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| Thread: My (changed) opinion in the Macedonian dispute | |
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kesnar
Famous Hero
from Kesnaria
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posted August 18, 2009 02:37 PM |
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Edited by kesnar at 14:54, 18 Aug 2009.
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My opinion in the Macedonian dispute
I WANT THE MODERATORS TO LOCK THE THREAD IN CASE A FLAME STARTS AND THE USERS TO NOT START A FLAME.
I created this thread so that we will discuss nice and friendly, I don't want any nationalistic and absolute opinions here...
Well, maybe the Macedonian dispute is not so "hot" as a year ago, but after reading some things(not here), I wish to show you my opinion.
First of all, (as some may know) I am from Greece, and (as some of you may not know) I am an anti-nationalist.
The dispute is a little chaotic, because, we cannot really talk about countries in the ancient era, we may only talk about races and places. Also the Balkans were under the rule of Ottomans(Turks now) for many years, so the different races in Balkans were mixed, and we definitely can't say that the Greeks now are the same as ancient Greeks.
Now let's dive in history.
Firstly, it's reality that the greeks(atheneans, spatians, korinthian etc) were cut in half, some liked the macedonians and some not. It's also true that the Macedonians were not exactly the same tribe as the rest.
BUT
Neither the other greeks were of the same tribe. The Greeks were considered as one because, they had the same language, same religion and lived in the same area. All of these characteristics had the macedonians too.
Now, to the middle ages:
When at greece there was the Byzantine empire, the slavic tribes came from Russia down to Balkans.Now the slavic people are the:Bulgarians, all the countries of Yugoslavia, Bosnians, Croats etc.(As I told before there have been mixings in the different tribes in Balkans and in the world generally)
Modern times:
Yugoslavia is destroyed and many little countries spawn. One of them is FYROM or Republic of Macedonia. The people of FYROM want a name for their country so that they are not confused with the other countries. However some of them, believe ancient macedonians to be their ancestors.
That is the history I know(not only from school, I like to know things and that's why I search them). From it, we don't see much of connection between FYROM and ancient macedonians.But as I have said before there is no true greek, true macedonian, true "whatever"...So, yes, I have problem with ancient macedonians to be ancestors of FYROM, not because I am greek but because it's not the history(I believe). As for the name, I don't have problem, Macedonia is a large area. Some of it is at Bulgaria, some at Greece and some at FYROM(I use that name so that it is easier to see FYROM and ancient macedonians), they can be called "northen macedonia" or something
SOLUTION:Unite the BALKANS under a new language(with influences from every "old" language) and much of history and culture!!!(this is a dream that may never come true...)
Thank you very much for reading my post and I would like to hear your opinions and again, please, don't start flaming, let's keep it quite and nice...
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kipshasz
Undefeatable Hero
Elvin's Darkside
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posted August 18, 2009 07:19 PM |
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Uniting Balkans into a single nation wouldn't be good idea, as it would cause a lot of internal conflicts, and those could easy could turn into another war. Also mixing cultures would cause a lot of trouble as well. All looks awesome in vision though, but the main question is, do the Balkanian people want to unite into a single nation?
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"Kip is the Gavin McInnes of HC" - Salamandre
"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior
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xerdux
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
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posted August 18, 2009 07:41 PM |
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I dont understand how anyone can care about this down there. So, big deal if Macaronia isn't Greece... And did dont seem to like Turkey either. Do any of these countries like each other...
Sure, the Nordic countries ''fight'' too. But its like a brother and sister relationship. We make jokes about each other, in a friendly way. Even though my dad thinks they should build a huge parking slot over Denmark and clear out their throats so that they can speak lol.
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kesnar
Famous Hero
from Kesnaria
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posted August 18, 2009 07:57 PM |
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Quote:
All looks awesome in vision though, but the main question is, do the Balkanian people want to unite into a single nation?
I do 
@Xerdux:Well, there were a lot of wars here in Balkans...that's why there is hatred among some people...but as I said, I don't have a problem with any race...they are still beings(this is not used to lower anything but to show that animals are equal to men)...
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baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted August 19, 2009 10:53 AM |
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Quote:
SOLUTION:Unite the BALKANS
People had that dream already. Unfortunately it turned out to be a nightmare.
Let me tell you a brief history of Yugoslavia. It might seem a bit confusing, or it might clear things up for you. I hope it'll be the latter.
Yugoslavia was created after WW1, as an idea to use the fall of the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires to liberate all the Slavic peoples that lived under them and unite them into a country of their own. This sounds quite dreamy and wonderful; but of course when it finally happened, it was an entirely different story. Ethnic, as well as religious tensions were on the rise - the orthodox Serbs, catholic Croats (and Slovenians) and muslims (which now call themselves "Bosnians" but are basically Serbs and Croats which accepted muslim faith from the Turks) all appeared to have conflicting ideas about how the country should be led and who should be in charge. The centralized policies induced by the Yugoslavian king (it was a kingdom back then) just seemed to pour oil on the fire.
Arguing in the Congress went so far that, after a severe national fight, and heavy exchange of insults, a Serbian congressman took out a pistol and started shooting at the leaders of some Croatian nationalist party.
Then World War 2 came along. The government was offered a pact by Hitler, and it reluctantly accepted; but after the huge historical demonstrations in Belgrade (with slogans such as "Better grave than slave"), Hitler got pissed and invaded the country.
Croatia welcomed them with opened hands, while Serbia was razed to the ground by the Wehrmacht - further underlining the national division between conflicted sides in Yugoslavia. After Croatia was granted independence by Hitler, it created infamous concentration camps which devoured hundreds of thousands of Serbs, gypsies, and other non-Croats. The rest of Yugoslavia was divided among Hitler's satellites and it pretty much seemed dead and buried, even should the allies win the war.
However, after the war, communists came along, led by a mysterious Croat called Josip Broz Tito. There were quite some conspiracy theories about him, such as that he was replaced during the war by great powers etc, but that's not important. The important thing is that he actually managed to get Yugoslavia back together; through communist ideas and the philosophy of "brotherhood and unity". Though officially a communist, and though there were severe repercussions for those unloyal to the system, no one was starving, the standard was high and people seemed to do alright. That is, until Tito died.
When he died everything suddenly burst back into chaos. Tito kept things united but actually divided the country into what it is today - the current boundaries are boundaries of Tito's inner republics that he set himself. With the rise of nationalists in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia, it all fell apart in probably one of the most senseless wars ever to appear. Milosevic's appallingly poor skill as a military and political leader, as well as the fanaticism of his Croat and Bosnian adversaries led to genocide, exoduses and vendettas on all sides. The most famous of these is Srebrenica, where Serbian soldiers executed Muslims; unfortunately this is the only world-wide known crime in that war. The Croatian operation "Storm", for example, which is still the national holiday to some over there, led to the repercussion and forced banishment of Croatian Serbs, leaving hundreds of thousands of homeless and impoverished people behind and practically ethnically cleansing Croatia of Serbian population.
Afterwards, Milosevic remained in power in Serbia, despite huge protests and continued his quazi-social nationalist policies which gave Albanians on Kosovo (whom Tito allowed to settle there en masse) the excuse to start their own national riots. It started from requesting ethnically pure Albanian schools, and raged on from there, to rioting, burning churches and the like. Milosevic answered with force, as usual - which was wrong on hundreds of levels and led to NATO bombing the country, Kosovo declaring de facto independence and Serbs turning out to be the bad guys in the eyes of the world.
On the 5th of October, 2000, we somehow finally overthrew Milosevic (though it could've been done far sooner if the West helped a coup instead of bombing people and prolonging national tension in order to get a satellite state in the form of Kosovo - this is just a personal opinion of course) and got a democratic system which somehow lasts until today.
What this whole tirade was meant to say is that, no matter what system you put here or how you try to maintain it, sooner or later, any union among the peoples of the Balkans is going to explode; and the more you try to keep it, the bloodier will be the falling apart. And bear in mind that all of this happened only with Slavic peoples - now imagine putting Albanians, Greeks and maybe Turks into the mix.
It's a great idea, in theory. But in practice, people die.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Rarensu
Known Hero
Formerly known as RTI
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posted August 19, 2009 11:02 AM |
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Edited by Rarensu at 11:03, 19 Aug 2009.
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Quote:
In practice, people die.
How is that different from any of the alternatives?
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Sincerely,
A Proponent of Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation, and Courtesy.
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Lexxan
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Unimpressed by your logic
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posted August 19, 2009 11:04 AM |
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Of course there is. It's called life.
I don't see why the Balkans must be reunited. They are even falling apart (Kosovo, Montenegro) as it is. Why reunite them? These guys seems happy enough on their own.
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Coincidence? I think not!!!!
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VokialBG
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First in line
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posted August 19, 2009 02:03 PM |
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Edited by VokialBG at 14:16, 19 Aug 2009.
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You need to recheck your knowledge.
Quote:
When at greece there was the Byzantine empire, the slavic tribes came from Russia down to Balkans.Now the slavic people are the:Bulgarians, all the countries of Yugoslavia, Bosnians, Croats etc.
First the slavic people are not from Russia, there were three groups of slavs - Anti (East slavs, the are now in Russian, Ukraine, Belarus), Slavini (South slavs, they are now in Serbia, Slovenia and etc) and finally Veneti (West slavs, they are polish people and the others near them). The old slavic homelands were the lands between the Carpathians, Baltic Sea and the rivers Oder, Dniester and Dnieper. Pretty huge terriotory. So slavs went to Russia in the past. We can't say that Russia is populated by slavs only because of its hugeness and because of the many people with Sweden origins (Rurik, who was the prince of Novgorod was a viking, so you got the point).
As for the bulgarians, they are not really 100% slavs, but maybe only 10-30%, since they originaly were in the lands of todays Ukraine, and before that in the lands of todays Afghanistan and a bit later - Iran, they left that territory and went to the Caucasus. Bulgarians are not slavic people, later when they populated the Balkans and formed Danubian Bulgaria they were allies with the slavs there against the Avar Khaganate and Byzantium.
Quote:
Now let's dive in history.
Firstly, it's reality that the greeks(atheneans, spatians, korinthian etc) were cut in half, some liked the macedonians and some not. It's also true that the Macedonians were not exactly the same tribe as the rest.
BUT
Neither the other greeks were of the same tribe. The Greeks were considered as one because, they had the same language, same religion and lived in the same area. All of these characteristics had the macedonians too.
For the ancient state the historians are using "Macedon" and for it's people "Macedons", just to make difference between the ancient people born in Macedonia and the today people born in Macedonia, that because they are 100% different. I agree with the theory that the ancient macedon, and at least Alezander the Great were greak people (maybe mixed). However during the Middleages and the Ottoman slavery that territory was populated with Bulgarians and it's so still, they just call themselfes "Macedonians" (today, but never 60-70 years ago), but they are actually "Bulgarians born in Macedonia".
Quote:
However some of them, believe ancient macedonians to be their ancestors.
But they are not, they are bulgarians, and it's very easy to spot. They speak dialect of the Bulgarian language, they were almost always part of the Bulgarian Empire, during the ottoman slavery they are fighting to liberate Bulgaria, in the modern ages, when that terriory was left in the Ottoman Empire, thanks to the World powers egoism they did few revolts all supported by the Bulgarian state, they were always running to Bulgaria (refugees) during wars and after the revolts. Even the capitol has it's name, because they are bulgarians. It's called "Skopie", because it was residence of the bulgarian Emperor Roman who was castrated, in bulgarian castrated man is called with the word "Skopetz", so "Skopie" means "Town of the castrated man" or something similar.
I can give you tones of info about that.
Now on the other question, I was always supperter of the Balkan federation idea. I see in the only chance for huge and strong state on the Balkans, just if they don't use the Yugoslavian model completely.
Quote:
I don't see why the Balkans must be reunited. They are even falling apart (Kosovo, Montenegro) as it is. Why reunite them? These guys seems happy enough on their own.
Balkans were united only during the times when 90% of the territory was part of the Bulgarian Empire... and yeah during the Roman times. Real Balkan federation never existed, there were few ideas with supporters but it was never done.
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted August 19, 2009 04:24 PM |
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Edited by Consis at 16:27, 19 Aug 2009.
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Not to Worry
The two guys who care most about this aren't even here anymore. Svarog and Lith-Maethor already took this discussion and debated it with great intensity. I also seem to recall an interesting post or two from Vlaad. Well....that is unless my memory fails me. Perhaps we should find that old thread.
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Roses Are Red And So Am I
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baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted August 19, 2009 09:10 PM |
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The main problem with Macedonians is that their country is generally claimed by every single one of their neighbours - Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and Serbia.
I kinda feel sorry for the chaps.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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kesnar
Famous Hero
from Kesnaria
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posted August 20, 2009 01:02 AM |
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What do you mean by their country?!?Greeks don't want to take their country...mecedonians say that greece has occupied their lands but that's not true...
@Vokial:We mostly agree...when I said Russia, I meaned the general area...
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baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted August 20, 2009 01:58 AM |
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Edited by baklava at 01:59, 20 Aug 2009.
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They don't want to take it since they don't really need it - but they're still claiming it and causing tension about the name and stuff.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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kesnar
Famous Hero
from Kesnaria
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posted August 20, 2009 03:01 AM |
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Well, not exactly...from what I have heard(and that's from greek media so they may be false...) is that FYROM considers that their country is really almost a quarter of greece(click me for map of what they think) and that greek have done genocicides against them...which I don't think are true...What Greece wants is for FYROM not to be named directly Macedonia for 2 reasons:
1) Macedonia is a bigger region
2) They may attempt at future by showing that they are named Macedonians to take the whole macedonia.
Really there is no tension from the greek side(except some small fascistic/rascestic/nationalistic movements) to take FYROM...the dispute is only at the name and at if Macedonians(ancient) were greek or not...
What I have also heard and you may have been confused by it, is that Bulgarians consider residents of FYROM to be Bulgarians thus FYROM to be of Bulgaries...
If you have heard that Greece wants FYROM it's total propaganda, I assure you that there is no govermental tension to claim FYROM's land...
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antipaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
of Ooohs and Aaahs
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posted August 20, 2009 10:21 AM |
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yet there is Georigia as a country and a state in usa. but they dont seem to fight that much...
also why does it metter if they call themselfs macadonia?
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types in obscure english
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VokialBG
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First in line
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posted August 20, 2009 10:37 AM |
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Edited by VokialBG at 10:40, 20 Aug 2009.
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Quote:
yet there is Georigia as a country and a state in usa. but they dont seem to fight that much...
also why does it metter if they call themselfs macadonia?
The point (at least mine) is that they are hostile to everyone. And one more, some call themselfs "macedonians" by force. Currently there is another scandal between Bulgararia and Macedonia, some woman born in Macedonia called herself "bulgarian", now she is imprisoned just because of that! Thats the point, the guys that rule this state fear, that a lot people still think on themselfes as bulgarians and not "macedonians". Like a year ago, a man in Macedonia hanged the bulgarian flag on his balcony, gruess what? He was imprisoned!
If they want to be separate state, well ok, no one can say them "no!", but they should not stand against the national self-consciousness of their citizens, they should stop stealing the history of other states (currently they think that they are "pure slavs" alson with "inheritors of the ancient macedons", what is ridiculous) and etc.
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kesnar
Famous Hero
from Kesnaria
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posted August 20, 2009 05:19 PM |
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Quote:
yet there is Georigia as a country and a state in usa. but they dont seem to fight that much...
also why does it metter if they call themselfs macadonia?
It's really different:
Firstly, At USA there are many names from Europe...towns/places etc
Secondly, the citizen's(not everyone but the biggest part and their government) of FYROM consider that the whole macedonia area is their's...it's not at the name, but if they are allowed to be named Macedonia they will easily support that the whole macedonia is theirs...There's the problem...
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