Macedonia and Matthew Nimetz revisited
Last week provided more evidence of the push by the SDSM-led government of Macedonia to prepare the Macedonians for a change of Macedonia’s name and identity — or at least a push to change them. Since June 1 there have been weekly reports from the government, in the international press, from the EU, US and NATO diplomatic corps, and from academia and think-tanks all hyping the idea that “the time is now” to tackle the name and identity issue and Macedonia’s prime minister is the man to do it.
On August 2, the celebration of Macedonia’s most important holiday, Ilinden, the BBC published an online article titled “The man who has focused on one word for 23 years,” which reviewed the efforts of the UN’s Matthew Nimetz to “solve” the name and identity issue. That the article was published on Ilinden was deliberate — and provocatively so, in my opinion. Nevertheless, the article provides some useful insight into Nimetz’s thinking. For starters Nimetz is quoted as saying “I have probably thought about it more than anyone else — including in the country.” He may be sincere in saying that, but it is a bit conceited. To believe that he thinks more about the name and identity of Macedonia than most Macedonians beggars belief.
The article continues stating that Nimetz “thinks part of the way out is to encourage people not to see this as a question of national identity. ‘One ordinary citizen in Skopje once said to me: ‘When I get up in the morning and I’m shaving, I look in the mirror and say, I’m a Macedonian. Well, tomorrow, when I’m shaving, do you expect me to say, I’m a New Macedonian or I’m an Upper Macedonian?’ ‘I told him his concern is understandable, but it’s the wrong way to look at this. We are only talking about the formulation of the name of this state for diplomatic purposes. It won’t impact the average person.’ We’re not negotiating identity. If we were, I’d be out of here.’” That statement, however, is a blatant dodge and there are several problems with the above.
The first thing is that the name and the identity are intertwined and cannot be separated. For starters, if Macedonia were to change its name you can be assured that Greece would be working overtime to have the world recognize the Macedonians as something other than Macedonians. In the first place, the Greeks would demand that the United Nations’ Secretariat tasked with giving advice on the adjectival use for nations would adopt whatever the Greeks demanded and this would then become an official UN description of how to refer to the people — and it would then be adopted by all other international organizations and then by the individual nation-states of the UN. Secondly, passports and other official documents of identification would then have this recommended adjectival use, because again, the UN would recommend it, the Greeks would demand it, and others would adopt it. It would be something akin to “citizen of the Republic of Northern Macedonia” instead of “Macedonian” or some such device. It would be the same with a reference to the Macedonian language which would then become “the language of the Republic of Northern Macedonia” or something similar. And then, any time Macedonians appeared at international events, or even just bi-lateral events with other nations, the Greeks would demand that all official documentation and references to the Macedonians be in such language.
So when Ambassador Nimetz says “We’re not negotiating identity,” he is correct according to the letter of the law, but devastatingly wrong according to the spirit of the law. Macedonia’s identity will be part and parcel of any agreement Macedonia and Greece negotiate — this cannot be stressed enough, and any referendum the Macedonian government eventually puts before citizens will likely not include a reference to the identity but will, in the final negotiations between Macedonia and Greece, become international law.
This leads me to the worldview that Nimetz holds. According to the article “He does recognise that identity is important, though — despite being ‘a great believer in globalism.’ ‘I believe there’s a tribal aspect to us as a species,’ he says.” In other words, while he does give lip service to the idea that the identity of people is important, he is, at heart, a globalist and a “citizen of the world” as former president Barack Obama likes to breezily assert. One cannot hold, too tightly, to one’s identity and be a citizen of the world at the same time. One identity takes priority over the other identity and subordinates it. As a result the other identity suffers and will eventually die out.
Finally, we get to the heart of the article of why it came out now and why more like it will appear in print and across our computer screens. The article continues stating that Nimetz is “optimistic that the timing may be right for this dispute soon. This is partly due to new leadership in Macedonia — the Social Democrat Zoran Zaev became prime minister this year, breaking a long political deadlock in the country. But also because Macedonia needs to find a solution so it can get closer to its goals of joining Nato and the EU. ‘Doing that would give them reassurance, legitimacy, economic opportunities… and a sense of permanence,’ Nimetz says. It also might ease tensions in the country between ethnic Macedonians and Albanians, who make up a quarter of the population. In 2001, such tensions brought the country to the brink of civil war.”
In rapid-fire response, first, any tensions which exist between Macedonians and Macedonian-Albanians have nothing to do with the name or identity (and there are other minorities in Macedonia who are quite happy being Macedonians whose opinion the media continues to ignore). Second, “reassurance, legitimacy, economic opportunities and a sense of permanence,” already belong to Macedonia and the Macedonians in spades — economic figures, the world diplomatic stage — even the UEFA Super Cup match this week — all point to the fact that Macedonia is and is here to stay. Third — and the vast majority of Macedonians agree with this — if giving up their name and identity is the price of joining the failing and flailing EU or NATO, then they are not willing to do so. Some things in life are infinitely more important than mere money or membership of clubs whose very long-term existence is in question and whose utility is dubious. That, and, Macedonia already enjoys excellent relations with NATO through the Partnership for Peace and is, in fact, a NATO member in all but, ironically, name. On the EU side of the ledger, enlargement of the EU is frozen at least until 2020 and there are many examples of European countries getting close to the EU and cooperating on many different levels without actually being members of the EU. I have yet to hear a solid argument as to why this would be a bad thing for Macedonia to do.
Finally, and just this week, yet another article appeared online, this time from AFP. The article, titled “Macedonia aims to solve protracted name row with Greece,” covered much of the same ground that the BBC article did but ended with the right question from Toni Deskoski, a law professor according to the article: “The question is: what is the price of joining the club?”
Macedonians will soon be asked to answer that.
