Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

flicts contained significant elements
of such identity conflicts: Bosnia was
extremely violent, Kosovo less so,
and Macedonian managed to avoid
violence often in spite of the war of
2001. The first two conflicts resulted
in the failure of the multicultural
political project and ended with a
reversible ethnonationalism and ethnic
cleansing. Until now, the last
conflict has been a unique example of
still functioning democratic politics
of a multicultural society. The essence
of identity conflicts and the instruments
for solving them are a special
subject in international politics: negotiation
techniques between identities.
MACEDONIAN MODEL
OF MULTICULTURAL
SOCIETY
What makes these experiences
(let's focus only on them) so similar
and at the same time so different?
What is it that in one set of circumstances
multiculturalism is reduced to
the meanest violence, whereas in
another it sustains efficiency and
democracy? Macedonia has a significantly
different setting of multicultural
society and democracy. History has
been "kind" regarding bloodshed
between the groups of people living
on the territory of ethnic Macedonia.
There were clashes with occupying
forces, but no similar clashes between
the ethnicities (in that context the
Macedonian-Albanian discourse differs
greatly from the Serbian-
Albanian). The role of the church is
more tolerant because the
Macedonian Orthodox church, due to
its exclusion from the family of
Orthodox churches, learns how to live
alongside other religions in a milder
way, unlike the rest of the Orthodox
churches, and inclines toward the
Vatican rather than towards Moscow
or Constantinople. The syndrome of a
country of crossroads "teaches"
Macedonia and keeps it open to an
international presence which has
become a part of everyday life, and
has an important stabilizing role in
interethnic conflicts and dialogues in
a form of "soft" mediation. So the
country's open stance is a good start.
At the time of the initial establishing
of democracy and independence the
political elite was functioning on a
higher level compared to the other
examples above, and they emphasized
the positive side of the history
of interethnic relations. Thus precious
time was gained when establishing
democratic institutions and
during their initial start-up. The international
context favored internal
cohesion to a significant degree
(which was not the case regarding
international recognition of the country),
namely, the Serbian project for a
larger state was (non-pashic) focusing
westward towards western Serbs,
who are far more numerous.
Macedonia gained time, which it took
advantage of while acquiring its independence
and pulled itself out without
a war. The Macedonian Albanians, a
relatively small group among the
Albanians in the region, have their
own internal dynamics and interests
that contain the following paradoxes:
they have the best economic-political
state and culture and an appropriately
significant international position,
stronger by far relative to their number.
Can their leaders be as important
as those in Kosovo and Albania? That
wouldn't be possible if they were
closer to the Kosovars. They would
be sucked into the far larger mass of
more violent Kosovars and would disappear
as a semi-subject (Macedonian
Albanians). Therefore Macedonian
Albanians have special interests all
their own: to maintain rhetorical solidarity
with their "brothers," but to
maintain their distance as long as possible.
For that reason they cooperate
with the Macedonian authorities, not
because they are coerced nor because
they are "special Albanians."
THE CONSTITUTION
PROVIDES SOLID
GROUND
In order to translate this into an
effective, relatively stable and democratic
policy, a global political frame
had to be designed which would be
(indirectly) internationally guaranteed.
The1991 Constitution of
Macedonia provided the base and the
Ohrid Agreement completed it in certain
important details. The Ohrid
Agreement can be successful and stable,
namely due to the grounds it is
built on, and of course, due to some of
its conceptual principles.
We will focus on a few key principles
contained therein. There are
roughly three solution pillars in the
Ohrid Agreement. One is the extension
of the most painless, and at the
same time most tangible, cultural benefit
for the minority ethnic communities:
language rights. The second is a
new parliamentary procedure
(Badinter's majority) for enacting
laws, in order to guarantee protection
from the majority outvoting the laws
that directly refer to minority rights;
and the third is the timeframe for
staffing up public administration with
employees from the minority ethnic
communities.
The agreement, as is obvious
now, lacks a more precise (and not
only analogous) regulation of the
same multiethnic principles that governs
it to be carried out at the local
level. Although so-called local
democracy is highly emphasized
(which is also highly emphasized in
Badinter's conceptual scheme), it hasn't
been elaborated in the major procedures,
except for the election of certain
police officials. For the time
being the agreement steps all over the
major political benefits of the
Macedonian experience, although the
actors that signed it were each down
for the count. The Albanians were
uncertain of what HQ and the other
Albanian parties would say (despite
relying mostly on American guarantees
that the Agreement was all right);
VMRO-DPMNE, in general confusion
over the poorly governed
"defence" policy, was frustrated and
overcome by anger; the SDSM members
took a greater authoritative role
than they actually possessed, but they
had the most solid understanding of
the framework and potential solu-
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Two years of the ohrid agreement, August 2003