<nettime> Veton Surroi's open letter to the Macedonians

["geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>]

(Veton Surrio is an extraordinary brave and professional Kosovar journalist
and publisher of the Kosov@-Albanian dialy Koha Ditore. During the nineties
his paper had to deal with considerable media repression organized by the
Milosevic regime. You may remember that Surroi disappeared during the Kosov@
war. During the March-July 1999 many feared for this life but Veton
remarkably survived in heading, straight in middle of Pristina. Now he is
again speaking up about the Albanian-Macedonian conflict. /geert)

From: RFE/RL BALKAN REPORT Vol. 5, No. 59, 21 August 2001

SURROI'S LETTER TO THE MACEDONIANS.  The Kosovar publisher
Veton Surroi wrote an open letter to his "Macedonian friends," which
appeared
in his daily "Koha Ditore" on 19 August. In the introduction, Surroi says
that
he decided to write the letter after hearing from unidentified sources
that officials within the Macedonian secret police believe him to be
"the main ideologist of the UCK, adviser in political military matters to
[UCK political leader] Ali Ahmeti and to [the head of the Democratic Party
of the Albanians (PDSH)] Arben Xhaferi, as well as an adviser to the U.S.
and other international mediators."  Surroi says that he has therefore
decided to publish his views about the conflict in Macedonia now, rather
than wait "until rumors about the octopus-man [Surroi] make it into the
Macedonian press through the secret police's channels."

Surroi explains that the ethnic Albanians and Macedonians in Macedonia
do not consider themselves equals, even though they are very similar
in many respects. In his words, "the Albanians look at the Macedonians
as people who were equal [to them] over half a century ago, but who
have begun to dominate" the country since the creation of the Macedonian
nation-state [in 1991].  The ethnic Macedonians, however, "view the
Albanians just as they viewed themselves over half a century ago," when
the Macedonians were not recognized as a constitutional people within
the framework of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Surroi adds
that the situation is not unlike that between Israelis and Palestinians.
He recalls that once during negotiations in Oslo, an Israeli negotiator
broke the ice by telling the Palestinians: "Do you know why we hate you?
Because you are so similar to us." A Palestinian responded by saying:
"That's the same with us."

Surroi stressed that the Macedonian people still have problems in
defining their identity. But he adds that, among all Macedonia's
neighbors, only the Albanians have fully recognized the existence of
the Macedonian people. In Bulgaria, the term Macedonia traditionally
had a geographic meaning, describing a territory populated primarily by
people of Bulgarian origin. Bulgaria does not recognize the existence
of a separate Macedonian language as distinct from Bulgarian, but
it quickly recognized its neighbor as an independent state. Serbia
has politically recognized the Macedonians as a people, but not
the autocephalous Macedonian Orthodox Church, which was part of the
Serbian Orthodox Church until relatively recent times. And despite
improvements in the diplomatic and economic relations between Greece
and Macedonia in the past few years, Greece does not recognize a
Macedonian, but only a Slavophone, community within its borders.
Surroi adds: "Isn't it weird that in the current conflict, [Macedonians]
hate precisely those who have no problems with the identity of the
Macedonian people? And [that the Macedonians] see the demand for
the equality of the Albanian language as threat to the existence of
the [Macedonian] state -- [a threat to the] identity of the Macedonian
people?" He argues that the concept and notion of an ethnically based
state, rather than the identity of the Macedonian people, is at the core
of the problem: "For the political elite...Macedonia is the only state
where the Macedonian identity has developed, and that has happened
through ... [the] dominance of Macedonians and of the Macedonian language."

But at the same time Surroi recognizes that Macedonia is a democratic
country and stresses that the country has moved forward in building
democratic institutions and in holding free elections.  But these
democratic procedures are not enough. Surroi wrote: "In a democratic and
multiethnic society, where everything depends on the vote of the majority,
those who are in the minority will constantly feel that they lack the
power democracy offers. Thus, despite all the benefits that they have
had from participating in governing coalitions, the Albanians remained
powerless to bring about the changes that they have demanded since the
creation of democratic Macedonia. These were demands for the equal use
of the Albanian language, university education in their language, and
proportional representation in state institutions. They have always
been outvoted -- and not along political or party lines, but along
ethnic lines."

Surroi acknowledges that "not every minority can expect to get everything
it demands, and if it does not get everything, to set off a crisis that
shakes the foundations of the state." He adds, however, that "what we see
today...is [the result of] a lack of electoral democracy in dealing with
the problems of an important group of citizens.  Those citizens do not
accept domination [by others] as a form of living together and have
the force to make their views felt." He nonetheless believes that "the
Albanians and Macedonians are now in a situation where they can take
a step beyond electoral democracy to consensual democracy, in which
two things must not be allowed to happen: that the one side outvotes the
ethnic minority, or that the other side blocks all manner of decisions on
the basis of [claiming to protect] the ethnic minority." (Fabian Schmidt)

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