DISCOUNTS ON DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE: WHO SHOULD DETERMINE HOW ONE SELF-DETERMINES?
Risto Karajkov
World Press Review
M ay 20 2008
With its expansion ever since the end of the cold war, the European
Union has been increasingly projecting itself as a moral force in
global affairs. It has called itself a community of values and has
been tirelessly repeating to would-be members that full embrace of
democracy and human and minority rights is the only way into the club.
No one has learned this refrain better than eager candidates from the
Western Balkans. There, the idea of joining the European Union has
been put on a pedestal. Europe symbolizes everything that is good, as
opposed to the wicked backwardness of Balkan imperfection. Countries
there need to constantly strive to democratize and reform in hope
that they can one day join.
As much as this idea is unreservedly accepted, it appears that it is
not fully corroborated by facts on the ground. Some of the countries
in the (geographic) Balkans that seem to have very serious issues with
respect of minority rights are in fact European Union member states.
Both Greece and Bulgaria adamantly refuse to recognize their Macedonian
minority. Both countries have lost cases before the European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg. They continue to stubbornly refuse to
comply with the court’s decisions to allow the registration of the
political parties of their Macedonian minorities. At the same time
they do not have a problem using their leverage as members of the
European Union to impose unprincipled conditions on Macedonia. Greece
has already made a name for itself doing just that. Bulgaria shows
signs it might take the same road.
Last month Greece vetoed Macedonia’s entry into NATO over the name
dispute. Athens opposes the use of the name "Macedonia" by Skopje,
as Greece claims it is exclusive part of its cultural heritage. Greece
threatened it would also block Macedonia in the European Union unless a
solution to the name dispute is found that is to its liking. Greece’s
move pushed Macedonia into political crisis. The government called
early elections.
Europe has been continuously labeling Turkey (non-European Union state)
as a rogue with regards to human rights standards, but (the few)
Armenians in Turkey have their churches and schools. Greece’s denial
goes so far that it does not even allow the free self-determination
of the Macedonian minority, let alone start to discuss standards in
education, use of mother tongue, or political participation. Last
month the European Free Alliance, a European political party, staged
an event in the European Parliament to protest this discrimination
in Greece and called the Macedonian minority there one of the "last
unrecognized minorities in Europe."
In Albania (non-European Union state), often described as the most
backward country in Europe, the small Macedonian minority freely votes
their own and has a mayor in the region of Mala Prespa. In Bulgaria,
a novel member of the European community of values, around a hundred
members of the unrecognized political party of the Macedonian minority
O.M.O. Ilinden Pirin were called by the police for "talks" last week,
because they engaged in organizing a small historic commemoration. A
classical tactic of police intimidation.
Trying to play an honest broker and stabilize the Balkans, the United
States pushed hard to get Macedonia into NATO but could not fight
the Greek veto. In the process even Washington got entangled in the
primitive Balkan nationalisms that simply refuse to accept that people
are free to declare as they wish.
State Department official Daniel Fried during his recent visit to
Athens had to argue with the Greeks over this purportedly basic human
entitlement. His counterparts reportedly told him there was no such
thing as Macedonians. His answer, rephrased, involved something like
"Oh, but I was there last week. I saw them."
State Department spokespeople get into semantic discussions on a
regular basis with a legendary Greek journalist at press briefings
over whether there is a Macedonian identity, nation, or language.
For Greeks, Macedonians are "Slavs" who are stealing Greece’s history
by calling themselves Macedonians. For the Bulgarians, they are
Bulgarian kin who have been brainwashed during Tito’s Yugoslavia,
and think they are Macedonian, but are actually Bulgarian.
The European Union has been way too condoning of Greek discriminatory
demands pointed against Macedonia. Back in 1992 it adopted an infamous
Lisbon document that said the new country could not use the name
"Macedonia" and it postponed its recognition. It softened over time
in view of reality. Macedonia was recognized by the United Nations
in 1993, under the provisional name of "former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia" (FYROM). Over the years the European Union has not showed a
sign of willingness to deal constructively with the issue. Only last
week one of its committees had to change in a document all reference
to "Macedonian language" or "Macedonian culture" to "the language of
FYROM" and so forth, in face of Greek pressure.
The bottom line is that one should be free to declare as she or
he feels. That is the substance of the right to free expression of
identity. Restrictions to this end, whatever the pretext or ideology,
are limitations of freedom and serious infringement of democratic
standards. If on top of that the people subject to such restrictions
are made to fear to speak their language in public, or have no schools
for their kids in their mother tongue, or even fear persecution,
for them the society they live in is not democratic.
One must be free to declare as he or she wants. The same way the
European Union promotes democracy abroad, it needs to do it in its
own yard. If judicial action is not enough and it obviously isn’t,
Brussels must take more-decisive political action and demand that
its members recognize minorities.