BY ALEXANDER BILLINIS
We just moved back from Serbia to Chicago in June. Before Serbia, we
had lived in Greece, just before the crisis in Greece clearly brewing in
the financial sector reached broad daylight. This has provided me with
an on the ground perspective to the various problems in the Balkans, and
I fear that the toxic mix of history, politics, and economics merits
our ever closer scrutiny to the situation in Greece’s ever so near
north.
For well over two centuries the Balkans, to which Greece belongs in
every sense (notwithstanding our often protesting “too much” to the
contrary) has been known as the “Powder Keg of Europe.” This is not
without reason, but all too often the West uses it to portray Balkan
people as inherently violent or quarrelsome, which is also unfair. The
Balkans suffer from being a true borderland, where Central Europe,
Austro-Catholic in orientation, fades into Byzantine Europe, which
itself had suffered under a five century occupation of Ottoman Europe.
Competing identities tug at the various peoples of the Balkans, who at
once have so much in common and yet so much separating them. When bad
politics (usually present), and bad economics (certainly currently on
offer) combine with the facts on the ground, it is indeed an explosive
and often tragic mix.
All of us are familiar with the 1990s wars in Yugoslavia, in which
Serbia was generally portrayed as the aggressor (though Greeks, due to
cultural, political, and religious affinities gave Serbia their support)
and Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and Albanians the victims. The best
analysis I heard of what happened was from a Greek-Serbian cameraman,
who reported from behind the lens the horrors of the 1990s. “Nobody is
telling the truth, not our side, not theirs. Here there are no clean
accounts . . .” The war had not really resolved all that much.
With the new millennium, open war ceased in the Balkans, but frozen
conflicts remained all over, and not just in ex-Yugoslavia. Moreover,
these conflicts are not just ethnic, nor, often primarily ethnic, but
rather stemming from a “pasha-esque” political culture in all of these
countries, regardless of the regime. For example, a Serbian former
communist official operates the same way as in the past, and is often
the same person. A Bulgarian or Romanian European MP still operates in a
manner fundamentally different from his French, German, or even Polish
counterpart.
When there was cheap money in the early 2000s, these fundamental
problems were overlooked, and it seemed that the carrot of EU
membership, which began for ex-Communist states in 2004, would cause all
parties, at least outwardly, to behave. In 2007, Romania and Bulgaria
joined the EU, and a moving carrot was offered to all other Balkan
countries to join. Don’t hold your breath, though German-oriented,
Catholic Croatia did join the EU last month.
The fact is, the EU hardly holds the draw it had even a decade ago.
East European EU members are generally suffering, particularly the
Hungarians and the Slovenes, and everyone looks at austerity in Spain,
Portugal and Greece and shudders. Fed up with southern and eastern
Europe, it is doubtful that northern Europe will now accept even poorer
and more unstable countries, all of which have nasty frozen conflicts.
Let’s consider some of these now:
Let’s consider some of these now:
I will start with Serbia, where I lived for three years until this
June. Here there are multiple fissures. First of all, there is the
lingering issue of Kosovo, which most Serbs accept as lost but the
problem with Albanians does not end there, as areas bordering Kosovo
have large Albanian populations which have on multiple occasions
committed acts of provocation and terrorism. The centennial of Albanian
independence (1912) was greatly celebrated in these Albanian inhabited
areas, following incendiary comments by recently ousted Albanian
President Sali Berisha that the unification of Albanians in parts of
Serbia, Montenegro, FYROM, and Greece is yet to occur. At Serbia’s
border with Montenegro is the area called the Sanjak of Novi Pazar,
again an area of historical Serbian monuments and treasures, with a Slav
Muslim population oriented towards Bosnia and Turkey. Slav Muslims live
in neighboring Montenegro, as well as a very large Albanian population.
Slav Muslims and Albanians voted overwhelmingly for Montenegro to
separate from Serbia in 2006, providing the necessary votes (55 percent)
needed for the independence referendum to be recognized by the European
Union. This means that the majority of Orthodox Montenegrins voted
against separation from Serbia.
Another brewing conflict is in Vojvodina, the autonomous province in
northern Serbia where I used to live. Here along with a Serbian majority
of about 65 percent, over two dozen nationalities live, in conditions
of relative harmony. The existence of such a multiethnic mosaic, the
most diverse in Europe, with the Serbian state funding multilingual
education and cultural activities, does not preclude a large
autonomist/secessionist movement there. Here the biggest issue is not so
much ethnic as civic; Vojvodinans of all nationalities resent the
corruption of Belgrade, paying taxes and getting little in return. The
analogy is more along the lines of the American Colonists in 1775;
taxation without representation. If the economy collapses, however,
Vojvodina, an agricultural breadbasket with a history as the
southernmost province of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, may move to
separate from Serbia.
Neighboring Bosnia is also a cauldron waiting to burst. The
federation is held together by strings; the Serbian side and the
Bosnian/Croat side have as little to do as possible with each other, to
the degree that children often cannot be registered with the equivalent
of Social Security numbers. Traveling in Bosnia last year, I was struck
at the complete lack of any infrastructure save that from the Yugoslav
era that managed to survive the punishing war. The only construction, it
seemed, were “competing” Orthodox Churches and Mosques, often brand new
in a land where a child bureaucratically does not exist. Bosnia has a
large refugee population all over Europe and the West, and here again
remittances are key to many peoples’ survival, as there is virtually no
development. Should further divisions and secessions occur in the area,
it is more than conceivable that the Serbian part of Bosnia will try to
secede and perhaps to join Serbia. This may prompt Bosnian Croats to
join Croatia. Given the recent history, would this be peaceful?
While most of the world has focused on the protests in Turkey,
next-door Bulgaria has had nearly six weeks of constant protests in
front of the Parliament in Sofia. The government’s severe corruption and
cronyism is the protestors’ key grievance, though like in Serbia and
Greece, the entrenched pasha style political culture, basically
unchanged in spite of EU membership and nearly twenty five years’ since
the fall of Communism, is the real grievance. Bulgarian often claim
descent from the Ancient Thracians and Bulgaria resembles in
demographics Greece’s province of Thrace writ large. Out of a population
of about 7.5 million, at least 1.5 million are Turks or Bulgarian
Muslims known (both in Bulgaria and Greece) as Pomaks. The Turkish
minority party has had a kingmaker role in Parliament since the
transition to democracy. Neighboring Turkey’s growing economy is driving
Bulgaria back into an Ottoman orbit, and Bulgarian nationalist parties
such as Ataka (Attack), are growing in support, with a nationalist
platform vis a vis Turkey, the Macedonian Issue, and Bulgaria’s huge
(perhaps 1 million in number) Gypsy population. Hundreds of thousands of
Bulgarians have emigrated, and nearly half a million, younger, educated
Bulgarians are hoping to do so, sealing the coffin on Bulgarian
demographics, already in an existential state.
Bulgaria is the poorest country in the EU, and one deeply integrated
with the Greek economy. Greece is one of the top investors, and along
the border many Greek industries have decamped to take advantage of
Bulgaria’s lower taxes and wages. Should Greece’s economy completely
implode, Bulgaria will take yet another hit, and there is no guarantee
that this will not spill into further unrest.
Just to the west of Bulgaria, FYROM is in even worse shape, with a needlessly nationalist government of Prime Minister Gruevski building ridiculous monuments in Skopje while the country is in abject poverty and parliament is basically both impotent and a joint condominium with the Albanians. Though often unreported by Western press, ethnic violence between Slav Macedonians and Albanians is on the rise, a low intensity daily occurrence. Here again, Greece is the source of 50 percent of all foreign investment; if Greece goes under, it could be enough to send this fractious country over the edge, drawing in, at a minimum, Bulgaria and Albania, and perhaps Greece and Turkey.
Just to the west of Bulgaria, FYROM is in even worse shape, with a needlessly nationalist government of Prime Minister Gruevski building ridiculous monuments in Skopje while the country is in abject poverty and parliament is basically both impotent and a joint condominium with the Albanians. Though often unreported by Western press, ethnic violence between Slav Macedonians and Albanians is on the rise, a low intensity daily occurrence. Here again, Greece is the source of 50 percent of all foreign investment; if Greece goes under, it could be enough to send this fractious country over the edge, drawing in, at a minimum, Bulgaria and Albania, and perhaps Greece and Turkey.
Albania proper is awash in corruption, officially the most corrupt
country in Europe, and tied with Moldova as Europe’s poorest country.
Most of the Greek minority in the south has emigrated, and the country
has essentially no industry save remittances from at least one million
Albanians living in Italy and Greece. The recent elections have been
disputed, and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and elsewhere in the former
Yugoslavia remain highly destabilizing actors. Here too, the weakness of
the Greek and Italian economies has impacted remittances sent home, and
has also resulted in a fair number of former emigrants returning. A
further deterioration of the Greek and Italian economies will only make
things worse.
While we focus on the crisis in Greece, and perhaps, on events
Turkey, the unstable brew just to Greece’s north needs to be on our
radar as well. What happens in Greece directly impacts them, and the
opposite is true. Watch this space, carefully.
H
ηγεσία των ΗΠΑ αναμένει με
πολύ μεγάλο ενδιαφέρον να μάθει ''από πρώτο χέρι'' (δηλαδή, από τον
πρωθυπουργό και από τον αντιπρόεδρο της κοινοβουλευτικής ''χούντας'',
που κυβερνά βασικά με ... ''προεδρικά διατάγματα''), λεπτομέρειες γιά
το
νεοελληνικό success
story της συγκυβέρνησης, αλλά και γιά τις ''παραδοσιακές'' μεθόδους
που
χρησιμοποιούνται στην μνημονιακή ''αποικία'' Ελλάδα: Μίζες,
«Έξι χρόνια μετά τις πυρκαγιές του 2007, οι ανάγκες
συνεχίζουν να υπάρχουν. Η ανασυγκρότηση δεν έχει προχωρήσει με τους
ρυθμούς που θα έπρεπε και η σημερινή συγκυρία θέτει το κράτος προ των
ευθυνών του» καθώς «η δικαιοσύνη και η αναλογικότητα δεν τηρήθηκαν ως
τώρα στην κατανομή των κονδυλίων», είπε η πρόεδρος της Ειδικής Μόνιμης
Επιτροπής Προστασίας του Περιβάλλοντος.
