FYROM Revisited - or- After the Veto

Whenever you start discussing ANY of the Balkan countries, you inevitably end up discussing history. A multitude of peoples (Greeks, Slavs, Turks, Bulgars, even Italians) lay claim to lands that have been occupied by all these, plus Germans, British, Ottomans, Byzantines, Venetians and just about everyone and their brother who came to this fair peninsula and suddenly wanted to build a summer home in the area! (Not that I blame them - I would too!)


Just as I and my neighbor bicker about where exactly his land ends and mine begins, just as any of you would bicker with your neighbors about your own land borders if these borders were not painstakingly surveyed, marked and firmly decided by deed, so do all these nationals bicker among themselves and argue endlessly about the right of first ownership, quoting endless passages from history in order to prove their point.


It's silly, really. We live on ONE earth, a very tiny planet - the only hospitable planet in our corner of the universe - "a mote in God's eye" - as vulnerable in our existence as the tiny ant that can be stepped upon indifferently by the smallest, weakest child - and yet we fight over who has the right to squat in what corner, and whether the particulat ant about to be squashed is called a red ant or a black ant.


Hmmmm? You say that it's important to the ant? *Sigh* Perhaps the ant's soul would rest easier if his gravestone said "Here Lies a Brave Red And" instead of "Here Lies a Brave Black Ant".


But enough of the ant metaphore. We are all humans and as such we have our little weaknesses that we need to humor and cater to. It's almost an adage that individuals need an identity. An identity declares many things. It identifies us to everyone else as not simply a vagrant who is wondering the face of the earth with no past, no family, no roots - and therefore, possibly dangerous. It tells others that we are so and so who belongs to these people, who have accomplished such and such, that we have a permanent home which it there and we can return to it at any time and therefore we are an individual of means and worth, not to be taken lightly. We are bred to honor and serve the concentric circled groups that surround us - our imediate family, our area, our country and so on, in continuously growing circles that diminish in importance as we move away from the center.


Why am I getting into this socio-psychologico-historical discussion at this point? Because, unless we understand the very basic forces that govern the need for an identity in people, we will never understand what moves the native of FYROM to stay adamant in his claim "I am Macedonian" and what moves the native of Greece respond "Over my dead body"!



So, who were/are/will be the "Macedonians" anyway and why all this fuss? By historical accounts, Macedonians (the name means "the long - see tall - people") were one of the ancient peoples who lived in the environs of northern Ancient Greece - which happened to be a lot larger then in all ways than it is today - spoke Greek, worshipped the ancient Greek gods, and considered themselves Greek in all ways. Ancestors of these Macedonians still survive today. They are spread throughout the ancient Macedonian territory, although many of them have elected to move to the modern Greek area of Macedonia.

Throughout the centuries, many other nationalities moved into this area, including Bulgars, Turks, Slavs, gypsies, etc. After World War II, the ancient territory of Macedonia was split into 3 parts. The northern part was given to Yugoslavia, the southern to Greece and the western to Bulgaria. Tito, wanting part of the sparkle and glory of ancient Macedonia to rub off on his people, called the southern province of Yugoslavia, "Macedonia".

See the excerpt below:

HOW THE LIE WAS CREATED Otecestven Vestnik (Sofia daily), 19 June 1991


STALIN TO BULGARIAN DELEGATION (G. Dimitrov, V. Kolarov, T. Kostov) The
Kremlin, 7 June 1946

Cultural autonomy must be granted to Pirin Macedonia within the framework
of Bulgaria. Tito has shown himself more flexible than you - possibly because he
lives in a multiethnic state and has had to give equal rights to the various
peoples. Autonomy will be the first step towards the unification of Macedonia,
but in view of the present situation there should be no hurry on this matter.
Otherwise, in the eyes of the Macedonian people the whole mission of achieving
Macedonian autonomy will remain with Tito and you will get the criticism. You
seem to be afraid of Kimon Georgiev, you have involved yourselves too much with
him and do not want to give autonomy to Pirin Macedonia. That a Macedonian
consciousness has not yet developed among the population is of no account. No
such consciousness existed in Belarus either when we proclaimed it a Soviet
Republic. However, later it was shown that Belarusian people did in fact exist.


Alexander’s Macedonia was Greek - Historian Robin Lane Fox

The wide variety of people living in the Balkans lead to friction. Throughout history there has been some sort of cause or other that people have been willing to fight for, and this is especially true in this area. Emotions run high and tempers are hot. It's not coincidence that TWO World Wars began in this area!

FYROM, being a chance amalgamation of people living in the area, lacks the framework of common traditions, history, religion and identity that would qualify them as a single people. Their own history being less that a century old, they borrow freely from the single entity in the region that can boast roots that run back to deep antiquity: Greece and in particular in this case: Ancient Macedonia.

Greece on the other hand, has had its history and tradition tresspassed violently way too often throughout the years. The people and the government of Greece are not happy at all to see the claims of FYROM to the name, the history and even the land of an important part of Greece. Greece is angry at wild claims from FYROM that they have been persecuted by Greece or that there are "Macedonians" right now inside Greece being persecuted!! Greece views these false claims as expansionist propaganda, possibly fed by foreign interests who would benefit from unrest in this region.

And there are plenty of reasons why foreign powers would meddle in the politics of this area, the most obvious one being the vast and coveted oil fields around the Caspian Sea. A shortcut route from the Caspian to the Aegean via Thessaloniki would shave off thousands of kilometers from the alternate route via the Adriatic for the pipelines they are already planning to build.

It's a simple, clear and ruthlessly practical reason that justifies in the mind of these oil monger powers any type of upheaval, war and sacrifice necessary to achieve it.

Skopjians - if you are reading this, take heed. Those who claim they want to help you, are in fact playing you for fools. They don't care about your inependence or your identity. They care only about themselves. You can be sure that Greece will not allow you to usurp things that rightfully belong to it. Your hardheaded hunger for a nonexistant identity will only lead you to disastrous consequencies.

What's in a name?

It's been a long, long time... Had to go back in time to take care of a few matters in Ancient Greece, but I'm back now.
And guess what I find upon my return?
My descendants are fighting over one of our most famous names with those squatters up north!
Yes, I'm talking about Macedonia, of course.
Between you and me I never really liked Alexander too much. Too quick to take out his sword, too eager to get good men killed in senseless wars, too uppity for my tastes. He was, however, a good Macedonian and a great Greek. He spread the ideals and the culture of Greece throughout the known world - and that was no small feat for that time and age.
But back to our current problem. Let's analyze it in the manner we would have done back in my time, during my first incarnation.
Why would a tiny upstart "nation" want to call itself "Macedonia", and more importantly, why should Greece care?
Apparently, neither one of these questions have simple, clear-cut answers.
FYROM (the Former Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia) was apparently named that way by Tito, with the excuse that the land area was originally part of the Ancient Macedonia. And it was.
After World War II, Macedonia was split into three pieces. One-third was kept by Greece, one-third was given to the Bulgarians and one-third was given to Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia under Tito apparently never had any serious designs to reunite Macedonia, he simply called this Province Macedonia to get on the nerves of the Greeks - and he succeeded.
Tito went a step further. Not satisfied to simply usurp the name, he patiently undertook the long task of teaching every school child born in FYROM after 1946 that they were the actual descendants of the Ancient Macedonians,ergo Alexander the Great was not a Greek but a Slav!
According to Tito's version of history, FYROM is the true Macedonia and all the people who live either in Bulgaria or in Greece are conquered people! Never mind that the Slavs did not appear on the scene until the year 800 AD, never mind that Greek was the spoken language of Macedonia in ancient times and that the Macedonians shared the same culture and the same religion as Athenians and Spartans.
FYROM youths are convinced that they are the true Macedonians - they bought into Tito's propaganda. Therefore, it's only logical that when the time came to choose a name for their newborn country, they would choose "Macedonia".
So what? you might ask. Is Greece afraid of this new, tiny country whose people would be starving if it were not for the financial aid sent by Greece and for the jobs created by Greek businessmen there? It's kind of silly, isn't it? If anything, Greeks should be flattered that their ancient civilization was of such importance that a whole nation would fight hand and tooth to be named as one of the city-states of yore. And the Greeks would indeed be flattered if FYROM was located in the US or in Australia or even in Asia. But hey, guess what? FYROM shares the Macedonian border with Greece. And Bularia next door shares the other Macedonian border with both and is keeping a close eye on what is happening. Of course, they are all gentlemen. No one would ever go so far as to imagine that there would be a dog-eat-dog fight in the Balkans over a piece of land! These things just don't happen on this peaceful Earth!
I do have a vivid imagination!!
Enter the Americans, the Russians and the Europeans. Each one of these super powers have special interests in the Balkans. The Americans would love to have a NATO military base in the heart of the Balkans to keep an eye on Europe and Russia, Russia and Europe don't much like that plan, plus they all have interest in the oil and gas pipes coming in from the Caspian Sea. Hmmm... a quandrum.
How does the silly name of such a small country manage to provoke such passions?
Here it is in a nutshell:
1. Both countries lay claim to the name and passions rise high over it.
2. No one really wants trouble, but no one knows how to avoid it.
3. None of the parties involved have any imagination to come up with an original name for this place.
I suggested "Pseudo-Macedonia" and the Greeks were enthusiastic about it, but it didn't go down too well with the Slavs!
So what's in a name? Possibly the match that will light the fuse to the biggest bomb of the 21st Century.

"300" the movie

Well, I finally went to see "300". Like most Greeks, I was curious to see how Hollywood portrayed one of our most revered heroes, especially after the botched up jobs of semi-truths and senseatinalism it did with"Troy" and "Alexander".

I was not disappointed. The tradition of Hollywood semi-truths continue in this movie, where Xerxes reminded me of the caricature of a Hindu deity and the Spartans were portrayed just one step from barbarism. Not to mention that monsterous beings abounded, giving more the sense of a "Dungeons and Dragons" game than a historic tale of valour!

Of course, I realize that the move was based on a comic inspired by the historic tale, so I will give it leeway for that. On the other hand, visual impressions stick in our memory, as opposed to historical texts that fade away right after the test, and this worries me. Not that the sight of dozens of muscular men, sacrificing their lives for their country and their beliefs was not exciting. Not that this ideological part is not the truth. It is. Generations of Greek men for thousands of years have gone off to war with the sacrifice and devotion of Leonidas vivid in their mind. The valour they inherited from Leonidas' Spartans, drove Churchill to exclaim after the resistance of the Greeks who were attacked by Moussolini in 1940, "Greeks don't fight like heroes. Heroes fight like Greeks!"

I have read several negative comments in blogs and postings, poo-poohing the idea that the Battle of Thermopylae was heroic or even true. It's a pity that present day cynicism wants to destroy anything that even smells of idealism. I resent that. I confess that I'm a hopeless idealist and have remained one no matter what life has thrown at me. I can understand how the 300 Spartans felt as they stood poised to face thousands upon thousands of armed enemies. I can only aspire to such valor and heroism and sheer stubborness in upholding my ideals.

I wanted to go into detail about the inconsistences of the movie in comparison with the true historic account, however, as I was surfing the net, I found someone who has done it better than I can! Please take a look at this blog I am linking to today, it's worth your time:

"300" the movie: facts and fiction, by Konstantinos Kyriakis. This is one of the best analyses I have found!

The Mutable Multiverse

Only a few hundred years ago, people believed that the Earth was flat and that if you traveled far enough you would fall off the edge. Maps were made of the known lands with Terra Incognita (unknown land) marked at the edges, and if you are a bit fanciful, you might have written There Be Monsters in the margins! Of course, at the time, people also believed that the sun travels over the Earth (possibly in a golden chariot, who knows?) and so did the moon and the stars, which were simply lights in the sky, or the souls of loved ones looking over us or whatnot.

Do you laugh when you read this description? Why should you? It was the belief of millions of people for over one thousand years! In the Orient, people believed that the Earth rode on the back of a turtle, and even Ancient Greeks, who knew the world was round (Eratosthenes had calkculated the circumference of the Earth almost precisely), had a fanciful myth about how Hercules replaced Atlas for a while, probably because Atlas was tired of holding the sky on his shoulders for such a long time.

In time, the thick veil of the Dark Ages was parted and Science began to win ground over Religion and Superstition. Columbus tried to prove that the world was round and found America instead. Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, and a long line of other scientists have been changing our view of what the Universe we live in is like almost continuously, through their research and hard work. Einstein told us that time is relative and that matter is actually energy. Schwartz's, Green's, Hawking's and others' string theory has changed our reality completely, by telling us that everything we see, feel and perceive is nothing more than myriads of invisible strings or chords oscillating in various frequencies bunched in various formations, plus those darn chords never sit still! OK, it's a simplification of a very complex theory but it is the essence of it all.

The solid earth under our feet has become very unstable lately! Our macrocosm has grown immensely, stretching out to encompass millions of new galaxies, while our microcosm has grown just as immensely, digging inward to discover more and more quantum particles and subdivisions of those, trying to get to the essence of it all. We, humans in the middle, have grown tiny and isignificant in comparison, a long way from the anthropocentric cosmos people lived in 1,000 years ago.

Perhaps one of the most exciting theories being dissected at this point in time, is the idea of the Multiverse. This is the idea that the universe around us is not the simple three-dimensional structure we perceive, but is rather composed of 11 or even more physical dimensions that co-exist but could only be perceived if you too were an 11th dimesional being!

Poppycock! you may exclaim... You can comprehend a fourth dimension - time - because you can measure it, but what are 5 to 11 or to infinity? Frankly, I know as much about it as the 13th Century peasant knew about the spherical Earth! For all HE knew, if he travelled too far, he would fall off. For all I know, anything above the 4th dimension is the creation of people with overactive imaginations. Still, the mathematics of it all can't be solved in four dimensions. And why should it be so easily solved after all? Are we humans so self-centered as to imagine that the cosmos is created solely to be perceived by us, with our limited senses?

If we accept that there are an infinite number of dimensions, why not accept that each one of these dimensions can hold a complete other universe, just like the one we live in? As a matter of fact, it has long been theorized that is just exactly what it does. That we don't live in a single Universe, but rather in a Multiverse made up of an infinite number of universes, some of them with physical properties like our own and others possibly ruled by completely different laws of physics.

Now let's take another look. Is the Multiverse static? Of course not. We already know that our own universe is expanding and it is in constant motion. It is constantly changing or mutating with vibrant energy. We can assume that the same or something similar holds true for other universes. Therefore, the Multiverse is not static, it is mutating perhaps quite rapidly.

Let's take this one step further. If the Multiverse is mutating, is it possible that we can effect this mutation - this change? How is it possible that the tiny and insignificant human can effect the infinite Multiverse? One hint is given to us by Dr. Quantum's Double Slit Experiment. I suggest you watch ALL of Dr. Quantums films, they are very informative and quite amazing. The Double Slit Experiment in fact proves that the behavior of matter is effected by the observer. That means that you - your eyes or your instruments can actually change the way the Universe behaves.

How does all this new information effect our daily lives and our immediate, rather boring world? For one thing, it shows us that our world is not boring at all. Rather, it is a miracle occuring continuously and unpredictably! If matter and energy can be effected by the observer, there are probably as many realities as there are observers. This takes us to the very old quandery: If a tree falls and there is no one around, does it make a noise? After all we have learned, we may answer: yes and no. The tree does create a vibrational change when falling, but unless there are ears there to hear it, it's not really "a noise"!

It brings into perspective thoughts and ideas expressed by philosophers through the ages. One that comes readily to my mind is Emile Zola's theory in his novelette "Huis Clos" (Dead End), where he surmises that "truth is in the eyes of others". Do we exist if there is no one there to observe us? DesCartes boldly stated "Je pense, donc je suis" (I think therefore I am), but perhaps in view of our new knowledge, this should be amended to "I am observed, therefore I exist"!

Let's assume that all of you who are reading this DO exist - what does the fact that you live in an ever-changing Mutable Multiverse have to do with you? For one thing it makes you responsible for your reality! You are influencing your environment as much as it is influencing you. Your reality can change, if you only will it to change. Perhaps not in a magical, hocus-pocus way (think of a car you want and it will appear in front of you), but in small imperceptible ways that set the course that shapes the things to come. Your world can be a good world if you believe it is so and act upon that belief, or it can be a bad world if you do the opposite.

We have taken a long journey today from a flat world to an ever-changing universe we can influence to suit our needs. It is a lot to digest and perhaps for some hard to swallow. It makes no difference, because each one of us lives in the world we are constantly creating for ourselves, and truth is only the truth we believe in - for us!