Last week, the State Department put out an ominous-sounding warning to me and all other Americans in Greece. It tells me that there may be anti-American protests in the imminent future, and that I would be well-advised to steer clear of them. I’m warned that even peaceful demonstrations may rapidly turn violent. I’ve also been told to “heighten [my] individual sense of and attention to personal security.”
The obvious assumption, of course, is that I have to watch my back on account of last week’s election. It’s perfectly logical, isn’t it? After all, America just re-elected a President who is apparently beloved only in London, Warsaw, and those pesky red states. And I’m studying in the country where the Communist party stormed the Acropolis and draped it with anti-American slogans to drive off Colin Powell during the Olympics. It must have been the election. It’s a perfectly logical explanation. It’s also entirely wrong.
If there’s one thing that surprised me about the reaction to the election, it was that Greeks were actually relatively sanguine about the outcome. Certainly disappointed, but hardly devastated at the prospect of another four years with the same leader of the free world. No, what really got their blood boiling the next day was the name of Macedonia.
Explaining internecine Balkan politics in the space allotted is nigh on impossible, but I’ll try. Basically, Macedonia is a nation due northwest of this one. Back when Yugoslavia was disintegrating, it became an independent country which calls itself “The Republic of Macedonia”; however, the rest of the world knows it by the unwieldy moniker of “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (FYROM). Less than five years ago, it was being violently ripped apart by strife between its Macedonian majority and its sizable ethnic Albanian minority. Since then, NATO and the EU have imposed a fragile peace, and the present government is attempting to redistrict the country to give Albanians proportional democratic representation. Unfortunately, many of the ethnic Macedonians are not enamored with this because the redistricting plan would convert some areas with a Macedonian majority into ones with an Albanian majority (this dissatisfaction reached an alarming low point when one Macedonian town threatened to secede from the country and become an independent city like Monaco). The opposition parties have introduced a particularly nasty referendum (which will have taken place by the time you read this). If successful, the plebiscite will halt the redistricting plan in its tracks. The current government will resign from power, the Albanian political parties might take up arms again, and the country – and the whole Balkan powder keg, for that matter – will inch toward war. The U.S. State Department chose to recognize the Republic of Macedonia (instead of FYROM) in an attempt to bolster the standing government and (hopefully) defeat the referendum.
And where does Greece fit in? Why should Greece care if America calls Macedonia the Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM, or Another Balkan Country Where Everyone Hates Everyone Else (ABCWEHEE, if you’re keeping track)? Because Greece has a northern region called Macedonia. Their position is that calling Macedonia (the country) the Republic of Macedonia might someday lead to claims on Macedonia (the territory). As Greeks see it, America just trampled Greek sovereignty and ideologically ceded a place that they’ve held since the time of Alexander the Great (I’m not joking – signs on the street say “Macedonia – Greek for 3,000 Years).
With this comes a sobering realization: for the first time, I’m being tangibly affected by unilateralist American foreign policy. America acted without consultation or warning in its decision to recognize the Republic of Macedonia as such, and as a result, I’ve been warned that I might be a target for acts of protest. But if that referendum fails, a brutal civil war could be avoided. The State Department folks did their math, and it told them that stomping on some Greek toes and boosting anti-Americanism would be a small price to pay for Balkan stability. Although I’ve come to love Greece; although I hate to see America and Greece at odds; although that warning deeply alarmed me, I’m left with this conclusion: they made the right choice.
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