Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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Macedonia: Perspectives and PerceptionsSusan Seymour spent most of 1999 and 2000 in Tetovo, Macedonia, helping to set up an agency to provide advice and training to people running their own small businesses. She draws on personal experience to describe the way the ethnic communities lived in separate worlds and how a relatively calm society was destabilized and became the flashpoint of war between armed groups of ethnic Albanians and the Macedonian security forces. Tetovo is a rather shabby town nestling at the foot of the majestic Sharr mountain range that divides Macedonia from Kosovo, but it is the heartland of the Macedonian Albanian community. According to the (hotly disputed) 1994 census, the population in the Tetovo region was 75% Albanian, 20% ethnic Macedonian and only 5% others, including Turks, Roma and Serbs. Some of the villages are almost entirely Albanian, especially in the valley behind Tetovo where the armed rebellion started this March and the so-called National Liberation Army has its headquarters. This valley is breathtakingly beautiful. I never tired of walking there, alone or with fellow hikers, who, apart from police, were about the only ethnic Macedonians who ventured beyond one or two popular picnic spots. Separate worldsIn the town of Tetovo, the ethnic divide was less stark. There were many mixed residential areas and shared facilities and places of work. But family, social and religious lives were entirely separate, as were most of the limited number of arts and cultural events. Almost all cafés and restaurants, despite very similar menus, catered for their own people. Marriage between Macedonians and Albanians was unknown. The languages of Albanian and Macedonian are unrelated, but while most Albanians know Macedonian, very few Macedonians learn Albanian. The two groups relied for news on different newspapers, radio and TV stations. Generally the quality of reporting was poor and sensationalised. The lead story in the main Albanian paper, Fakti, was invariably about discrimination against Albanians, while the Macedonian media only mentioned Tetovo in connection with crime or interethnic gang fights. There was no shared history and very few agreed facts. Both groups felt that Tetovo was theirs by right, but felt threatened. Each was a minority, Albanians nationally and Macedonians locally. Neither could put themselves into the shoes of the others. Their nationality was usually the first thing that people would tell me about themselves. Then I would hear a great deal about their perceptions of one another. Albanians felt strongly that they were not allowed to use their own language officially. They told me that they were excluded from public sector jobs; that local government, although Albanian-controlled, had no power or money; that the police maltreated them; that their businesses constantly faced obstructions; and that their children were denied a university education in their own language. They saw themselves as working hard in their own businesses, while their taxes and international donor money were spent in the Macedonian part of the country. They envied Macedonians with easy public sector jobs, giving great opportunities for extracting bribes. They did not see that most Macedonians suffered as much as they did from poverty and corruption, nor that jobs in the virtually bankrupt big firms were vulnerable and very poorly paid. They could not comprehend Macedonian insecurities about the way their national identity is denied by many of their Greek and Bulgarian neighbours. Many Macedonians looked back to a golden age under Tito, when Yugoslavs had been able to travel freely, where jobs were for life and salaries were three or four times higher, allowing most families to own a car, and the full range of household appliances. Now, with high unemployment, young people could not afford to set up their own homes and feared bringing up children in what they saw as an increasingly alien and unwelcoming society. Many wanted to leave and start new lives elsewhere. Macedonians were more likely to make racist comments about Albanians, claiming that they deliberately had large families to change the population balance, that they wanted a greater Albania, and were criminals involved in smuggling drugs and arms. Macedonians saw themselves as more Western, because of their Christianity and better education, and felt they were being held back from acceptance by Western Europe because of the traditional, Islamic culture of the Albanians and their association with organized crime. Actually, in some ways, the Albanians, with their extensive work experience in Western Europe, had a greater understanding of democratic, free market societies than the Macedonians with their nostalgia for paternalistic and autocratic socialism. Another perspective, which was shared by the more educated and thoughtful people on both sides, is that the elites of their communities were totally corrupt, co-operated with each other in the black economy and colluded to keep ethnicity as the main political issue. In this way they kept people divided on ethnic grounds and maintained their power as the protectors of their kin. By emphasizing the misconceptions held by the two groups, I realize I am painting a distorted picture, which ignores the extraordinary friendliness, hospitality and helpfulness of most of the people I met. They actually wanted the same things, such as a more honest, fair and prosperous society, jobs and opportunities to improve the quality of life for themselves and their children. The tragedy was that these people of goodwill did not know that they had so much in common. They did not seem to know how to talk to each other, let alone how to work together to realize their hopes. The legacy of the communist years discouraged the taking of initiative or any independent action not controlled by the party. It left civil society very weak and tragically unable to resist tiny war factions on both sides. While there was a superficial sense of calm and order, corruption was all pervasive, and there was an underlying fear that things could go very wrong. While I lived there, change was very gradual, with some positive moves, but also often setbacks. The main local controversy was around Tetovo university, which had been founded privately by Albanians, many from Kosovo, following the Serb takeover of the university in Prishtina. As it was never recognized by the Macedonian government, many young people finished their studies with unrecognized diplomas and became unemployed. The EU and OSCE tried to help by financing the construction of another university, also to be in Tetovo, which would teach in Albanian, but also in Macedonian and English. However, radicals still wanted legalisation and public funding of the existing institution. From personal contacts with academics and students, I came to the view that the unofficial university reinforced ethnic Albanian hostility to the Macedonian state without meeting their aspirations for good quality education. Was this the first war fought about access to tertiary education? The effect of the war in KosovoTetovo might have muddled through until a gradual pacification of the whole Balkan region allowed improvements in the economy and human rights. Yet, somehow, this sleepy backwater became the scene of violent conflict. It is too soon for a dispassionate analysis of why this happened, but I believe that it was mainly a consequence of external factors which destabilized the community. The most important among these was the Kosovo war which had a radicalizing effect, particularly on the young Albanians, and seemed to give the message that violence pays. Refugees tripled the population for three months, stoking inter-ethnic fears, while Macedonians became convinced that NATO favoured the Albanians, thus enhancing their suspicions of everything Western. Following the warFollowing the war the international community promised a great deal to Macedonia, but it squandered the opportunity by ad-hoc, short term, inconsistent interventions. International donors abandoned excellent projects after a year or two on the false supposition that they would be "self-financing" or supported out of mainstream budgets. For example, the Babylon project, which I knew in Tetovo, but also operated in eight other towns, was an out-of-school activity club bringing together children of different ethnic groups to learn and play together. It was an essential element of developing a multi-cultural community but needed to be sustained for a generation. Instead, EU money ran out after a year and the project only survived on intermittent handouts. Other projects were counter-productive or caused resentment because they unfairly benefited one ethnic group or another, or because the resources ended up in the wrong hands. Equal opportunities and human rights were not as integral as they should have been to all international support and intervention. What now?Whether or not full scale civil war is avoided, the Tetovo I knew and loved has gone now. People have been radicalized to the point where they won't be able to go back to life as before. Even if the proposed agreement is adopted and the planned economic reforms are implemented, Macedonians will lose their privileges in Tetovo and will move away, whether forced out, or more gradually as they sell their houses and move to parts of the country where they are in the majority. Whenever the war in Macedonia finally stops, further international support will probably be offered, but I hope that greater efforts will be made to apply it more consistently, fairly and intelligently in social, political and economic reforms. It will take people a long time to learn that individual human rights matter, not just collective rights. Reform is needed to develop a state which protects all of its citizens and tries to improve their lives through genuine commitment to economic development and investment. There will need to be a lot of input to improve management skills throughout all institutions, an enormous challenge, even in such a small country. It will also be important to develop a civil society with more independent organizations and to help train activists who believe that they can make a difference, for example in keeping the state up to the mark on its promises. Journalism and the arts need assistance to bridge the language divide. People need to learn new ways of campaigning for change so that they are less tempted to resort to violence. Even then, nothing will really change until there is greater stability in the wider Balkan region and a weakening of the destructive nationalism which has done such damage to all parts of the former Yugoslavia. Susan Seymour
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