Mirjana MALESKA
Institute of Sociological and Political Research, Skopje

Nationalist Euphoria
that can cost dearly

I would like to say a few words about the Platform of the Albanian leaders in Macedonia on joint action signed on Thursday 24 May in Prizren by A. Xhaferi (DPA), I. Imeri (PDP), and A. Ahmeti (political representative of the NLA). My opinion largely differs from those expressed in the public in the past few days.

The Xhaferi-Imeri-Ahmeti platform is not irrational. On the contrary!
First, it declares the will for laying down arms and for solving the problems through an internal political process.

Second, it declares that the reforms to be done will not imperil the integrity of Macedonia and that any attempt for ethnic division will be harmful for the citizens of Macedonia and for peace in the region.

The Platform is asking for nothing more than what the political representatives of the ethnic Albanians have been asking for in the last 10 years. On the contrary, I would say that it is even asking for less.

In order to achieve a national consensus, as the Platform says, A. Xhaferi, I. Imeri, and A. Ahmeti had to go through a process of discussions and mutual persuasions to get to a solution that has chances to succeed and that the international community is going to support.

According to what one reads in the Platform, which is just a foundation for further talks, the Albanian leaders are not mentioning the request for constitutive nation. This request has a practical meaning only if there are possibilities for Macedonia to be re-established as a federation or confederation, which has in fact been the joint strategy of the Albanians from the region since the beginning of the '90s. Today, due to the NATO presence in the region and the priority to make Kosovo independent, the realistic possibilities for Macedonia's federalization have been diminished.
Since the operation for transforming Macedonia, a unitary state, into a federation or confederation will incite new instability in the region because the majority of the ethnic Macedonians do not accept it, the Platform stands on the request for a kind of a non-territorial or cultural autonomy.

Together with de-centralization of power (strengthening of local government), it will guarantee more than what the Albanians have had in Macedonia so far, but less than what they used to ask for before the crisis.
What we are - a divided society - will acquire a certain legal and political legitimacy, it is true, but it will help Macedonia evade or postpone its breaking-up through a similar or larger crisis that will spur foreign intervention.

What are the ethnic rights considering that the key demand in the Platform is introduction of consensual democracy in areas related to ethnic rights? Is it a perfidious step towards the division of Macedonia along an ethnic line through an even larger crisis? No, this is not the just approach to the Platform unless we really wish a territorial division or hope, openly, consciously, or unconsciously, that this or any other similar crisis in the future will force all the Albanians to leave the territory of Macedonia and never come back!

The Platform does not list the ethnic rights and they will probably come forth from the process of negotiations provided that there is such a process. What the Albanian leaders agreed in the Platform is that the reforms will not put at stake the territorial integrity of the state. This should imply that the right to self-determination up to secession does not belong to the packet of ethnic rights. The rights from the economic sphere will probably not be treated as ethnic rights either. For instance, our memory is still fresh in relation to the right to veto on this type of decisions in the former Yugoslav Federation, which was one of the main reasons for inefficiency and for an economic (and political) collapse in the final account. There are the issues related to education and culture as ethnic rights. The request here is to avoid the power of the majority. Normally, the volume and the way in which the right to veto will be applied on all questions from this sphere is something that the ruling parties will have to agree about. In any way, the result must come as a general agreement. The majority must willingly accept consensual democracy as a necessary mechanism for the adaptation of the two largest ethnic and linguistic communities in Macedonia. If not, we will be sliding towards a deeper political and security crisis. We, the Macedonians, have the biggest responsibility for the survival of the state and we must understand and accept the need for changes. The citizens must feel the system is just (more or less) in order to make it legitimate and accepted by all. If a principle of state order, as is the civic (that is to say democracy of the majority), is good for ethnically homogenous societies, it is obviously not good enough for divided societies as is ours. If we refuse to accept the fact that a part of our citizens - the Albanians - do not find that the system is just, as we have been doing in the last 10 years, we are then facing a crisis that has led us to the edge of a civil war. However, I would also like to underline what history has been teaching us: there is no solution, neither a concept called civic nor consensual, that can guarantee success. Everything depends on us. The example of Cyprus is very illustrative: there, the model of consensual democracy that lasted from 1960 to 1963 collapsed because on the one side the majority, that is the ethnic Greeks, were reluctant to accept this model while the minority, the Cypriot Turks, excessively used the right to veto!

Let us cool down our heads. The hysteria that has been spilling over through the mass media these days is under our civilization level! It will lead us nowhere. We recognize other people's nationalism right away and we are strongly condemning it, but we are tolerant as far as our own is concerned. We are repeating the history of the Serbs, which is to impose our solution at any cost. The conflict of the Macedonian nationalism with the one of the Albanians, which is so evidently rising and which needs to be strongly condemned, is directly leading us to a permanent crisis.

We, the Macedonians and the Albanians, are historically young nations that have in a short time and not for their own merits received a lot: a state, autonomy, or special rights and now we do not know where to stop. By inciting instability we are risking foreign intervention in whose ultimate outcome it is totally uncertain who is gaining and who is losing.

These days, as a reaction to the Xhaferi-Imeri-Ahmeti Platform we fully witnessed what can be called a strong drift of Macedonian nationalism. We do not even recognize it because the legitimate national feeling that inspires acts of heroism and the diverted nationalism that leads to misery and chaos are closely related situations of a collective mind.