From: Penelope_Theodore@brown.edu (Stephen Theodore)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Re: Info on Macedonia
Date: 24 Jan 93 19:12:07 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia,alt.news.macedonia,soc.culture.misc
Organization: Brown University
NNTP-Posting-Host: cis_staff-kntx49.cis.brown.edu

In article <C19Kov.58I@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>, cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T.
Fear) wrote:
> 
> From article <1993Jan22.014007.6171@news.weeg.uiowa.edu>, by lolonis@news.weeg.uiowa.edu (Panagiotis Lolonis):
> > cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
> > 
> >>its right to that name or of the GraecoMacedonians to call themselves
> >>Macedonians. However there is also the Republic of Macedonia which has
> >>an equal right to this name and part of Bulgaria with similar rights.
> > 
> > The rights of one group of people should not harm the rights of another
> > group of people.  In this case the rights of Greeks who live in Macedonia,
> > Greece, are violated by the request of Skopjeans to gain recognition
> > under the name "Macedonians".
> 
> This is a circular argument resting on the assumption that only
> GraecoMacedonians have the right to the name Macedonian. But this is
> what needs to be proved and the burden of proof rests firmly on the
> group who wish to appropriate this name for their exclusive use. As yet
> I have seen no good arguments used in this regard. I fail to see how
> sharing a name violates any one's rights. Are the rights of the
> Luxembourgeois of Belgium violated because there is a country of
> Luxembourg? If so how?
> 
> 
> >  If Skopjeans have trully good intentions
> > for Greece, they should respect the rights of Macedonians in Greece who
> > wish not to share their identity with their northern neighboors under
> > the current circumstances.
> 
> I don't think the Republic of Macedonia wants to share the
> Graecomacedonian identity just assert its own different, but equally
> Macedonian identity. What you say amounts to saying 'the only way we'll
> accept that you have good intentions towards is that totally give in to
> all our demands'.
> 
>  
> > If Skopjeans think that Greece's position is unjust, then they should 
> > prove why they deserve to be called "Macedonians" (using historical,
> > cultural, political etc. arguments)
> 
> Well since the Macedonians of the Republic of Macedonian have lived in a
> geographical region called Macedonia for some 1,400 years they seem to
> have a pretty good claim.  After all this is about the same length of
> time as the Anglo-Saxons have been in Britain and no one questions our
> right to be called British.  Actually this is a rather dangerous
> argument for Greek propagandists as it makes the rash assumption that
> the ancient Macedonians were Greeks.  The problem is this isn't at all
> clear.  Plenty of ancient Greeks would have disagreed very strongly and
> that includes not only enemies of Macedonian imperialism such as
> Demosthenes and Aratus but also friends of it such as Isocrates.  It's
> interesting to note that Arrian (a Greek author btw), usually regarded
> as the most reliable of our historians of Alexander the Great makes a
> constant distinction between Macedonians and Greeks in his history. The
> Macedonians also spoke a language which was entirely unintelligble to
> the Greeks and which modern philological research suggests was more
> related to Thracian or Illyrian than Greek. Apart from pointing out that
> history is a two-edged sword for Greek propaganda I'd like to add what
> other problem in the world is there where events nearly 3 milennia are
> thought relevant to solving that problem? Who would, for example discuss
> anglo-french relations in terms of the 100 years war or Anglo-Italian
> relations with reference to the Roman occupation of Britain? Let's look
> at the present, or if we are going to look at the past let's look at
> *all* of it, not ideologically selected highlights.
> 
> 
> >> No one group has exclusive rights here, there isn't one sort of Macedonian
> >>there are many.
> > 
> > When we are talking about identity, including national or ethnic identity,
> > we are talking about uniqueness (at least that is my understanding of the
> > term "identity").  Therefore, I cannot see why it justifiable to use the
> > same term to describe geographical, ethnic, and political entities that are
> > different.
> 
> Well the geography at leasts overlaps.  As for ethnic states, Macedonia
> is a *geographical* region spread through three countries where many
> different ethnic groups live. Britain I suppose is a smaller version of
> the same thing, we all seem to manage to be Britons though some of us
> (the best naturally:-) are English Britons, others Scottish Britons etc.
> Most people don't feel remotely threatened by this, why should Macedonia
> be any different. The horrible alternative seems to be the ethnic
> cleansing solution of the Serbs and I trust all sides of this argument
> wouldn't want to see that happen.
> 
> 
> Andy
>

Regarding Andy's comments:

Point well taken... Everybody seems to want to set back the clock to their
own
particular moment of glory and forget about the inevitable series of
illegitimate and indefensible conquests and acquisitions which made those
borders & that history.  Nationalism (as distinct from patriotism) is a
load of
Romantic crap, particularly in the Balkans.  Andy correctly points out that
the
Greeks were very careful to distinguish between Greeks and Macedonians --
after
Alexander the distinction might be seen as analogous to the distinction
between
the Irish and the British a hundred years ago.  On the other hand the
Greeks
didn't have a very clear sense that being Greek was, itself, such a special
thing:  for them the key distinction was not between ethnic Greeks and
non-Greeks, but between "Hellenes" -- participants in Greek language and
lifestyle -- and "Barbarians" -- speakers of other languages.  Thus the
inhabitants of Rhodes, and later even places like Tyre and Sidon (good
semites
all) were "Hellenes" because they adopted Greek ways.  Persians, on the
other
hand, were Barbarians because they stuck to their own lifestyle and
language. 
By that standard the Macedonians were Hellenes, clearly so by the time of
the
Persian wars when they were well entangled in the mess of Greek politics. 
So
how do we count them?  I don't think that the ancients, without the baggage
of
the last few hundred years, would find any contradiction in the fact that
the
Macedonians were both a separate ethnos (people) and at the same time a
part of
the vague cultural entity called Hellas.  If pushed, I bet they'd say that
ones
ethnos (they'd probably say city) took precedence.  Only a few idealists
(like
Isocrates) thought that Hellas was a natural political unit, any more than
English speakers thing the US, Canada, Britain, Australia, South Africa,
Togo,
Jamaica and any number of other English-speaking countries belong in one
state
(apologies to any big fans of the commonwealth).  The upshot of it all is,
the
Macedonians _then_ were Greeks and also weren't Greeks.  So, for that
matter,
were the Rhodians, many Sicilians, most southern Italians, and the
miscellaneous oddities like the Bosporans (Spartacus' people), the
Bactrians
(should Athens get royalties on every dromedary in Central Asia?) and many
more.  There was no analogue to the modern nation state in Alexanders day
and
it's foolish to argue as if there were.

As Winston Churchill said of India (whether he was as wrong as he seemed to
be,
time will tell) Macedonia is "a geographical expression".  Much of that
region
lies within the territory of the Skopje republic.  The Greeks haven't got
any
business  forbidding them to use the name, any more than the Canadians can
make
us take "America" out of our title.  (You'd love to, too, wouldn't ya?  I
knew
it....)  The real issue isn't naming at all, it's the obviously bad fit
between
the nation-state, ein volk - ein land model of statehood and the insane
ethnic
mishmash of the Balkans -- about which I'll concede the Greeks have every
right
to be nervous.  On the other hand if they weren't so cozy with Serbia that
issue might not look quite so threatening either.  So.....

Steve Theodore, a Greco-Macedonio-Bulgaro-Rumanian American.

C/o Penelope_Theodore@brown.edu
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