From: cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek,alt.news.macedonia
Subject: Re: Ellemann-Jensen on Macedonia
Date: 25 Jan 93 14:33:16 GMT
Organization: Keele University, England

From article <Jan24.224231.27648@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>, by irakliot@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Leo J. Irakliotis):
> In article <C85PERWE.93Jan24135814@ide7.IDA.LiU.SE>, c85perwe@IDA.LiU.SE (Per Westling)
writes:

> future hostile act against Greece will not be based on solid ground.

Is there any *evidence* for such acts being plotted? Let's remember
Greece is a huge country compared to Macedonia. Let's also remember the
macedonian constitution explicitly states that the Republic has no claim
on Greek soil and that the present Macedonian is devoid of nationalist
parties anyway.

 I.e. if they
> adhere to the name "republic of macedonia" they can easily claim that "hey,
> we are macedonians, that land (northern greece) belongs to us". But if the
> call their country "republic of Skopje" or "republic of Bardar" (these names
> reflect their geographical history)

How would you like Greece to be called the 'Republic of Athens'. I
suspect you wouldn't, why think Macedonians aren't similarly insulted by
such a proposal about their country?


 then how the hell can they support their
> claims. And if they remove their "liberation of oppresed macedonians" passages
> from their constitution, then they are left with no reason to threaten Greece.
> 

Any one know anything about this article of the constitution? If Greece
is so worried about such matters why does she inflame things by dragging
those who say that they feel Macedonian rather than Greek into the
courts, rather than just tolerating minority sentiment, as for example
in Britain? The best way to defuse such claims (if they exist) is to
show they are groundless.

> And not only that. If they get recognition in compliance with EC's requirements,
> then, Greece, the only EC member in the region and a country with a descent economy
> and market, will be open to the enterpreuners of Skopje. Both countries will 
> benefit from eachother, but as long as FYRM persists to the Stalinist dream
> (not a surprise, given to the hard-core communistic past of their president),
> it's the only looser.

Now if the Stalinist dream is economic, this is not true as the
macedonians are trying to privatise their economu a.s.a.p. Of course
they're not helped by the fact that Greek posturing over the name has
stopped the Republic becoming a member of world financial institutions.
What other Stalinist dream could there be. if it's one to do with
expansionism is this just another way of saying that Greece can produce
no evidence of exapnsionist tendencies on the part of the *present*
(i.e. the one that matters) Macedonian government? As for the present of
Macedonia it's hardly surprising that he was a communist given the
background of the country. So was president Yeltsin of Russia, does that
make him a stalinist too??



>  
> A NATION always reflect an ethnic identity. A country may not. USA for example
> is a country despite they call it a nation. It will take a while (500 yrs) to
> mature to a nation. USSR was a country, but Russia is a nation. EC is a country
> but Greece is a nation. UK is a country but Ireland is a nation. You see the
> difference now?
> 
Now what would Vlachs and the Turks of Western Thrace make of that I
wonder... There are no ethnic nations any more, and thank god for that.


> As such they deserve a name. If the name is Republic of Macedonia, then it
> immplies that it'a a nation. But it is not.

Surely the term is entirely neutral. There are slavic Macedonians, but
there are also Albanian Macedonians and even GraecoMacedonians for all i
know (do any Greeks still live in Skopje?) in the Republic of Macedonia.
In other words it designates a country in your terms.

> 
> As far as it goes for NATO support, I wonder where NATO was when Turkey
> invented Cyprus in 1974

Perhaps some of its members were a bit worried about interevening to
support a fascist coup de etat.
> 
> Cmon now. FYRM has nothing to do historically with Macedonia. Surely it parts of it
> fall within the geo-boundary of Macedonia but ancestors? No.

Well the ancestors of the slavic macedonians have been around in
Macedonian since 6th century AD - as long as the ancestors of most of
the British have been in Britain. That looks like a pretty good pedigree
to me.

Andy
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek