Whose glory?

I took a quick jaunt to Skopje from Pristina this morning. It was an easy hour and a quarter on the way down before 8 am.  Considerably longer on the way back, with interminable lines of less than 50 kph traffic crawling past equally interminable stores selling construction materials, bathroom fixtures, appliances and ceramic tile. Not to mention the ubiquitous (but all too obviously futile) auto larje, car wash.

I hadn’t seen Skopje since its still incomplete facelift, which installed a grand pedestrian plaza along the Vardar River, where ruined asphalt and weeds used to preside.  It’s a dramatic improvement, marred by the grotesquely outsized equestrian statue of we guess Alexander the Great (as well as several other grand luminaries), not to mention a triumphal arch.

It is hard not laugh at the pretention. I imagine the Brits giggled when they captured (and burned down) Washington in 1812.  What were the colonists thinking when they built such a grand Capitol and President’s House in the midst of a swamp?  Pretencious dolts like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington thought they were building “New Rome.”

The Greeks aren’t laughing.  They view Macedonia as expropriating their cultural heritage and have hardened their opposition to their northern neighbor calling itself “the Republic Macedonia,” the name by which most countries (including the United States) recognize it.

The political entity that boasts Skopje as its capital (but was not independent until 1991) has had that name in one form or another since before the end of World War II, which is longer than the living memory of most of its residents.  The Greek objection is more or less the equivalent of the United States of America contesting Mexico’s right to call itself the United Mexican States, which happens to be the country’s formal name in English, or vice versa.

No one would, or should, take this issue seriously, were it not for the fact that Greece is blocking Skopje’s entry into NATO and the formal start of its negotiations for EU membership.

That’s no laughing matter, not least because of Macedonia’s ethnic composition.  The one quarter of the population that is ethnic Albanian is a lot less attached to claims of ancient glory than many of their ethnic Macedonian fellow citizens.  While they are not above claiming to be the descendants of the ancient Dardanians, Albanians have little use for the grand statues of the new downtown Skopje and wonder out loud how much they cost. They are far more interested in the small, relatively new, museum and chapel dedicated to Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu, aka Mother Therese (who was born nearby):

Many Albanians in Macedonia regard NATO membership as vital:  it is the ultimate guarantee of Macedonia’s territorial integrity and their own security.  It is something their politicians have promised, and are now finding it impossible to deliver.  They would gladly compromise on the “name” issue if it gave them entry into the Alliance, whose headquarters in Kabul are, ironically, guarded by the Macedonian army.

Macedonia’s name has been an issue under negotiation for the past 20 years.  A settlement is nowhere in sight.  The new Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, built his career by opening the issue in the early 1990s, when he was foreign minister.  The current Macedonian prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, has likewise built his career on claiming Macedonian glory for Skopje.

So what can be done to resolve the issue?

Skopje has wisely offered Athens a broad cooperative arrangement, with the Greeks entitled to pick and choose among many menu items.  This is intended to enlarge the pie, always a good idea when faced with a zero sum negotiation.  But Macedonia is far from being able to offer what Greeks might really want:  many billions to bail them out of their debit.

Tomorrow I’ll consider a more realistic way forward.