By Tony Johnston
MELBOURNE â The hot and sometimes violent battle between Melbourne's Greek and Slav Macedonians over the future of the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia has gone off the boil following Greece's victory in the European High Court over its economic blockade of FYROM, and a dismal showing by Greece's so-called oppressed minorities in the European Union elections.
When the Greek Minister of Macedonia and Thrace visited Melbourne recently, surprisingly, there were no demonstrations. There were, however, conciliatory words from the minister. The UN's special envoy Cyrus Vance will meet in Cyprus with representatives of both sides to try and find a final solution that will also hopefully reunite Melbourne's Greek and Slav Macedonians.
The Greek bodyguards and the local motorcycle police who shadowed Kostas Triaridis between the Regent Hotel, the Greek Pan Macedonian Symposium in Clifton Hill and the premier's office (to talk trade) were hardly needed.
The lack of action surprised everyone caught up in both sides of the tactical battle between Melbourne's ethnic Greeks and the Slavs of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (referred to internationally as FYROM).
A couple of months ago, outspoken members of both communities were the victims of firebombs and other acts of violence. Even federal immigration minister, Senator Nick Bolkus (a Greek Australian), was punched and spat on when he arrived at the opening of a migrant resource centre in Wollongong in April. (The Slav/Macedonians are outraged at the Australian federal government's line on the issue, particularly the use of the term Slav-Macedonian. They prefer "Macedonians".)
But for Triaridis, a man at the seat of the issue, and a representative of the so-called protagonist government, nothing. And the fact that he was to have trade talks with Jeff Kennett, who caused a local outcry by taking sides during a recent visit to Greece, did not stir the Slav-Macedonians of Melbourne either.
Perhaps it was because Triaridis was not an official guest of the Victorian government, but a guest speaker of the Eighth Symposium of the Federation of Pan Macedonian Associations.
But there could have been other reasons. For instance, the local Slav-Macedonians' claims of discrimination and oppression among their minority community in (northern) Greek Macedonia, took a battering when their political party, the Rainbow Party, contested the recent European Union elections and could only attract 5500 votes nationally.
The very appearance of the Rainbow Party also put paid to the claims by some Slav-Macedonians of northern Greece that they were being denied democratic representation, and hence their human rights.
Their other champion of human rights, professional protagonist Christos Sidiropoulos (who has toured Canada, the US and Europe claiming persecution of minority ethnic groups in northern Greece) has lost his clout since it was revealed that his personal persecution (demotion and eventually the sack) was due to prolonged absenteeism from his public service job, and not his ethnicity. He was also accused of using government money to pay for his propaganda trips.
The subject of persecution of minorities in the Greece/FYROM squabble diminishes by the day. The real issue, according to representatives of both sides, is the use of the name Macedonia, and a section of FYROM's constitution that refers to territorial ambitions of a "Greater Macedonia".
The Slav-Macedonians of former Yugoslavia, by attempting to call their new republic Macedonia, seek to disenfranchise 2« million Greek Macedonians from their birthright, and at the same time (according to the Greeks) hijack Greek history back to Alexander the Great and Hellenic antiquity.
But the biggest blow to FYROM's highly successful propaganda campaign to gain worldwide sympathy as the bullied fledgling republic came unstuck when the European High Court ruled in favour of Greece's crippling economic blockade of FYROM â the European Commission had sought to have the blockade ruled illegal.
Perhaps surprisingly, most Greeks are sympathetic towards the people of FYROM and their desire for identity, and a new nationalism. They do not, contrary to FYROM propaganda, fear invasion or armed conflict with FYROM's fledgling 20,000 strong army. What they fear is the repetition of Balkans history that has seen Macedonia, and its coveted Aegean port of Thessaloniki, as the apple of the dipping barrel of a general Balkans conflict involving the same old foes: Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and Turkey.
Until now, at least in Australia, the Greeks have been seen to be the bullies in the squabble. Perhaps it's the Aussie thing about supporting the underdog. That the 2 million ethnic mix of FYROM are also at the virtual mercy of the Serbs should their war machine turn south, has made their small determined bid for freedom and identity seem just and supportable to non-Greek Australians.
The other major confusing aspect for the average non-Greek Australian has been the Slav refugees from Tito's Yugoslavia (post WWII) settling in Australia and creating a neo-Macedonian identity. There were Macedonian clubs, Macedonian restaurants. After 40 years of saying they're Macedonians and going uncontested, they have, in Aussie eyes, become Macedonian.
The Greeks here and at home have been outflanked on the whole issue, certainly from a propaganda point of view. Triaridis, during his brief Melbourne stop-over, admitted as much. There is no Macedonian nationality; it is a region that happens to cross three borders. (51% in Greece, including the core of the ancient kingdom). There is no such thing as a Macedonian ethnicity, he said.
For me, oppression started with student life, said Triaridis. Until his political career, a professor of surgery at Aristotle University in Thrssaloniki, Triaridis had joined George Papandreou's (the current Prime Minister's father) movement in 1958 and played a leading part in the political struggles of the sixties generation, who fought for full recognition of Greek citizens' constitutional rights. Eventually he stood for parliament in the 1967 elections, which were subsequently forestalled by the military coup of April 21. Then, as an active member of the resistance, he was eventually arrested and exiled to a remote mountain village for three years.
The experience he said, gave him plenty of time to read and think. It also gave him a progressive outlook.
At the time that many of the Slav-Macedonians came to Australia from Yugoslavia and northern Greece (1950s and 60s) they were oppressed. "These people have memories of that time and I sympathise with them because I too was oppressed. But that is in the past. There is no discrimination against minorities now," he says.
The results of the European Union elections paint a vivid picture of a modern and rapidly changing Greece. Twenty per cent of the vote turned away from the two major parties. (This turned out to be a trend in most EU member countries.)
Surely all of this is representative of a free democratic society, where there is a free climate for people to express themselves. Triaridis is optimistic of FYROM and Greece solving their differences; the main stumbling blocks being FYROM's insistence on using the name Macedonia and Greece's retaliatory economic blockade of the struggling republic.
The major hope of a settlement now rests with the intermediary role of the UN mediator Cyrus Vance in discussions between the protagonists.
Perhaps Kostas Triaridis represents the more conciliatory face of the Greek government, until now uncompromising in its demands on FYROM. As members of his entourage crowded in to whisk him off to a late appointment he dallied longer to get his conciliatory message across. I'm an open man, he said, I've paid my price to be this way.
The only hope is the future. Kostas Triaridis put it â life is progressive, we will find solutions to suit everybody.
[Tony Johnston is a freelance journalist. This article was submitted by the Hellenic Council of New South Wales.]