By Michael Karadjis
In his article "Ambiguous names and places" (GLW, April 21), Gyorgy Scrinis claims that I set up a simple distinction between "Greeks" and "Macedonians", whereas in reality different peoples regard themselves as Macedonians. He therefore proposes that the term "Slav-Macedonian" be used when referring to the people of the former Yugoslav republic and the minorities in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania, to distinguish them from the "Greek-Macedonians" — i.e. the ethnically Greek majority of Greek Macedonia.
However, the term "Slav-Macedonian" is rejected by both sides, and we can't impose a name on a people against their will.
Moreover, Scrinis is completely incorrect to claim that I "set up" this terminological distinction. The official name of this community for many decades now in Australia and the rest of the world is "Macedonian". In government offices interpreters are available in Macedonian. There are Macedonian programs on TV and radio, and Macedonian is taught in schools. The terminology has been accepted in Australia for the last 40 years — including by the Greek community until recently.
However, in Greece I would use the term "Slav-
Macedonian" to make clear who I was talking about, as the term "Macedonian" there would be taken to mean the Greek population of Greece's Macedonia province.
Scrinis claims that this debate over terminology is the "crux" of the matter. In fact, the crux of the conflict is "Who is oppressing whom?" The dispute about a name is only a cover.
There is a difference between Greeks in Macedonia having a Macedonian identity, and the nationalistic tidal wave that has engulfed Greece in the last two years.
No matter how often it is put to Greek representatives, the crux of the matter is never answered. Do the minority in western Greek Macedonia (no matter what you call them) have the right to use their own language in the press, radio, TV or in other publications? Can they learn their language in schools? Can they use it in church? Can they have their own newspapers, schools or churches? Their music and dances? Can they set up a cultural centre? Are refugees from the late 1940s allowed to return? The answer to every question is "No".
Scrinis accepts that there is oppression but claims that the Macedonian republic is equally guilty because it allegedly has claims to Greek Macedonia, wants to create a "greater Macedonia" and produces maps of this state.
He is mistaken. In late 1991, Macedonia introduced constitutional amendments declaring that it has no territorial claims anywhere. However, there are forces in opposition with a more nationalistic stance, and some of them have produced such maps. Rightist groups in Greece produce maps showing Greece double its size too.
I agree with Scrinis that nationalists on both sides identify themselves with the ancient Macedonians to push their line, but in reality no-one can claim to be their pure and sole descendants. (Macedonian President Gligorov has declared that his people have no relation to the ancient Macedonians.)
Scrinis is mistaken again, however, when he claims that a Macedonian "identity per se doesn't seem to emerge till the late 19th century, following the rise of nationalism in the surrounding new nations of Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria earlier that century".
The implication is that there was no independent Macedonian identity, but rather a Greek, a Serbian and a Bulgarian Macedonian identity. Scrinis makes this clearer when he states that the Slavic-speaking people in what became Serbian (later Yugoslav) Macedonia were unwilling to adopt Serbian nationalism, because "they already identified more strongly with Bulgarian nationalism".
He doesn't consider the possibility that they didn't adopt Serbian nationalism because they weren't Serbs. "Slavic" is a broad language family, not a language; Macedonians are not Serbs or Bulgarians just as English are not Germans even though both speak "Germanic".
The rise of an independent Macedonian identity began in the mid-19th century. The first Macedonian-language schools and printers appeared in the 1840s. In the 1850s, the Macedonist current arose, declaring clearly the difference between the Macedonian and Bulgarian peoples and languages. In 1893, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO) was set up to fight against Turkish rule. It emphasised that Macedonians were a separate people from Bulgarians, and struggled for an independent Macedonia.
This struggle, opposed by the Bulgarian ruling class, occurred over all parts of Macedonia before it was divided between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria in 1913.
Scrinis states that "Greek-speaking Orthodox worshippers in the new province of Greek Macedonia" took on a Greek national identity. That's true, but what he does not say is that in 1913 Greeks were a minority of 10% in the whole of Macedonia, and a minority even in Greek Macedonia.
They became a majority through massive population exchanges with Turkey and Bulgaria in the 1920s. The overwhelming majority of Greek Macedonians today are descended from refugees who came to Macedonia in the 1920s from Asia Minor, where they had lived for thousands of years.
By contrast, since 1913, the Slav-Macedonian population of Greek Macedonia have suffered mass expulsions, forced Hellenisation and cultural oppression, thus dramatically reducing their numbers. The fact that these people have long called themselves Macedonian is clear from many sources in the 19th and early 20th centuries, above all Greek sources.
In fact, a people living solely in Macedonia calling themselves Macedonian is only to be expected. Greeks, Albanians, Serbs and Bulgarians living in Macedonia identify with Greece, Albania, Serbia or Bulgaria. The people in question live only in Macedonia and have no
foreign point of reference. Decades of oppression have cemented this identity.
In 1926, the Greek Education Ministry published the first primary school reader in Macedonian, and clearly distinguished it from both Bulgarian and Serbian. This was soon abandoned, but just compare that with now: in January 1992, the right-wing Greek newspaper Kathimerini produced a lift-out on the issue which claimed that the minority in northern Greece didn't exist. The following week the Education Ministry declared this lift-out would be distributed to all the schools of Greece!
The difference tells us that today's campaign is about something more than names. In 1926, Greece wanted to ward off Serbian and Bulgarian territorial claims. In 1991-3, is its aim to ward off similar claims by the Macedonian republic?
In fact, even if Macedonia had such claims, Greece would hardly feel threatened by a country of 2 million people without an army. Furthermore, the massive Greek nationalist campaign took off after the republic amended its constitution to declare it had no territorial claims — a good time to start a dialogue, one would have thought.
The reasons are elsewhere. On the one hand, an independent Macedonia would be a boost to the minority within Greece struggling for democratic rights. Such a struggle would expose the Greek government's appalling history on this question.
The more aggressive wing of Greek capital would no doubt like a chunk of Macedonia, as expressed in many of their mass circulation dailies. While the current government has a more pragmatic approach, it would also see Macedonia kneeling to its demands as a step towards domination of the region by Greek capital.
And while it's all going on, getting thousands of people into the streets to demonstrate Greek unity on the "national issues" is a useful way of diverting their attention from the class war being waged against Greek workers and farmers by the Thatcherite government of Prime Minister Mitsotakis. This is the real crux of the matter.