Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
121–130 of 136 posts
Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
#122I continue to regard this as the stupidest geopolitical dispute our reality can safely support.
What would it mean for Portugal if Spain decided to change its name to Iberia? This is exactly what is happening here. They want to be named after a geographical region which is way bigger than their borders.
> What would it mean for Portugal if Spain decided to change its name to Iberia?
Fairly sure they'd laugh at them, and then get on with their lives.
Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They want to be named after a geographical region which is way bigger than their borders Ancient Athens once controlled the Aegean and its borders. Does this mean Anatolians should require Athens be re-named?
They do not want just to be named after that region. They want their country to eventually be this region. This is very clear if you ever visit. You can see everywhere maps like [1]. The red part is the "borders of their heart". In this photo, they actually kept the current borders (usually this is not the case) and you can see that they claim parts of Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania and a huge part of Greece. Also, a larg…
So there are nationalists like everywhere in the world. Is that really an issue? Is this even remotely plausible. I mean Macedonia occupying parts of Greece? Doesn't that sound silly to you? Greece is NATO member which Macedonia is trying to join while being blocked by Greece. Do you think Macedonia will go to war with NATO? Come on, this problem was used by corrupted politicians on both sides as an excuse for bad governing. Oh it is hard to deal with the real issues so lets fight over irrational problems.
And no, large part of the population does not share those views. The reason is simple, those views are unrealistic and have no place in today's Europe.
Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or the Byzantine Empire, who only ever referred to themselves as the Roman Empire.
Actually, the naming there was not incorrect. Recall the Roman empire split into East and West, with West disappearing shortly after. So it was the only remaining (piece) of the Roman empire at that point and there was later an attempt to liberate Rome etc (see Justinian for the most serious one). The Holy Roman empire was an attempt of Charles I (to be named Charlemagne, i.e. the great) to recreate such an empire.
But there's more to the name. Ironically, large parts were roman territory, once. They did trace their ancestors back to ancient heroes and kings, too, even if that might be seen as hyperbole now, it continued a roman tradition.
Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or the Byzantine Empire, who only ever referred to themselves as the Roman Empire.
Actually, the naming there was not incorrect. Recall the Roman empire split into East and West, with West disappearing shortly after. So it was the only remaining (piece) of the Roman empire at that point and there was later an attempt to liberate Rome etc (see Justinian for the most serious one). The Holy Roman empire was an attempt of Charles I (to be named Charlemagne, i.e. the great) to recreate such an empire.
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Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I eventually figured out that this is largely an issue with terminology. In Central/South America, it's generally taught that everything from Nunavut to Cape Horn is a single continent, America. When the US calls itself "America," that's seen as a deliberate attempt to claim primacy over the whole continent. In English-speaking North America, it's generally taught that "America" is the country and "North America/Sout…
>in English-speaking North America, it's generally taught that "America" is the country and "North America/South America" are the continents aaaaaand you don't see any problem here, no? Let's try again. With that logic, there'd be no problem with Germany calling itself "Europe": "What's the problem? When we say 'Europe', we mean our home country, a large part of the region known as 'Western Europe', and disjoint from…
Words can mean different things in different languages and different contexts.
In English-speaking cultures, North and South America are separate continents. "America" is understood to mean the USA. The polite term for someone from the USA is "American". Calling a Canadian "American" is impolite.
In Spanish-speaking cultures, América is a single continent. "Estados Unidos" is understood to mean "de América", not "Mexicanos". People from the USA are commonly called "estadounidense", "norteamericano", or "americano". It's polite for outsiders to use "estadounidense".
Neither language is indigenous to the Americas, so why not just use the polite words in each language?
Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They want to be named after a geographical region which is way bigger than their borders. Surely that can't be the whole reason for this dispute. I mean, the name "United States of America" would also fall into that description, but nobody's up in arms about it.
Think of it like a portion of Canada bordering Montana seceding from Canada and calling themselves Montana. Also, a lot of the people of a certain ethnicity from that portion of Canada move into Montana in the US. In time, the ex-Canada Montana people lay claim to the US Montana region. After all, it's all Montana, right? That's what they are worried about.
Historically, this is pretty much what happened with Texas. A bunch of Americans moved there, fought their own war of independence, and then immediately asked to join the US.
Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
#128I continue to regard this as the stupidest geopolitical dispute our reality can safely support.
Well, using word 'stupid' to describe things one doesn't understand is a sort of popular fallacy.
For both countries it's a real conflict which involves not only emotions (the way news websites make you see it), but economical interests, political perspectives, and safety.
Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the wars had gone differently, Greek historians would have recorded a glorious defeat of the northern barbarians by the Greeks. Alexander won, and so the story features "awarding a generalship." I'm not making the case for either narratives. I'm making the case that both narratives are fictions, a symbolic language narrating a one-damned-thing-after-another truth. I don't think Alexander/Macedonia was "really" Gre…
Ancient Macedonia was part of Ancient Greece. Yes, the city-states have been fighting all the time, just like Athens and Sparta. But they have been part of Ancient Greece. In the case of FYROM (still the official name until the agreement gets implemented soonish), they have been appropriating the Greek identity. That was not just some individuals at FYROM, it was the whole political apparatus of FYROM since the 90s.
Again, these are narratives.
Was ancient Libya/Carthage or even Spain a part of ancient Lebanon/Israel? They were certainly a part of the same culture, in the same way "Hellenic Culture" was a thing. They spoke the same Language, shared customs and myths and such.
I understand that if Jordan remained themselves "Canaan" or "Phoenicia" then Israel, Palestine, & Lebanon might object. Territorial implications, etc. It's not made up though. Jordan has a "right" to that legacy too. That language and culture were spoken and practiced in Amman as well as Tyre even if Tyre is what we think of as the original "hub."
Re: Macedonia changes name, ending bitter dispute with Greece
#130I was born in what was then Yugoslavia (now North Macedonia). In order to get a good full perspective of this issue I think you have to talk to several Greeks and North Macedonians. This has been my perspective and experience:
It's mostly split between the population -- half (probably most) of us don't really seem to care about this issue, the other half feels pretty upset about it. It's really important to note that not a single Macedonian I've ever talked to has ever claimed that Ancient Macedonia isn't part of Greek history, I really don't know where Greeks are getting that from. Almost everyone here goes to vacation in Greece every year, and concedes when some Greeks say "Skopje?" to suggest that we're not Macedonians. We just nod and shrug it off, and say "Yeah, Skopje". Most people really don't care about this, if we did we wouldn't be going to Greece on vacation or buy Greek products, both of which we do a fair amount of. Some of us even wonder why we're celebrating a serial killer at all (Alexander the Great). In order to understand what's going on, I think you need to separate yourself from what politicians are thinking and doing compared to what the people are thinking and doing. Also let's face it, governments love to manipulate group identities to serve their interests.
What Macedonians are upset about is that they feel like Macedonia has a shared history and Greece doesn't want to acknowledge it, and it's leveraging it's strong international influence to set us back and/or make us look bad. We're a small, formerly communist, landlocked country in the Balkans, we barely have any international influence at all. It's a no-brainer that most countries will side with Greece, and why there's EU pressure for us to change the name. We definitely wouldn't be able to dispute Greece's territory, especially since 1952 when Greece became part of NATO. We're seriously no threat to them even without NATO. I don't think this is about the name or territorial ambitions, or if it was it was like that a long time ago and is no longer relevant. It's deeper than that.
People on the thread and the previous one have talked about the Balkan Wars being relevant to understanding this, and that the then conservative Greek govt in the mid-20th century suppressed a lot of North Macedonian speaking peoples living in Greek Macedonia to force them to say that they're Greek and that they can't speak slavic, much like how Bulgarians forced us to say that we're Bulgarian and speak Bulgarian when we were occupied by them, or how some people think we should be part of Greater Albania, or how some Serbians view us as South Serbians, and that Greece wants to cover this up. There's probably something there to look into, the Balkans is full of territorial grabs like that. I don't really know anything about this part of history.
A lot of us just feel like we're being bullied to an extent, and that Greece is basically being a d*ck about it. Ancient Macedonia has mostly been part of Greece, but Paeonia (North Macedonia) has for a large part of it's existence, either been a dependent territory of Ancient Macedonia or has been fully a part of Ancient Macedonia when it was at the height of it's power. We didn't just pull the name out of nowhere, we've been called Macedonians since forever. Some of us that are upset about this think that we shouldn't be giving in to powerful external forces and that we should just make a stand. And that by giving in we're showing ourselves as weak and easy to manipulate, and would affect future negotiations. Some of us others think we're being stubborn, and that we should be the bigger person and just concede, because it's a pretty stupid dispute and I agree. A lot of us just don't care, or if we used to care we're jaded now after all this time and don't care anymore.
We have a lot of shared history, we're neighbors after all. We don't have the same language, sure, but our traditional dress and textiles looks similar, our dance is similar, we both say "Opa!", we have similar traditional food. We used to be the same country several times in history, during the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. I don't think this is really about the name, it's more about that North Macedonia is mostly made up of slavic people with a large Albanian-Macedonian population and from a formerly communist country, and Greeks just don't want to be associated with former communists or slavic people.
It really sucks because I like a lot about Greek history and culture, one of my favorite college professors taught Greek Philosophy to me. Greeks gave us democracy and the best philosophers along with India and China, all of which is still extremely relevant today. I'm glad we've come to a consensus about the name. We've both wasted a lot of energy over something pretty stupid, and we really should be getting along a lot better. We've wasted our time with what could've been quality time with our families or more richer life experiences, or improving the human condition. Nationalism, tribalism and groupthink are all diseases that I hope the 21st century will rid itself of.