issue # 29 March 2018 SSN 1839-8639 MHR Review March 2018 page contents... MHR Review #29 published in March 2018 Edited by George Vlahov and Designed by Johnny Tsiglev 3 Public Intellectuals in Macedonia George Vlahov 7 THE ZAEV BRIEFING David Vitkov 10 self-delusion Dr. Tom Vangelovski 13 Проглас 18 Before the Rain Dr. Michael Seraphinoff 22 EFA in Pirin 24 a different view from SOFIA 25 GREEK PROPAGANDA in OTTOMAN MACEDONIA Dr. Dimitar Vamvakovski 28 THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION Victor Sinadinoski The front cover collage by Johnny Tsiglev includes: Edvard Munch's Evening on Karl Johan Street 1892; The dance of life (1899-1900); The Scream 1892; Honore Daumier's They Say the Parisians Are Hard to Please, 1864 Lithograph; A la Bourse, Lithograph; and a 19th century image of Mephisto. MHR Review March 2018 page 2 Public Intellectuals in Macedonia and the Names George Vlahov to have risen, markedly. In essence, they are insisting that the Republic of Macedonia Preamble must change its name in order to satisfy a racist Greek version of history and thereby Located among the heights of conceit, one obtain membership of NATO and the EU. finds commentators of all kinds, though es- They, of course, would not put it that way. pecially noticeable are certain academics and journalists, who present their interpreta- This article is not about whether member- tions, their prejudices, as facts; moreover, ship of the EU and NATO is desirable, within some of them, actually, probably though we will underline: if the notion of re- many of them, the desire to appear to be sponsible citizenship was not something relevant to their milieu, which, understanda- that is almost alien to the bulk of Mace- bly is the dream of many an intellectual, donia's political elite, then it is very likely leads to an advocacy for policies that con- that membership would have been gained, tradict not only their ideological persona, but without an altered appellation, years ago. even rudimentary standards of decency. The state would have been able to mobilise Their expressions of knowledge are also, of the necessary resources, to explain, in the course, warped by power, though they man- relevant centres of power and in interna- age to perform as if the opposite is true; or tional judicial structures, that it is not possi- to behave as if their knowledge of power is ble to surrender what those centres, them- so intimate, that it permits them to insist that selves, advertise as an inalienable right. their perspective is an actuality which ne- Alas, Macedonia's leaders, have instead, cessitates ignoring a fundamental injustice. consistently used the name issue as a In these cases, one is pardonably appre- weapon in the waging of party political hensive about offering a rejoinder, as such power struggles. attention is precisely what is craved. The Among the debris of the collateral damage likelihood is that direct engagement will engendered by those unscrupulous feuds, merely lead to the further inflation of an ego one can find the thinking of those thinkers that proffered personal preferences, as who are asserting, that, it is imperative to truth. alienate the inalienable: "my country is too weak to do anything about it". Too corrupt, Some of the Arguments actually. A serious, principled discussion Therefore we are not going to name names, about the names would also inevitably and rather, we are going to focus on some of the usefully lead to a conversation about Mace- arguments utilised by those unnamed per- donia's gravest problem - the widespread sonalities; i.e. their arguments in favour of anomy in Macedonian society. surrendering the right to self-determination. Remarkably, a number of our cerebral warri- We have resolved to address this matter ors, had been on record and on principle, once more, because, of late, the number of unamenable to designing new designations those who shall remain nameless, appears (Continued on page 4) MHR Review March 2018 page 3 (Continued from page 3) by a right wing nationalist, a fascist, but by a Marxist, a Bolshevik no less... Of course na- during the Gruevski years; now that SDS tionalism has long been a perplexing phe- has firmly put the issue back on the negoti- nomenon for Marxists, but that is another ating table, not that DPMNE ever really took discussion. it off, they have chosen to refute their former selves with zest, in order, one may suppose, Nationalisms to satisfy a misapprehension of how they What is vital to understand here, is that na- might make themselves useful and avoid tionalism is not monolithic, there are types relevance depravation. and the disparities are consequential. In this The right to self-determination is important discourse there is not nationalism, there are but, "well, actually, we are Slavs, Macedoni- nationalisms. At a very basic level, saying "I ans are a Slavic nation"; or "identity is a am Australian", is an expression of national- very deeply personal thing, nobody can take ism. Though it might perhaps be deemed it away from you, even if names are relatively benign, depending on the context. changed"; or "we really don't have anything Then again, there is a substantial difference to do with Antiquity, so a name change re- between aggressive and defensive national- flecting that is in order"; "we need to com- ism and it is painfully obvious who the ag- promise, only the crazy nationalists on our gressor is, in this context. Or is it? Well, not side are refusing"; or "we really are a new for some of our savants. No, several of them nation" etc, all kinds of nonsense, every- have taken to using sarcasm to distort the thing but the truth. Their truth is very simple, truth, to the extent that they have begun to though it appears very few of them have the equate the racist nationalism prevailing in courage to utter it: "We are very aware this Greek society, which has led the bulk of that is wrong, but the Republic of Macedonia society to believe it has the right to revoke cannot survive or prosper without NATO Macedonian society's right to self determi- and EU membership, so we have to do it". A nation, with the activism of Macedonians, very questionable "truth", but at least then who at bottom, are doing nothing more than the real debates could begin and most of attempting to protect that right. Granted, the drivel could be left behind. Who knows, there are Macedonians who are employing candid discussions like that might even ex- ludicrous nationalist arguments to do that, pedite a consensus that leads to a coherent but a substantial difference remains, none- policy in pursuit of winning the very winna- the-less. ble right to self determination. It is too simplistic to enlist the argument that But that path is too prosaic, too jejune, for nationalism is exclusively harmful and must our great sages, many of them prefer to re- be eradicated, full stop. We live in a world of sort to history as fables that have been nations and they are not about to depart agreed upon, crackpot sociology, genericis- from the actual to mere historical. Moreover, ing, essentialising and the promotion of bla- humans create groups, if there were not na- tant double standards, the very things they tional groups, there would be some other criticise "crazy Macedonian nationalists" for. form, it seems to be part of human ontology. No doubt, this is partially caused by an in- While the national form continues, construc- ability to provide serious argumentation in tive social activism should be about promot- favour of ignoring the fundamentals of inter- ing respect between nations, not the mortifi- national law and dispensing with the right to cation of one, a smaller, weaker one, for the self determination. With others, there is an benefit of a racist bully. If the bright sparks embarrassing ignorance that equates a de- who are the focus of our discussion do not fence of self-determination with hateful far have any respect for the feelings and dignity right nationalism. They do not appear to be of their fellow citizens, who consider the pro- aware, like one particular dullard at Balkan tection of their rights and their identity to be Insight, that "The Right of Nations to Self- a serious matter, then at least they should Determination" is a text that was not written have the sense to see they are not weaken- ing nationalism by aiding a much more pow- MHR Review March 2018 page 4 erful and racist form of it. One needs to take porters. Fortunately, there are left wing intel- heed of the fact that the most recent poll in lectuals in Macedonia who are not so easily Greece revealed over 70% of Greeks do not shamed out of their principles, unfortunately, even accept, that the Republic of Mace- they appear to be dwindling in number. donia has the right to have the word 'Macedonia' in its proposed new name. It is Conclusions time to put away childish things and stop The Macedonian nation is new in the sense pretending there are "many" Greeks who that all nations, as the word nation is pres- reject nationalism, that is a fantasy designed ently understood in social theory, were cre- to assuage guilty consciences. ated in modernity, i.e. during the course of Politics and Culture the last 500 years. Yes, all nations are new, including yours, Greek nationalists. Attempt- There is another aspect to this refusal to ing to revoke the right of a nation to self- deal with nationalism in a realistic manner.