Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

The phenomen of Macedonia
The impossible
is happening anyway
Ljubisha Georgievski
It is more than certain that the
transition from a totalitarian to a pluralistic
society and accordingly from
a totalitarian into a pluralistic state, is
a process with no objective parameters.
I do not want to believe that this
situation is well-nigh impossible,
although the facts, the logic and the
generally adopted (at least for the
If the renovated
government manages
to neutralize
social problems,
then Macedonia
will have a
chance to pull
itself out of the
hellish picture of
the Balkans.
time being) raison d'etre,
confirm just that.
In fact, we are dealing
with a historical phenomenon
that has no
precedent, for something
that verges
almost on the edge of
the impossible. No
matter, "let us be realistic-and
search for the
impossible!"
Totalitarianism,
according to the rule, fails in a malignant,
ill-fated way, leaving behind
well-rooted inertia from continuing
fear: deformed personalities, ugly
moral and intellectual integrity; gossip-oriented,
career-oriented
immorality; dog-like loyalty to the
nomenklatura; Karamazov-style
relationship with God; violent attitude;
ideologically alienated consciousness;
paranoid attitude
towards police institutions and ideological
censorship; radically perverted
attitude towards work, with an
emphasis on laziness as a virtue,
complete lack of greater imagination
or entrepreneurial spirit; reduced
consciousness... And, when on top
of this, the famous negative elements
of the Balkan mentality are added,
then the picture of hell itself fades in
comparison. However that picture is
not completed yet. The picture will
not be completed, by the way, even if
we stitch on it the layers of interethnic
devilment spanning over five
centuries and the fact that all Balkan
states are de facto multiethnic and
multilingual,
regardless of
which or how
many of them
would acknowledge
it. In order
to complete the
image, we have
to add the relativity
or the
absolute youthfulness
of certain
countries
with a crumbled economy.
With such a picture, the question
of how to get out of this situation
becomes Kantian.
Where is the Republic of
Macedonia located in this mosaic of
horror? Above all, among countries
whose governments have confronted
head on the almost impossible question:
how do we strike a balance
between the courage and the wisdom
of the severe reforms as the only way
out, including the increasing social
vulnerability of citizens? Facing this
dilemma, previous governments of
the Republic of Macedonia, as the
country's leadership, behaved opportunistically
for many objective reasons
(wars in the neighbourhood,
embargoes, etc.) but also from a certain
voluntary aversion to facing the
problem directly. Meanwhile the
Communist corps was balancing
cosmetically.
The strongly expressed reform
orientation of the current government
most certainly contributes to its
declining favour among the citizens
on one hand, while on the other hand
it is gaining Europe's support, without
which it would not be able to
overcome that situation. I have an
impression that if the now renovated
government of the Republic of
Macedonia manages to better
orchestrate its final reform policy
and if it manages to neutralize the
social problems, then it can start to
pull the country out of the described
picture of hell.
In fact, the Republic of Macedonia
possesses numerous advantages
compared to other countries in
southeast Europe, even though it is
situated in the so-called western
Balkans. Macedonia's clearly peaceful
policy, internal stability, extremely
balanced interethnic relations, as
well as its consensual pro-European
orientation, contribute to the fact that
all political players unanimously recommend
it to the most serious attention
of the Euro-Atlantic structures.
The impossible is happening
anyway.
(The author is Macedonian
ambassador in Sofia)
13
Ten years of pluralism, December 2000