Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

eserve and we don't believe each other
enough. The whole world moves forward
and we go backwards like crabs! It
would be in vain to shout: "Stop World,
let us get on board!" They won't hear us,
they'll already be too far away.
I often wonder how our parents and
grandparents managed to live together
and to respect each other. Were they
smarter, more patient, were the times
different, or, were the people different?
I still remember the stories that my
grandfather Petre used to tell me when
I was a child about those days when the
only thing that mattered was who you
were, not what you were. When the
most important thing was to be honest,
and it was not important which religion
or which party you belonged to. I
remember talks about the close friend
from Debar, about the house in the market,
about their frequent visits, the staying
for the night on the way home,
about the days when Granny Arslanica
washed the feet of the tired guest, as a
sign of the greatest respect and friendship.
The night was too short for the
stories that the old friends -of different
religions, but sharing heart and understanding-wanted
to tell each other.
Where are the two sons of Arslanica
now and what are they doing? Do the
children of uncle Sali from Samokukji
contact and visit the Christians as they
used to before, as well as the children
of that Albanian from Papradishte
whose name I don't know, who is
buried on the premises of my distant
childhood, when during the summer I
anxiously waited for him to unload his
bags full of ripe pears. If there is a
smallest bit of understanding left
between them, and us, then we have a
future, a common one!
Why have we forgotten to listen to
each other, let alone understand each
other? Did we contribute to what has
happened to us or was it someone else's
fault? It's not that important any more.
What is important now is that we learn
slowly! It seems that the majority of
Albanians have nothing more important
in their lives than the Ohrid Agreement
-not the poverty, nor the unemployment,
nor the crime, nor the fact that the sanitation
containers get stuffed with bombs
instead of garbage. Many Macedonians
are still full of anger. First they put the
blame on Ljupcho, then on Branko,
because they "give too much to the
Shiptars" even though this is our country!
As if we are alone on this peace of
land, and, as if we don't share the same
destiny! And what is going to happen,
once what has been agreed upon in
Ohrid is fulfilled to the last full stop or
comma, whatever? Will the Albanians
become more loyal towards their own
country and will they finally feel it to be
theirs? Will the Macedonians divest
themselves of the complex that someone
is stealing something from them
and wants to take something from them
by force? And what about those who
don't belong to either of these groups,
according to their ethnic code, and also
have a right to a better life!
There is no other way out, we just
need to remind ourselves how our parents
and grandparents managed to live
together.
(The author is a member of the
editorial board of Multiethnic Forum
and editor of Utrinski Vesnik)
125
The Agreement Looks
for its Frame
Georgi Barbarovski
Macedonia overcame the horror, it
went through the rage, it left its grief
behind and entered a new phase of
changes dictated by the Ohrid
Agreement, known to the public as the
Framework Agreement. Two years
ago, immediately after the conflict,
there were problems both with the ratification
of such an agreement as well
as with its contents. Once its language
was brought into the Constitution and
several laws, the implementation
revealed a new problem-its framework.
Possibly the creators of that
document have left more space in the
section where the interethnic "rubbing"
is most emphasized, so that they
can mollify and minimize the hard
blows. But political pragmatism is on
its way to making a surrogate even
If it's true that the energy of an era is measured by the
number of creatures who suffer and that every political
credo is substantiated by the very victims it creates, then
Macedonia is on its way to fulfilling the obligations created
by the Ohrid Agreement
from the
healthy tissues, and through improvisation
to carve new loopholes in the
tight parts, where the changed organism
of Macedonian society is functioning
well. Who made the mistake,
the creators of the agreement or those
who are supposed to bring it to life?
This ambiguity can last only a while.
Two leaders of opposition political
parties are trying to raise their
standing and those of the parties they
lead with one extracted half-sentence
from the preamble, so they draw an
alleged right of self-determination for
the members of their ethnic community.
Of course, they are "encouraged
by the non-realization of the Ohrid
Two years of the ohrid agreement, August 2003