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April 15, 2004

By Jason Miko
April 13th, is my birthday. And no, I'm not going to tell you how old I am, but yes, it is true that I do look younger than I am. I keep a picture of Dorian Gray locked in my closet, since in southern Arizona at least, we really don't have attics. Our roofs are generally flat, not pitched like those East Coasters. You see, we don't have snow in the desert southwest, we have sun. And lots of it.
But I digress.
My topic this week, as the title says is about birthdays and anniversaries, but really more about anniversaries. And yes, we did just celebrate the death, but more importantly the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ , that being an anniversary of the most importance, but I want to turn again to one of my favorite subjects - the name issue.
You see, a few days ago was the 11th anniversary of Macedonia's admittance to the United Nations under the temporary, provisional, fictitious, fatuous and cumbersome, name of...well, you know the rest.

Looking up the UN website listing the members of the prestigious world body, I noted that "your country" (in the words of so many diplomats) is listed under "T" as in "The." I suppose that "your country" is the only country in the world which officially begins with an article. Of course it was mighty, mighty generous of this august world body to let "your country" enter into its highly esteemed ranks in the first place. You should feel so blessed.
And on the eve of "your country's" presidential elections, it has now come to my attention, by several alert readers of this column that the current long-term election monitoring mission to the Republic of Macedonia fielded by our friends from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (an OSCE organization), includes business cards which state "Skopje, FYROM."

I think this is akin to being invited over to someone's home for dinner and having arrived, you start smoking like a chimney, proceed to get roaring drunk, put your feet up on the sofa, talk loudly and obnoxiously about your high-paid job and how much better you are than everyone else and basically proceed to insult your host.
Frankly, since this mission was invited to come and observe the elections, I don't think it is really necessary (even though the artificial name is official policy of OSCE) to print the fictitious name on the card. Local OSCE staff simply have the word "Skopje" on their card. And come to think of it, why do they even need cards at all?
Of course this is just one small part of the on-going debate over the name issue and the fact that the rest of the world is getting fed up with our friends to the south and their insistence that everyone acquiesce to their paranoid demands.

Our ever-democratic friends hailing from the Former Ottoman Possession of Greece (FOPOG) recently let out a scream when President George Bush referred to "Macedonia" (horrors!) when Macedonian officials were in Washington, DC for the accession of new NATO members. In a letter to President Bush, the democracy-loving Hellenic News of America stated that the decision to create a state called Macedonia in Yugoslavia had its origins with "Marshal Joseph Broz Tito." The letter goes on to state "By creating a territory under the name "Macedonia," his goal was the eventual claim and incorporation of Greek Macedonia into communist Yugoslavia with the port of Thessaloniki as the trophy port."
I would agree with this statement were it not for two major facts. First, the last time I checked, there was no "communist Yugoslavia" in existence anymore and second, there is no Tito anymore either. Even if Tito did want that way back when, he is certainly not in a position to achieve it now.

Our friends in FOPOG tend to collectively and conveniently engage in mass amnesia, revisionist history, half-truths and flat out lies, ignoring the fact that identity is a social construct. They also ignore the on-going intellectual debate among historians, archeologists, philologists and others over the issue while forgetting that their own history is fraught with invasions, population exchanges, and ancient debates between Ionians and Dorians who eventually fused into Greeks.

Frankly, I'm fed up with their whining. Why can't they just grow up? (Of course I don't want "their country" to be known as FOPOG anymore than I want the Republic of Macedonia to be known as "FYROM" unless that happens to mean Fantastic Young Republic of Macedonia.) Of course this name issue is one which all good citizens of Macedonia should jump on. I mean, here is an area which everybody - and I mean everybody - can agree on. Macedonians, Albanians, Turks, Serbs, Roma, Vlachs and anyone else who hold citizenship in Macedonia can and should stand up and proclaim proudly and loudly "I am a citizen of the Republic of Macedonia! As a matter of fact, here's my flag," and then unfurl the Macedonian red and gold.

This is an issue which all elected officials of Macedonia can and should be all over. Elected officials from here to London to Brussels to Washington, DC and everywhere in between should be arguing passionately about why it is morally right for the rest of the world, minus our Greek friends, to call Macedonia by its constitutional name. This is an issue where Macedonian Albanian elected officials could and should be at the front and center arguing for the permanent name for the permanent country. Otherwise extremists might believe that a temporary name implies a temporary country.

This is an issue where all Macedonians - here, in the USA, in Canada, Europe, Australia and everywhere else - can and should be lobbying their elected officials to recognize the Republic of Macedonia by its constitutional name.
This is not going to change without a fight. Nothing ever does and it is up to you to make it happen. And remember - you have friends who want to help.
Long live the Republic of Macedonia!