WORKING TO ONE'S OWN DISADVANTAGE

Students' Demonstrations

AIM, Skopje, 16 January, 1997

Macedonian students are for the second time protesting against university education in Albanian, and the "others" seem to be reflecting views of their political mentors in the "game with fire" - by diverting attention to the sphere of inter-ethnic disagreements, even conflicts. The Albanian parties, either "honest" or not, are a part of this story.

The latest protests of Skopje students, it must be said right in the beginning, of Macedonian nationality, to say the least are interesting from various aspects. First, in the international context, they are taking place at the same time as demonstrations of students in immediate neighbourhood. The internal sphere, however, is more interesting - students here cannot brag of being extremely politically active. A chronicler of local developments can hardly remember their latest political move, if one does not mark as such occupying themselves with their own problems in the students' organization of Skopje University which they are still doing in connection with the election of its president or on a previous occasion when rector was (re)elected and when the leader of the students' alliance of Skopje University tried to play "a game" against the candidate which in the end won. "Peaceful protest of Skopje students", in fact their walk between the square in front of the adminuistration building of the "Kiril and Metodije" University, by the building of the Government to the building of the Assembly of Macedonia, in relation to protests of their colleagues in Serbia and Bulgaria, bears a retrograde burden. Skopje students, on a purely national basis, in fact responded to protests of the Albanian students who are demanding to be enabled to do what was promised to them when they inscribed to the newly formed Teacher-Training College, which had never started work, and that is to study in their language - in Albanian. Starting from that and in order to show their colleagues "who is who" in the Macedonian state, Skopje students of Macedonian nationality not only opposed their Albanian colleagues but also exerted pressure with their protest on the Ministry of education, the Government and the Parliament not to try to find a superficial solution for the problem of university education in other languages in officially recognized universities. Their demand that the law on language of teaching at teachers' colleges which has entered the parliamentary procedure and which the parliament should look into at the end of this month not be adopted, as well as their institing on adoption of the Law on University Education pursuant the Constitution of Macedonia, in other words respecting the fact that the Macedonian language is the only official language, speaks clearly of their political platform. Although this time with much more tolerant iconography, Skopje students have in fact repeated their walk of a couple of years ago when they protested because of opening of the Tetovo university which was the result of refusal of the authorities to meet the needs. Common denominator of both protests is that Skopje students are in fact denying the others the right to university education in their mother tongue. Such a retrograde approach is not at all characteristic for any form of students' political activities, because students' engagement as a rule and by definition has mostly had a progressive trend.

It is interesting that the then demonstrations were organized by the same man, President of the students' union of Skopje University, Toni Mircevski, but he and his organization were then believed to be close to the Macedonian national opposition. Denial of the right to university education not only to the Albanians, but also to non-Macedonians in general, at the time explicitly and now slightly concealed, befits more political commitments of nationalistic parties. This time, the same students' leader who is spending the last days of his second mandate, is now appearing on the stage from another position - he is already a proved member of the ruling Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM). The fact that he has not changed his political views but only the party of his affiliation, seems to be the thing which causes concern.

For a long time VMRO-DPMNE, MAAK and similar Macedonian parties and movements were considered to be the bearers of Albanophobia and intolerance to the Albanians in Macedonia. The creation of the "most revolutionary Macedonian parties" followed the populist cliche with slogans such as "For Pure Macedonia". Nevertheless, nationalism was attributed to right parties. In the meantime, especially after the latest congress, VMRO-DPMNE evolved into a party of the right centre which had the strength to accept realism and recognise that Macedonia as a state and the authorities in it, practically would not exist without the Albanians. Reformed communists in the costumes of social democrats seem to be proving that transformation of communists is possible only if it goes in the direction of nationalism. This is something deja vu in the region.

This brings us to the thesis which is present in the public of Macedonia, not only on the Albanian side. If mid of the eighties, the last years of communist rule, by application of "Milosevicist" methods in settling accounts with the "Albanian nationalism and separatism", can be said to have created all problems which still affect the Albanians (education, media and similar) at the time because of such moves also called Macedonian state nationalism, nowadays it is possible to talk about something similar again. It seems that the current authorities and the ruling, "left" SDSM is taking over the role of the defender of Macedonian national interests, when this is not done by the "right" parties.

By the way, minister of education from the eighties who was the executor of the then party in power in the domain of education (dissolution of classes in Albanian in secondary schools, differentiation of teachers and similar), is now the first man of the Senate of Skopje University which is permanently resisting establishment of university education in Albanian language, even in teachers' colleges. It can be heard quite often that the authorities and the party in power are in fact promoting themselves into a Macedonian variant of the HDZ or the SPS at the time of "construction" of Greater Serbia. Although disintegrated concerning other issues, the SDSM and its authorities manifest clear unison concerning the national emblem of the state they are leading. President of Macedonia Gligorov in a series of New Year's addresses, unambiguously showed that he was going six years back leaving the "others" (non-Macedonians) aside. Media in Macedonian language have lately begun to "satanize" the Albanians again. For instance, the anti-Albanian report of the World Heath Organization on mass poisoning in Tetovo is becoming topical again, "decisions" about the obligation of every Albanian employed abroad to finance the Tetovo university is stressed, and even a banal police story such as removal of assistant minister of internal affairs for State Security Servis (a year and a half after dissolution of the Service!) is given a special tone by adding to it the fact that the discharged man expressed disagreement with the course of investigation about the attempt on Gligorov's life and releasing of four Albanians who were supposed to be involved and probably served as a convenient solution for the unsuccessful investigation.

The best example is the treament of the visit of the special rapporteur of the UN Committee for Human Rioghts, Elisabeth Rehn by state media. Only her statement was carried that she was disappointed with the intolerance of Macedonian students who were demonstrating against plans for studies in Albanian at the Teachers' College. Her other disappointments were not mentioned (that the institution of ombudsmen was not established, that the citizens were often disturbed by the police), and her statement that education of minorities should be organized like in Finland was passed over in silence.

Perhaps this was done because that same lady stressed during her first visit to Macedonia that she had acquired her entire education in Swedish but in Danemark and that she thought it normal, which was at the time received with great disapproval by the Macedonians. Should anything be said about the fact that on the same day when he met Mrs. Rehn, Minister Frckovski stated on MTV that the political decision of Macedonian authorities to permit "soft monitoring" of international institutions was motivated only by a wish to show to the minorities the difference between the Romanticist national approach and the only possible - democratic one, which was already implemented so that the mandate of the present missions had to be changed because Macedonia did not wish to be put in the same basket with Serbia, Croatia and B&H. He also resolutely declared that Mrs. Rehn had agreed on that!

All that speaks in favour of the opinion that Macedonian authorities which are not at all doing well in the spehere of economy wish to divert attention to "greater threats" by raising inter-ethnic tensions, and even conflicts. And there is no "gretaer threat" in the Macedonian state than the Albanians! The question which imposes itself is if this was really the tendency of Macedonian authorities, what are Albanian representatives in it doing. The dilemma about their "step-by-step" strategy cannot resist the argument that the authorities were going back to rightist position of the opposition from the nineties and perhaps messages which are clear even to political amateurs. The Party of Democratic Prosperity (PDP) as a participant in the Government and parliamentary coalition is facing a challenge to reach decisions which will remove it from the role of the party of "honest Albanians" present in the authorities. Especially because at the time of the local elections it was evident that the Macedonian part of the authorities with its specific moves practically worked on strengthening of their Albanian political opponents. How ever absurd it may seem it was obvious in the achieved results. The PDP in relation to the PDP of the Albanians fared in the elections just as SDSM did in relation to other Macedonian parties - only manipulations with statistics could "certify" the thesis that they were winners. Generally speaking, real loss of Albanian voters is obvious even in relation to the second parliamentary elections when the Albanian parties instead of 23 (which they had in the first elections) won only 19 seats in the parliament. That their activities are contributing only to their disadvantage must be clear to all the leaders of the Albanian parties, but a concensus between them concerning fundamental things, without which all problems will be pushed to the margins, is still nowhere in sight.

ISO RUSI