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Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

theguardian.com

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Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

#61

Post by JumpCrisscross »

shapiro92 wrote: post #57

I personally do not care about the naming. Name each place / country whatever you want. What I care about is the political games that are being played behind it. People in this thread miss one point about FYROM, they want to use the name Makedonia with relations to the ancient Makedonas. Which in turns creates issues with the Greek nation. Now with the new "deal" they will take the name North Macedonia but they stric…

> Which in turns creates issues with the Greek nation

It creates zero issues for Greece. Alexander the Great died over two millenia ago [1]. Shortly after his death, the ancient kingdom of Macedon fell to Rome [2]. Again, over two millennia ago.

Instead of working on something productive, these two nations found something totally irrelevant to squabble over.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(ancient_kingdom)#Co...

Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

#63

Post by fibbra »

ryanlol wrote: post #50
ninjamayo wrote: post #30

I really hope things change for the better. Being from the north of Greece I know first hand the difficulties with the name. I am very passionate about it but I understand we live in a different world. My feeling is that the Greek government and their NATO, EU allies pushed this forward now in order to stop the imperialistic plans of Erdogan in the region. I think with more Balkan countries in the EU, NATO influences…

>I am very passionate about it Could you perhaps expand on this a little? I have a very hard time understanding why someone would be passionate about something like this.

FYROM is a neighboring country to Greece. For the last 20+ years, the two countries were on a stalemate on this. Greece did not invest much into their northern neighbor. Turkey with Erdogan has more economic involvement in FYROM than Greece, even if there are no traditional links between them.

Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

#64

Post by asymmetric »

everdev wrote: post #56

> By agreeing to rename itself the Republic of North Macedonia the country will replace an interim accord under which it joined the UN 23 years ago as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. > The agreement means Skopje will need to make more than 150 changes to its constitution before Greece brings the pact before its own parliament for ratification – a task replete with challenges for Zaev, who like Tsipras has…

They should've used a COUNTRY_NAME global variable.

Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

#65

Post by jcranmer »

Svip wrote: post #17
black_puppydog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greece didn't claim the country for itself, it claimed the name for it's own northern province.

Greece's logic in disapproving of the name Macedonia is that they fear that Macedonia (the republic) could some day claim the Greek province of Macedonia. By that logic, so should Luxembourg (the grand duchy) be able to claim the Belgian province of the same name.

A more appropriate parallel is the US state of California, which is named as it was once a part of a region named after Alta California, the name California first being applied to the then-thought-to-be-an-island peninsula in modern Mexico.

The country of Macedonia was part of a region generally called Macedonia for over a thousand years, as the initial named unit of Macedonia (which was in Greece) expanded to cover a wider area.

Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

#66

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jcranmer wrote: post #62
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54

I continue to regard this as the stupidest geopolitical dispute our reality can safely support.

What about the Persian Gulf naming "dispute"?

> What about the Persian Gulf naming "dispute"?

Silly dispute, but much less stupid. The Persian/Arabian Gulf dispute is the product of an ongoing and relatively-new geopolitical tension. Both sides have military assets in the Gulf, and those assets threaten a major trading corridor. As a result, there is a genuine threat of one side seizing strategic ground from the other. Neither side is losing economic activity as a result of the naming dispute per se. (Lots of other things would need to be resolved before they could trade with and invest in each other.) And given the lack of intermingling (or common allies), they can each call it what they want without the other side noticing.

Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

#67

Post by [deleted] »

fibbra wrote: post #63
ryanlol wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am very passionate about it Could you perhaps expand on this a little? I have a very hard time understanding why someone would be passionate about something like this.

FYROM is a neighboring country to Greece. For the last 20+ years, the two countries were on a stalemate on this. Greece did not invest much into their northern neighbor. Turkey with Erdogan has more economic involvement in FYROM than Greece, even if there are no traditional links between them.

[deleted]

Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

#68

Post by jcranmer »

shapiro92 wrote: post #57

I personally do not care about the naming. Name each place / country whatever you want. What I care about is the political games that are being played behind it. People in this thread miss one point about FYROM, they want to use the name Makedonia with relations to the ancient Makedonas. Which in turns creates issues with the Greek nation. Now with the new "deal" they will take the name North Macedonia but they stric…

> Now with the new "deal" they will take the name North Macedonia but they strictly mention that they do not have any relation to the Ancient Makedonas. So at the end of the day, why didnt the two goverment or EU or UN take 20 historians and ask them, "guys do they bare the right to have that name?" Whatever the historians say should be the verdict.

The name Macedonia expanded to cover the modern country of Macedonia sometime during the Roman Empire. The historians (well, everyone but the Greeks) would all agree that there is absolutely no issue with calling the modern country of Macedonia from a historical naming perspective. Sure, there's confusion between the Slavic-speaking Macedonians and the Hellenic-speaking Ancient Macedonians, but this is far from the only instance of the same name referring to completely different entities.

Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

#69

Post by gok »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55
Svip wrote: post #9

So can Luxembourg claim the Belgian province of Luxembourg back then?

I'd also like to petition to return New Mexico to Mexico.

New Mexico was actually named before Mexico. It was only under uncontested Mexican control for about 13 years, between the 1824 invasion and the beginning of the Chimayó Rebellion in 1837.

Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece

#70

Post by v_lisivka »

ben_w wrote: post #6
shp0ngle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. Nationalist Greeks are angry and so do nationalist Makedonians. I would think both countries have more important things to protest about than name change, but then I don't live on Balkans.

Will of the people != will of the nationalists. Can’t really say the will of the people is being ignored when referenda are planned, referenda which one can reasonably still presume will be binding.

Both Greece and Macedonia are national countries, so in this case will of the people == will of the nationalists.
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