A Greek in Skopje
As regular readers know, I spoke last Saturday via Skype to the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) conference in Skopje. Also addressing the conference were several Europeans. Here are the notes Ambassador Alexandros Mallias, a former Greek diplomat, used:
Ali Ahmeti builds bridges while others build statues
Ιt is an honour for me to be invited to the DUI first Thematic Congress and to such a fascinating and distinguished panel.
Allow me at the outset to thank Ali Ahmeti.
I will never forget our first meeting, 13 or 14 years years ago, somewhere in Tetovo, while he was still prohibited to leave his ”safe haven” and visit Skopje .
Since then, Baskimi Democratik per Integrim (DUI) managed to transform itself from a guerilla movement to a well established and performing political party .
Ali Ahmeti himself is much respected as an accountable and thoughtful political leader, in Skopje, in Brussels and in Athens as well .
While others are spending money, political capital, energy and time in building statues, Ali Ahmeti managed to build bridges, including with Greece. In fact, he is the only political leader from your country that has paid several official visits to Athens since 2007.
I have no intention of talking today about the 2001 events. My views and personal account have been published in the newspapers here in Skopje, in Tirana, in Prishtina and in a more detailed manner in the book I published in 2013 .
As modesty is not a flower often growing in Greek gardens, allow me to state that the fact that DUI included the then Balkan Affairs’ Political Director of Greece in today’s panel speaks for itself. It reflects the engagement and positive role played by Greece on stage and behind the scenes in 2001.
I want also to acknowledge here around this table the presence of personalities who by their word and by their sword, by their commitment and by their deeds shaped or influenced the political shaping and reshaping of the Balkans. They have also much contributed to the stabilization process of your country. To my regret, this is today deliberately forgotten.
Twenty years ago ; memories from the past
I have spent over 20 years working in our region or for our region. Since 1991, I have been deeply involved in our issues while serving as First Counselor for Political Affairs in New York.
The first time I visited Skopje was in spring 1994 , while I was serving as the Sofia-based Head of the Office of the European Union Monitor Mission (ECMM). At that time, Greece had severed consular relations, shut down the then Consulate General in Skopje, closed the borders and imposed an embargo.
I stayed for almost six months at the Grand Hotel, while being under the monitoring by the then Minister of Interior, as he himself told me one year later when I was appointed the first Diplomatic Representative of Greece in Skopje. For sure, his reporting was helpful to me.
Yet, never, never your authorities disclosed my presence to your media or to Greek journalists. Would that have been possible today? This is a rhetorical question of course.
I was working calmly under the protection of the OSCE’s Head of Mission (HOM) Ambassador Norman Anderson, one out of three American Ambassadors in Skopje , including Victor Comras the first US HOM and the late Ambassador Robert Frowick.
Notwithstanding the troubled relations and the lack of any direct bilateral contacts both sides realise , with no previous consultation, that there was some kind of common interest in having someone from Greece hanging around in Skopje.
My regular contact, residing in Ulica Markovic 5, was the late Ambassador Vanja Tosevski, with whom we were getting on well since early 1993, in New York, during this tough yet ”win-win” diplomatic battle which led to the adoption of the UNSC Resolution 817 (April, 7 1993) and to the membership of your country to the UN under the provisional name ”the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.”
Arben Xaferi and Abdulrahman Aliti were also among my interlocutors. I am happy to acknowledge here among the delegates his daughter Nora Aliti.
I remember that from Sofia I was always flying to Athens through Zurich, so as to render the tracing of my mission by the Greek border authorities difficult .They never noticed this ”stamp” on my passport. I still consider it to be one of my most delicate missions.
I understand that all that belongs to the past. Yet, it looks so recent to me. It remains ingrained in my memory .
Some of us who truly undertook special missions and risks in the past and have not spared efforts to shape and to build our relations, we in fact feel very uncomfortable with the present situation.
Skopje: the new generation and the indoctrination policy
I am very concerned , in fact worried, by the image of the ”enemy” or the least to say ”bad neighbor” systematically and officially orchestrated recently here in Skopje towards Greece. This is a very dangerous game.
If this trend persists, it will become an issue of serious concern for Greece.
Rendering the young generation fanatical is not the best way to come to terms with your neighbor. To my regret, this indoctrination begins at school with the textbooks. It is omnipresent in maps, books, public rhetoric and state controlled media. Everywhere.
I will spare you from referring to Alexander the Great and the official policy of ”archaization.” The only impact they had was to make the city of Skopje a symbol of antipathy and standing provocation to and towards the Greeks. What is really needed are statues showing the way to Brussels and not towards Babylon. I know that this is a well calculated and orchestrated risk.
Some years ago , the ethnic Albanians were the ”enemy.” At present, since 2007 at least, the nationalist leadership points the finger towards the Greeks. This was known as the ”underdog theory.” It is nothing new; yet, it is increasingly present in the official rhetoric.
Allow me at this point to use Abraham Lincoln’s words and appeal to those in Skopje who play the nationalist card and feel well by exciting public opinion and the youth in particular:
Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy.
I am afraid that the future is already present.
The ingredients for the solution on the name issue
Greece is ready to cut a deal with you on the name issue on the basis of the UNSC Resolutions 817 and 845 and in line with the Bucharest, Chicago and Cardiff NATO Summit Declarations. Also, in line with the repeated European Council Conclusions.
Greece, already since September 2007, went the extra mile offering the possibility of reaching an agreement on the name issue along the following lines : ”a composite name, with a geographic qualifier for all uses.” Unfortunately, your government intentionally failed to present and to explain the importance of this proposal–a shift from our earlier stance–to your coalition partners and to the public opinion.
Since then, the successive governments in Athens, notwithstanding their important differences on a large array of issues, are reiterating this proposal.
This is precisely the position adopted also by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in presenting his coalition Government Program before the Parliament.
The sense in Athens is that there is no accountable and responsible political counterpart in Skopje. Those in Greece who in the recent past tried their best to build trust and confidence with your leadership , were systematically undermined by their interlocutor in Skopje.
The next generation initiative – a CBM proposal from Athens
Nevertheless, I understand that Athens will propose to your Government a Confidence Building Measures (CBM) package and process. The initial negative official reaction from Skopje did not surprise me. We earnestly hope that your authorities will review their stance .
We must offer to the young generation a different, a better perspective compared to the past and in particular to the present status quo.
If we need to name this CBM package, let’s call it ”The Next Generation Initiative.”
Let’s offer to them a better future; not simply condemned to be neighbors but willing to live as friends .
We need to work together to remedy the present situation. I stand here in front of you as one of the pioneers of the shaping of our relations over twenty years ago .
Greece is ready and willing to get to YES on the name issue, along the lines that I have earlier explained.
At this stage , it is up to your leaders to go the extra mile and meet us in the middle.
The bridge over AXIOS/VARDAR is there. Just decide to cross it.
To reach this goal or target, the role of the ethnic Albanians and that of the DUI in particular should become the catalyst.
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9 thoughts on “A Greek in Skopje”
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I share views of mr Mallias.
We Greeks would like to be SlavoSkopians’ best cousins; they chose to be our most underhand enemies.
I just want to add that a oneword name, like Slavomacedonia or Anymacedonia, a name that SlavoSkopians have no serious reasons to reject, would be easily adopted by entire World both as a country name and adjective for language, ethnicity, citizenship, etc.
Just have in mind that Greeks cannot allow any non-Greek people to monopolize the name of Macedonia. This means that no language, ethnicity, citizenship etc should be called just Macedonian.
Ali Ahmeti builds bridges while others build statues
Macedonians continue to move forward while Greeks continue to beg for bailouts. Not sure if Greeks realize how far gone they have become. Always looking to destabilize the region. Macedonia will not never last in your hands. Time has proved this with everyone.
Greece is never the instigator for the destabilisation of the Balkan’s in past or present. It’s always others that want a piece of Greece but Greece is always looked at as the “bad guy” for not letting anyone have the piece they are trying to steal!!
It would seem that “forward” means a different thing to different people…
There has to be something wrong with a person who calls a known Muslim terrorist (on USA terrorist list for years) a ‘bridge builder’. Also no one mentions that Ahmeti has a lifelong psychiatric disorder diagnosis from Switzerland.
None of this matters to the FakeGreek nationalists in the south, as long as somebody is putting the Ethnic Macedonians and the Republic Of Macedonia down and the Greek government doesn’t have to recognize the sizable Ethnic Macedonian minority in their country, or compensate the exiled Ethnic Macedonians in 1949 for their confiscated property.
That’s Balkan Politics for you – where there’s superior power – there’s no justice, and the Greeks have been using that like petty little bullies.
It will be too late for the Greeks to remember their Orthodox brothers when the Muslims overwhelm them. Who will help you then?
Greeks have destabilized the region since the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 when they were basically given today’s “northern greece” or southern Macedonia by the great powers to keep the Greece and Serbia about the same size as Bulgaria for parity’s sake so let’s not forget near term history as well as ancient history when the ancient Macedonians first led by King Phillip and the by his half Macedonian half Illyrian (Albanian) son Alexander the Great almost burnt Athens to the ground. Greece has no more right to the name of Macedonia than the people that live on it’s ancient soil and have been calling themselves Macedonians for a pretty long time–as long as the greeks have been calling themselves greek. So let self-determination win the day and today’s modern greeks should stop making an issue of something that should be a non-issue.
Actually mr Kiril, Alexander and Philip have never led Macedonian army in Athens. They respected it as school of all Greeks and as successor of Macedonian dominance.
The term Macedonia was created, defined and glorified by Greeks and, subsequent, for Greeks.
SlavoSkopians are ashamed of Macedonian history; that’s why they ignore it intentionally.
Hi Kirile, Your comment is completely wrong on all counts: Greece is a NATO member, which in order for anyone to become they need to give up all territorial claims and disputes. So your argument that Greece is trying to destabilise the region officially cannot stand. You also seem to claim that Alexander the Great was half-Illyrian and half Macedonian. In what capacity do you say this and why should we take it seriously? Are you a professional archaeologist, historian or ethnologist/something else? Alexander’s mother is considered Greek by all reputable archaeologists, as indeed is the entire tribe she was descended from, the Molossians. However, even she wasn’t, I hate to tell you that your ethnicity is determined by where you were born and your father’s ethnicity. The mother’s does not really come into the equation, as for women to travel far to get married, is considered something completely normal and is a practice that has been pursued down the centuries for political reasons. Woman do not participate in genetic mapping. Also…, there is no evidence that modern-day Albanians are descended from the Illyrians, as, indeed, there is no evidence that there was such a thing as an Illyrian people in antiquity, but rather a disparate number of tribes, the relation between whom is not clear and it is assumed that only one of them was actually calling itself Illyrian. I appreciate that what you are saying is the rhetoric that is being repeated in certain countries with regards to these ancient peoples and that certain members of the society are all too keen to believe it but these are not views shared by the mainstream scientific community and when you come here and present them as fact, believe me, you are not helping yourself or your case. Besides, what kind of people would discuss a modern-day political dispute in terms of dead pre-historic cultures? Ultra-nationalists only…You also touch upon the issue of self-determination. Now, as far as I am aware, this is not a clear-cut notion. However, it mainly refers to a people’s right to determine their own political destiny. As long as the Republic of Macedonia is an independent country and makes its own political decisions, there is no issue of infringement of self-determination. As far as cultural self-determination goes, a big proportion of the inhabitants of this country are Albanian and/or something else. They have Bulgarian passports, they are Greek, they are Gypsy etc. But, at the beginning of the 20th century Skopje and Ohrid voted at about 90% to join the Bulgarian Exarchate, that is, the Bulgarian Church. It was voluntary to be part of it and this is what the people voted for, So there you have a snapshot of that people’s self-determination in terms of language and culture. Self-determination is not the same as fraud and/or identity theft. You’ve got to prove you are who you say you are in this world, especially if someone disputes it and you have changed your mind so recently.
A very good speech and straight to the point by Mr Mallias. I am quite impressed that Mr Serwer has chosen to post the other side’s view. It would seem no one is completely biased. A sure good sign.