Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

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Reading the paranoid cries for
"salvation through hatred," "salvation
through separation of people,
families, destinies…" in Macedonia,
after the tragic war (no war brings
happiness), the thoughts from a reaction
by the famous French writer
Andre Gide gushed inside me (from a
lecture that I repeatedly give to my
French literature students). This was
Gide's reaction to the nationalisticchauvinistic
work of another famous
French writer Maurice Barres. This
author, experiencing the tragic
German occupation of his native
Lorraine (with Alsace) in the 1880s,
wrote the novel Uprooted, in which
he plots the thesis of absolute "ethnic
distinction." Devoted to this idea of
rediscovering their native roots, his
uprooted heroes end up guillotined in
Paris.
The wraith of fascism in the heart
of France had been defeated by the
heroic engagement of Emil Zola
whose historical cry "I accuse"
(J'accuse), would not only save the
unjustly sentenced Jewish officer
Dreyfus, a victim of the nationalisticchauvinistic
euphoria, but would also
cause the fall of the then French
Republic. That republic had been the
greatest victory over fascist nationalism
in Europe, a victory of democracy
and hope, a victory of humanity.
Another paradigm from European history
is also known, which, had our exstatesmen
been familiar with it, they
would not have gotten wrapped up in
the "calculating galimatias" that our
ex-prime minister (at least he is unofficial
now) offered as an alternative.
Moreover, Andre Gide has a
famous reply to the extreme nationalist
ideas, delineated in his book
Pretextes, where he addresses his
colleague from the other side of the
mental barricade: "Born in Paris,
with a father from Uzet (southern
France) and a mother from
Normandy (northern France), where
are my roots, Monsieur Barres?"
During the fierce First World War,
when in the conflict with the
Germans there were over 1,500,000
casualties on the French side,
Romain Roland in his novel "Jean-
Christophe" had the courage to create
a German protagonist, modelled after
Beethoven,. And after so many wars
and demarcations and so many tragic
boundaries-even the fabled Maginot
Line-hasn't it all resulted in permanent
reconciliation, almost to a disappearance
of the borders between
Germany and France within the
European Union?
And indeed, as the old Latin
proverb says, history is a good
teacher of life, but unfortunately, it
has tragically bad students, especially
in the Balkans, as we have seen in
recent years.
Part 2
There is a long borderline
between Albania and Macedonia, a
border with a long and unfinished
history, a border that has marked the
life of my family and many other
families from both its sides. In the
south, the border divides two lakes,
in the north it divides rivers and valleys
and most of it is marked by high
mountaintops (the border that was
crossed by my family, without me
even remembering it, was a simple
"walk" from one part of the lake to
the other, no longer then 20-30 kilometres).
This border was strengthened
by ideologies; wider geostrategic
influences strengthened the
hatred.
Often, when I have looked at the
other side of the lake, at my country
across the border, since my youth my
relation to this border has occasionally
taken mythological dimensions.
As I grew up I gained an awareness
to explain and understand that border.
Even with the first reading I took
to heart Alphonse de La Martine's
verses, an adorer of another lake, for
different motives: "Why should
hatred part us, / why are there borders
in these waters?/ Is there a wall, a
limit to the sky?"
It is usually said that borders,
entered on the geographical maps
and marked on the ground are points
of incidents! Established with agreements,
they accumulate the human
uneasiness of many generations from
both sides.
Paul Valery adds that agreements
brought new worries and discords
that didn't stop the wars, but rather
strengthened them even more. Those
damn borderlines! Victor Hugo, who
had tasted the bitterness of exile, didn't
see the borders spatially, but in the
human character, in the person alone;
later, they project into space and
among people easily. And individual
truly finds themselves in hell when
surrounded by new borders, when the
hatred spreads within the person and
Meetings, not divisions, June 2003