User:NikoSilver/Argumentation on the Macedonian dispute

The dispute between Greece and the country which may not be Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian or Serbian, but tries to steal their National Heroes]] (Big Alex, Gotse Delchev, Kraljevic Marko and Scanderbey) and Land (I don't need to explain this one) over the name of the latter has escalated to the highest point of international mediation, involving attempts to a resolution notably through the United Nations. The ongoing dispute is still pending full resolution and has created a great amount of political and academic argumentation for both sides.

The Greek position

Extremely minuscule minority

• Enforce and maintain ethnic homogeneity (Greece for Greeks!)
• Oppose self-identification
• Inflame popular "patriotic" passion in order to maintain (or try and wrestle from the opponent) political power.
  • Attempt (perhaps unsuccessfully) to distract attention away from corruption, crime, Greece's poor economic and living conditions.
• Appeal to the lowest-common denominator.
• Magnify infractions and extremist voices from the other side, minimise reasonable voices from the other side.
• Maintain "ownership" of and jealously guard nationalist historical narrative.

Extremely disregarded majority

• Self-identify, you know, like the Rockerfellers would be pissed off if you invented a name for yourself to match theirs.

You mean like the hundreds of other Rockefellers who are not in the Rockefeller family and have nothing to do with their history... I guess they're bitchin' about that all the time. You know, they go to a restaurant, and some waiter is like, "you know we had /those other Rockefellers/ in here, Alice and Bob Rockefeller from Stockton-on-Tees. Nice people." — I'm sure they'd throw their toys out of their pram quite so comprehensively! (remember, not talking about History, just about the name) --But we're not. And they didn't just happen to be called like that -they were named on purpose-, plus they tried to cash the other's creditcard.

The position of the country which is not Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian or Serbian, but tries to steal their National Heroes (Big Alex, Gotse Delchev, Kraljevic Marko and Scanderbey) and Land (I don't need to explain this one)

• Steal history
• Take over land
• Exaggerate minorities in neighbouring countries.
• Inflame popular "patriotic" passion in order to maintain (or try and wrestle from the opponent) political power.
  • Attempt (perhaps unsuccessfully) to distract attention away from corruption, crime, Macedonia's poor economic and living conditions.
• Appeal to the lowest-common denominator.
• Magnify infractions and extremist voices from the other side, minimise reasonable voices from the other side.
• Maintain "ownership" of and jealously guard nationalist historical narrative.
• Self-identify
• Not stop others from self-identifying -- do not care if people in Greece also call themselves Macedonians from Macedonia. (but then again they could settle for New Macedonia or something -a red link to the moment-) — and perhaps they would if you stopped bitching about it, out of their extreme voluntarity, especially having all those supporters who purposely disregard those poor others possibly in order to justify their fears for their own self-determination, that doesn't have so much to defend either-way, so who cares. Allotting voluntarity based on nationality! What a novel concept. I guess the Greeks must be just that little bit more voluntarity than the Macedonians, but I wonder where the Americans come in... probably below the Greeks, but above the Macedonians... The Swedes probably come above all, but we can't be sure! --Neither voluntarity nor kindness before were alotted based on nationality. They were alotted based on the stance of their representatives in solving this charade. (is this a talk?) -- You mean the stance of the representatives which you have met? Or all of the representatives? Politicians? Businessmen? I'd hate for people to assume the politicians who run the country I live in spoke for me! --Ok, try academics then.

International view

Diplomatic

See UN, EU, NATO and all other international organizations except one pathetic excuse that Aldux found.

non-Diplomatic

See the view of the people of the countries who are represented in these organisations. See the number of countries who have bilaterally recognised the Republic of Macedonia. See the name for the Macedonian language in all of the languages around the world.

Arguments in favour of the Greek position

None. We Greeks are just crazy and want to mess with other peoples' lives. We have a sick concept about ethnicity by judging from our own, which appears to have been documented as speaking the same language for more than 3,500 years. Therefore, Greeks are unable to comprehend other ethnicities, and the fact that they can be invented or otherwise appear within half a century (or so, or whatever). Especially by guys like him. And especially when they try to mock our history and steal our land. We don't expect cultureless people (like you English) to understand either. We've also great self-admiration to the degree of narcissism. But we have very beautiful women (especially in the summer), so we're justified. We are also great lovers, so let's have sex rather than writing hyper-trollish comments. Preferably not with each other here.

Arguments in favour of the position of the country which is not Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian or Serbian, but tries to steal their National Heroes (Big Alex, Gotse Delchev, Kraljevic Marko and Scanderbey) and Land (I don't need to explain this one)

• There are many ethnic Macedonians who don't try to steal anything, who acknowledge that 'lexy Baby is part of Greek and not Macedonian history, that Gotse described himself as Bulgarian but fought for Macedonian independence (think Thomas Paine) and the others. Sadly on these articles generally one comes across the kind of Macedonians who are more extremist and the ambivalent middle is excluded. The same with the Greeks, Albanians, Bulgarians, etc. Implying that all Macedonians are "culture thieves" is a childish stereotype, just as would be implying that all Albanians deal drugs or all Greeks have sex with children. Lighten up, oppose co-option of culture without vilifying everyone who happened to be born within the borders. There are no arguments in favour of virulent ethnic nationalism on the Macedonian side. Consider these points in favour of the Macedonian on the street who has no interest in the theft of history, but just wants to be able to decide on the collective name to self-describe.
• Ethnic identity and National identity are porous, one can be one, two or more than two ethnic or national identities without any kind of conflict. Thats humans for you, someone who thinks that ethnicity or national identity is carried by blood is hilariously misinformed. There is room for more than one ethnic identity with the same name.
• Insisting on calling a people something that they don't wish to be called does more harm than good. Chances are if you left them alone, or approached the subject in a less arrogant fashion they'd probably agree after a while. People like to have control over what they are called, and quite rightly so. Consider the Kurds who were described as "Mountain Turks", I think we all feel for their plight.

See also

• Macedonia (terminology)
• Naming dispute