Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

98
fruit of the past.
To avoid any confusion, we
should clarify: the seed and the fruit
are the same thing. They are different
only in their functions. The one who
puts them to use has no guarantee
which of the two functions they are
going to perform. Every farmer, who
has this existential paradox (seedfruit)
in his hands out in the field,
knows that.
Instead of exhausting ourselves
with questions about the past, the
present and the future of Macedonia (a
question that has always been more
interesting to our neighbors than to
us), we have to ask ourselves how to
behave towards ignorance in both its
forms: the recognized and the unrecognized.
So from our present
(hermeneutic) situation, we can only
see one side of the problem, whereas
the other side remains unmarked, and
this unmarked side of the problem,
with its anonymous nature determines
our "destiny." The unmarked place is
not the same as the ignorance in
Socrate's postulate: "I know that I
don't know anything." The ignorance
is the other, recognized side of knowledge.
The unmarked place, however,
is inaccessible for the modality
knowledge/ignorance.
Let us simplify. When we face
such terms as intersubjectivity, alter
ego, inclusion or incorporation of the
other, responsive ethics, blindfold of
ignorance, unmarked space, then we
are in the field of the ecology of ignorance.
(These terms until recently
were present only in the theory of politics,
yet today they are part of the
everyday reports and projects about
our country.)
That is why we should finally realize
that the origins and the future of
Macedonia (like every other country)
are also an existential paradox, an
issue that deserves the attention of
every citizen, and especially the attention
of every public servant in the
country (of course, if there are any).
Namely, the future of Macedonia is
not hidden in fictions called past or
future, but in our ability to face those
fictions. The usual theorizing and
manipulating with ready plans, wishes,
interests and invented identification
strategies will permanently lead
us towards a dead end. Our destiny, as
an elderly person would say, isn't any
different than the destiny of those
before us. The same thing that happened
to the self-understanding and
the cultural forms of "the world of
life" in the past will happen to today's
society too. There is no doubt about it.
Our world will go through the same
things as the other worlds in the past.
We shouldn't ignore this lesson while
discussing our future.
However, something else is
important at the moment. Namely, a
state that is legitimate regarding
human rights (and that indeed is
Macedonia after "Ohrid") is an open
state by definition, since the list of
human rights is not, and it can not
be, closed. It is in fact open.
According to human rights, everyone
can be, i.e., can become a citizen
of the state, because the state
doesn't determine who is human; on
the contrary: the person determines
how the state is going to look. At
least we have felt that, and we know
best: if you have corrupt people
leading the country--then your country
will be corrupted too. If you have
honest people--you will have an
honest country too. (As far as those
who have used hard times to gain
power are concerned, ordinary people
shouldn't be preoccupied with
them. In politics, just like in life,
there always comes a time when the
laws of nature start to function: you
perform evil deeds--you acquire
evil. There is no escaping that, as
our people would say, "the evil will
follow you in your offspring as far
as the ninth generation.")
The political community which is
identified by the innovation of adherence
to protecting human rights
(which is basically what the changes
in our Constitution consist of) is no
longer explicable within the traditional
notion of citizens' state, closed in
terms of territory and time (like our
neighboring countries). For the time
being, that is exactly what the people
in Macedonia, who have remained
patriots, are worried about. The state
that can no longer be identified with
some constancy (the innovations are
unpredictable and, thus, out of their
control) stops being a suitable form of
political community that we are familiar
with nowadays. Thus, right in front
of our eyes, we have the establishing
of some amorphous community that
looks upon innovation as an unconditional
presumption for its survival.
That is, in fact, our future; the believers
would add--our destiny, or kismet,
according to the Muslims.
Praxis is in itself the best media
through which humanity should act.
Thus, the next move is in the hands of
the people to whom these innovations
refer. Or, to put it plainly: the
Albanian minority in Macedonia
should finally become the advocate of
the Macedonian minority in Albania.
As soon as this is achieved, the present
innovations will begin to function
to their full capacity, and the future
will become, more or less, predictable.
Nonetheless, if the present
arrogant and ignorant attitude towards
this issue continues, the future will
stay naked fiction. We can't continue
claiming (as it happened on one platform
in Skopje recently) that if the
minority doesn't ask for their rights,
they shouldn't receive them; that the
quality of the rights depends on the
quantity of the minority. Such racist
attitudes are only going to increase the
gap and will cause hatred and rage
that (if they overflow) can drown us
all living in this territory.
What are we supposed to do now?
Weber would say: "It all depends
on the decidedness and the strong will
of one nation not to let their leaders
treat them as a herd of sheep."
Giddens would add: "You are
about to face a kind of 'cultural revolution'
which demands that every individual
during his lifetime behave like
a manager who possesses access to
different fields from the market and
who holds responsibility for her
achievements as well as for her downfalls".
To our health!
(The author is a professor at
the Faculty of Law in Skopje)
A new beginning, November 2002