't know already) that the OSE gives unconditional critical support to the
>                            ///////////////////////////////////////////////////
>>IRA and advocates armed overthrow of the Greek, Irish and British governments
>  /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
>>by the organised working class
>  //////////////////////////////
>>
> Too much to expect... of course Mr. Fear is not going to change his mind.
> British bans of the IRA are just fine, but Greek bans of the even more
> radical OSE are violations of human rights!

Enough has been said on this subject to make it perfectly clear that the
two bans (one involving arrest for circulating a pamphlet, the other
stopping personal speaking appearances on tv, but not stopping
statements by SinnFein being read out on tv) are in no way compatible.


> And nooooo, don't expose British
> bans here, let's go to soc.culture.celtic, just damn the Greeks now...

Once again two wrongs don't make a right. Whatever happens in Briatian,
South Africa or wherever, doesn't make what has happened in Greece any
more acceptable. Could I get off a murder charge simply because by
pleading that other people had committed murder too? BTW not dam the
Greeks, just condem this action. You can disagree with someone without
hating them you know.


> What
> can one expect from a guy who said that there are two states on Cyprus

There are two states on Cyprus, live in the real world. Turkish
intervention there was entirely justified.


> When he does not dare dispute the fact
> that a distinct from the Greeks or the Bulgarians "Macedonian" nation in
> Yugoslavia is nothing but a 20th century political fabrication - and his
> feeble attempt

How can you not dare to do something and have a 'feeble attempt' at
doing so?

> at that was duly exposed by Luben Boyanov who demonstrated
> that Mr. Fear's own sourse talks about a Bulgarian, not "Macedonian",
> uprising in 1903


I disagree with Luben here. Brailsford book, which I urge you to read,
talks about a Bulgarian movement, but goes on to state that the majority
of this movement in the 1903 uprising wanted an independent state not annexation to Bulgaria,
that sounds like national consciousness to me. Unless of course we're
reverting to the old hobby horse of racially pure states.



> And to allow the mythology of a "Macedonian" minority in
> Greece being used for ever more aggressive territorial claims?
> 
> Of course this is a fine example of a closed mind, he has to damn the Greeks
> no matter what the facts are.

As there are no facts that show Macedonia has territorial ambitions and
quite a few which suggest the reverse, I suspect there might be other
examples of closed minds around.

 
> He might
> be well advised to think of the steady and catastrophic decline of his
> country for 120 continuous years now, a phenomenon unique in history

Eh?

> - and
> think, if England is so perfect, why can't she even catch up economically
> with Italy now!
>

I don't think I ever said that England was perfect, but it is noticable
that in this group posters try to justify actions by talking about the
atrocities of a perceived enemy. This just doesn't hold water - see
above. Can't say that I'd noticed the decline, if it we were going to put a
start to it though I'd suggest the tragic ousting of Mrs Thatcher.
 
 
> And Mr. Fermor goes on to propose the name Paeonia, which is the ancient name
> of the area that corresponds to the Skopjie territory

Apart from the highly debatable nature of this claim, what happened in
antiquity is not relevant to today. Should my government lodge a claim
for the silver and gold mined by Rome in Britain? Of course not. If we go far enough back we find that the word 'Hellene'
isn't used of all the Greeks, does this mean it is falsely used by
Modern Greeks, of course not. I wonder if the modern Romans feel that
they have suffered an act of 'cultural piracy' because the Greeks call
themselves Romaioi. Their case would be as strong as the Greek case over
Macedonia. The simple fact remains that the Republic of Macedonia has
occupied an area called Macedonia for centuries. Please live in the
present, or even the Middle Ages. 

 
> "I could not help remembering, with recurring amazement, that the object of
> the writer's sneers and invective

An apt characterization of the Paeonia article itself, which was
remarkably free of fact and evidence though high on rhetoric.


> was not merely an old and trusted friend
> but our only ally in Great Britain's most lonely and dangerous moments this
> century."

I'm unsure what relevence this has to the present either. We shouldn't
visit the sins of fathers upon their sons, but their good deeds also
don't change the status of present-day acts, and what Greece is doing
with regard to Macedonia is utterly unjustifiable.

Andy

 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe