The country and people that 'don't exist'

Macedonia: The Last Peace
To be screened on SBS Television as part of the Cutting Edge series of documentaries
Tuesday, April 6, 8.30 p.m. (8 p.m. in Adelaide)
Reviewed by Michael Karadjis

One might begin to gain an insight into the Macedonian issue by watching this documentary. It is certainly very useful to know what ordinary people in the streets, coffee shops, churches and discos are thinking. However, you can't talk to everyone, so some kind of overview usually helps, and there is not much of it here.

"It's all the Communists' fault ... The churches are all empty", was a pretty important theme at the beginning. Each to their own, I suppose, but anyone interested in the causes of the horror that has engulfed former Yugoslavia wouldn't find this very enlightening. Whatever the sins of the former "Communist" rulers, the current nationalist massacre has been launched since the fall of "Communism" by revived anticommunist, nationalist, pre-World War II forces, particularly in Serbia, including the Serbian Orthodox Church.

In quite an interesting section, members of Macedonia's 20% Albanian minority spoke of their grievances. They claimed that very few Albanians are in the public service and that there was only one Albanian high school in the Macedonian Republic's capital, Skopia. They spoke of the division of the Albanian people into five separate parts in 1918, "imposed by Europe". Nevertheless, they insisted that they did not want to separate or join Albania; they only wanted equal rights.

On the other side of the political spectrum within the republic is the highly nationalist opposition party VMRO. While they spoke of the division of Macedonia into three parts in 1913, they likewise insisted that they don't want to take over the other parts of geographic Macedonia in Greece and Bulgaria, but merely want rights for the Macedonian minorities in these countries.

Watching the program, one might be led to believe that there is no Macedonian government, only the VMRO opposition on the one side and the Albanians on the other. It is fine for the Albanians to discuss their legitimate grievances, but when they claim that they want representation in government, it would be helpful if viewers knew that nearly 20% of MPs in the Macedonian parliament are Albanians — a somewhat better situation for a minority than anywhere else in the Balkan region.

Things get worse when we get to Greece. Talking to a number of "ordinary people" who all happen to have the same view on

the Macedonian issue, one is led to believe that the Greek population is unanimously behind the current nationalist tidal wave of "Macedonia is and always has been Greek". We are also informed that this feeling is completely spontaneous.

All the "ordinary people" interviewed indicated that they would be ready to "take up arms" and fight "with all means" if the neighbouring republic was recognised. Greeks, then, are not only unanimously nationalistic, but also warmongers.

In fact, this "spontaneity" is a highly orchestrated campaign by all major political parties, daily newspapers, the church, the military and various witchdoctor "historians". Every other view is meticulously censored from all the mass media, and anyone opposing the nationalist frenzy is castigated as a traitor to "Hellenism".

The unanimity in the documentary is belied by the 15 Greeks who have been given heavy jail sentences in the last year for simply distributing leaflets, posters or pamphlets opposing this view, and by petitions signed by hundreds of academics, unionists, artists, writers, political activists and others. Members of the Communist Party have spoken against the policy, only to be silenced by the most horrendous red-baiting.

But watch the documentary for the last section. The film makers take a trip to Florina, in western Greek Macedonia, and visit the ethnic Macedonian minority there, which the Greek government insists doesn't exist. It is a particularly rare event to see this hidden minority on the screen. Some of those interviewed even had their faces chequered out because of fear of reprisals by the Greek government and police. "We are not doing anything wrong, but they are always after us."

When the people here were asked if they could speak Macedonian freely in the streets, for some reason there were no English subtitles for the answer.

Eighty per cent of the towns in this region were originally Macedonian. Hellenisation over the last 80 years has included the changing of every street and geographical name.

Some great pictures of Macedonians at their May festival, with their traditional music and dancing, made it clear that, despite decades of forced Hellenisation, mass exile and cultural oppression, the Macedonian minority still does exist.

After denouncing 80 years of oppression by "chauvinist Greeks", one local went on to explain that he wasn't talking about Greek people in general: "Greek people are good, we

form trade unions with them ... We have nothing against the Greek people and their culture ... We just want our rights ... for Macedonian to be taught in schools ... we have no schools, churches, newspapers."