Welcome to Smart Peace
June 18th, 2007 by Heather
Hi, I’m Heather Roberson, the co-author and the main character of Macedonia, the book. Welcome to my blog.
I wrote about Macedonia, because I had heard about this country in the Balkans that kept almost going to war, but which, each time, managed to come back from the brink. I thought, Wow, that seems worth looking into. What do those people know that the rest of us don’t?
Well, I did some digging and found this remarkable story about people who had every reason and every temptation to go to war – aggressive neighbors, unstable region, plenty of guns – and yet chose to work out their problems peacefully and constructively.
I also found a story in which the International Community responded to a conflict in a truly atypical way. It acted quickly and cooperatively – launching the UN’s first-ever preventive peacekeeping mission, no less. The best part was that the whole effort was so successful. War was cut off at the pass! Nipped it in the bud!
Weird thing was, no one seemed to care. Here’s me in the bookstore looking for a book on why Macedonia didn’t go to war:
I don’t know why I was surprised. War is just so easy to report on. It’s eventful. When a war is happening, all eyes are on it. Everything else disappears.
On the other hand, Peace is just… life. Which means that Macedonia’s big fat reward for being so successful was…to be ignored! Congratulations, no one cares!
Clearly, in the marketplace of ideas, War is giving Peace a real beating.
Therein lies the reason for this blog.
As I found in Macedonia, and as I intend to show here, Peace is more than a dreamy ideal. In fact, Peace is a better, more cost-effective, all-around smarter way to get to what everyone wants: security, stability, prosperity, freedom.
That’s why I’m calling this blog Smart Peace.
(Stay Tuned.)
June 25th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Hey — Thanks for thinking about this stuff while the rest of us tune out. And thanks for trying to make peace a bit more “mainstream”.
Congratulations and good luck on the book.
Oh, and the pictures with the blog are great!
June 26th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Wow, I think this is great. It’s a scary time we’re living in and the idea that we can talk about peace as something more than a Utopian hypothetical is very encouraging. I really want to learn more about Macedonia and other places where peace did prevail. We need, now more than ever, to deconstruct these examples and see what went right.
I look forward to more posts and, of course, to reading the book!
June 28th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Very interesting stuff here. I hope you get a lot of interest in these ideas–it’s about time somebody tried to figure out how to make peace permanent.
July 1st, 2007 at 3:43 am
Heather - I am looking forward to ordering your book on return from Turkey, where I am now. I just recently learned (shame on me) that Alexander “the Great” (one of many former conquerers of the region now known as Turkey) was from Macedonia. So smarts seem to be their heritage, though judging from Alexander’s example, peace must have been learned. Maybe something the rest of us can learn as well? Keeping fingers crossed and sending you, and fellow bloggers, peace & love,
Aunt Patty
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:19 am
At last!
You did dare to call my cats overstimulated in the book, so an intercontinental shoehorn is coming your way ;-)
Well, I am quite sure that the UN have ever been good at preventing conflicts… They’re good a picking up the pieces afterwards.
In the very case of Macedonia - for starters - if the country armed & security forces were well equipped, properly paid paid and professionally trained, I do beleive that the intensity of the conflict would have been much higher. Due to already heavy NATO led international military engagement in the region (Bosnia and Kosovo), higher conflict intensity could have resulted in Macedonia being put under intenational administration (a neat way to isolate Serbia). Thus, both macedonian and ethnic albanian politicians had a lot to loose in letting the conflioct escalate…
That the UN seeks credit for Macedonia is understandable, but I am afraid that that they did not contribute much to conflict resolution…
July 6th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
BTW Heather,
Just started reading Robert Fisk’s “Pity Country”, the result of its 13 years or so in Libanon during the civil war. Fascinating reading…
Food for thoughts: “We just though that what happened in 1976 [in Lebanon] was accident among communities. It will be sorted out by a fair and strong central government guarenteeing the rights of each community”…
Sounds like we’ve already heard that (Bloody wilsonian idealism…). Heard it in the Balkans, heard it in Aghanistan, Heard it in Irak, heard it in DRC…
One of fisk’s most potent hypothesis is that colonialism (be Europe’s 19th centry’s or America’s post cold war neocolonialism), is indeed a poisoned beverage for the “locals” who drink it: it passes over to the next generations…
An avenue to be explored?
Cheers!
July 11th, 2007 at 9:22 am
FYI Below is a brief review to my blog, the Macedonian Tendency, http://the-macedonian-tendency.blogspot.com/2007/07/macedonia-comic-book.html
“Macedonia”, a graphic novel by Harvey Pekar and Heather Roberson has just been published and is now available.
It mainly deals with the conflict between Macedonians and Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia, focusing on the changes to the Macedonian legal system , including police training and court reform which affect both Macedonians and Albanians. The implementation of the Ohrid agreement is also discussed.
When I first heard about the comic novel, I thought to myself, here we go again. Another piece of BS propaganda of how the US/EU is solving all the problems of the Balkans. To her credit, Heather Roberson briefly mentions broader context the struggle for human rights in the Balkans and the dubious role of the US/EU. See the excerpt below.
Heather, your next comic, The Greek Issues Caucus!
http://david-edenden.blogspot.com/2006/09/77-us-politicans-adopt-greek-postion.html
August 1st, 2007 at 9:44 am
Dear Ms. Roberson,
Thank you for your efforts. You are not alone.
Your project for PEACE will no doubt reach critical mass within our lifetimes and spread to every corner of the globe. It is what people want.
In the late 60s and early 70s students everywhere were convinced that by the end of the decade war would be abolished, women would earn as much as men, and religion would be a philosophy, not a political ideology.
Where have all the hippies gone?
Please don’t get tired and keep up all the good work.
Warm Regards,
David
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Hi,
I was listening your interview yesterday on WCPN sounds of ideas (http://www.wcpn.org/index.php/WCPN/soi/2007/08/01/)
I , unfortunately know the situation in Macedonia too well, and was involved in mediating the peace . Although, it is nice to think that UN mediated early intervention prevented a major disaster, it is , to all our sorrow as far from the truth as it can possibly be.
Let us remember that Macedonians (unlike their neigbourghs) never had any animosity or ethnic frictions leading to arm conflicts ever in their history. All human rights organizations and UN manufactured reports prior to 2001 point out that Albanians were not discriminated in Macedonia. All of a sudden, we have an ethnic minority rise arms. Very unusual, as a first step towards seeking more rights (that are never enough of course as one can always gain more). Given the fact that Albanians and Macedonians have peacefully coexisted for centuries this was, to anyone that knows the area, utterly bizarre.
It was KLA (illegal organization, in the beginning labeled terrorist by the west, later supported against the Serbs in Kosovo) that started the war acting from its bases in now, NATO controlled Kosovo. NATO established control by what many belief was illegal (not UN approved) bombing of Serbia in 1999. Had it been , Serbian controlled or Macedonian controlled area , they would not have been able to launch attacks and retreat back into their NATO controlled territory to regroup, rearm and reorganize. This was their major advantage, that hole through NATO controlled border that Macedonian army could not plug. During the conflict, on at least several occasion Macedonian troops were prevented directly by NATO to carry out their operation. One famous example published in the Hamburger Abendblatt June 28, 2001, details how a force of 400 KLA fighters was surrounded in the town of Aracinovo near the capital, Skopje. As Macedonian security forces moved in, they were halted on NATO orders. U.S. army buses from Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo arrived to remove all the heavily armed terrorists to a safer area of Macedonia. German reporters later revealed that 17 U.S. military advisors were accompanying the KLA terrorists in Aracinovo. I was in Washington DC, at the White House when this incident was discussed behind the close door by Rice, president Bush and the cabinet at 02:00 AM. Later, security Advisor Condoleeza Rice flew to Kiev and ordered the Ukrainian government to stop sending further military equipment to Macedonia. Since Ukraine was the only country supplying Macedonia with military assistance, the Macedonians realized continued resistance against the KLA terrorists, the EU and NATO was futile.
This is similar to other Balkan conflicts, where for instance USA admitted breaking the UN mediated sanctions by transporting arms and fighters into Bosnia. Just so they can later intervene on behalf of the Bosnian/Croat coalition. It is not the first time that great empires and their secret services initiate, mediate and terminate conflicts for their own interest. In fact, all local conflicts can not survive if some side is not supporting at least one party in the fighting. It is impossible for a relatively small ethnic groups to fight and provide funds for arms and prolonged war.
The solution is in rising the awareness of the people around the world, especially US, EU and NATO countries. And exposing the truth. Unfortunately, people do not care unless war is their own doors. It is of no wonder than, how , because of lack of information, the county all of a sudden finds itself into wars like Iraq, Vietnam. Against organizations like Al-Qaeda , created in the 80’s as a force fighting against USSR in Afghanistan and so on.
We live in a world of interests and great differences. And that is what the reality is and has been. The strongest has always been able to do everything even despite UN objections. At least the 90’ and the 2000’s abound with such examples.
August 15th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Hi Heather.
I have read your very interesting cartoon story, and I have a lot of comments to make. I am a Greek from Thessaloniki, in Greek Macedonia, and I would like to focus on your perception of the Greek stance on the issue of the name “Macedonia”.
In your texts you are very rejective of the Greek position on the name of our northern neighbor. In p.9 you write that “Greece apparently thinks it owns the word Macedonia”. That is not quite so. Greece reacts to the monopolization of the word Macedonia from the FYROM Slavs.
If you look a bit further east in Greece, you will find a region called Thrace, whose name and geography is easily shared by Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey. So, Greece has no desire to monopolize any name.
The problem with the FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) Slavs is that they have been conditioned to believe that they are the sole rightful users of that name and its derivatives, and that all other people in geographical Macedonia, mainly Greeks, are nothing but invaders.
The FYROM Slavs have to realize that their nation is dating from the mid-40s and is a construction of Josip Broz Tito, the communist dictator of Yugoslavia, who created their Republic in order to weaken Serbia and to perpetuate the Panslavic nationalistic dream of a Slavic outlet to the Aegean Sea.
This does not mean that they are not a different nation, they are now. There was no such thing as an “Israeli” nationality back in the mid-40s, but this does not mean that there are no Israelis now!
However, the people of the FYROM should acknowledge that they cannot perpetuate their nationalistic outrages against the history of their neighbors, namely Greece and Bulgaria.
The FYROM propaganda has indoctrinated the Slavic people of the FYROM into believing that they are the descendants of ancient Macedonians and Alexander the Great. Patricia McMillen, the reader who left comment #4 was misguided by this history-distorting propaganda.
Ancient Macedonia and the legacy of Alexander the Great is a constitutent part of the history and culture of Greece and the Greeks. Hearing the FYROM Slavs associating this legacy with their nation hurts us Greeks a lot. It is unfair to us Greeks and utterly ridiculous.
It is as if I changed my name to “Roberson” and sued you in order to get your inheritance, what’s rightfully yours. Wouldn’t you react by suing me back? That is what Greece has to deal with.
How can we Greeks be cool with a country calling itself “Macedonia” and virtually re-writing world history at the expense of truth, hurting Greek sensibilities?
The FYROM Slavs insult Bulgaria too. The FYROM Slavs have appropriated the creation of the Church of Ohrid, Tsar Samuel, the Ilinden Uprising and the original VMRO political organization as theirs, while they are all part of the history of Bulgaria. Just look at the picture that comes up when you open the following page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilinden-Preobrazhenie_Uprising
A war banner of the Ilinden Uprising that clearly shows the Bulgarian flag flying.
Macedonia has always been a geographical, not an ethnic or a national definition.
In p.23 you show a map of what one easily assumes to be a Slavic Macedonian homeland, violently carved up among vicious neighbors. That is not the case. That map is an invention of the FYROM propaganda. Any internet research on early 20th century maps on the ethnic breakdown in the Balkans will reveal that there is no “Macedonian” nationality.
The FYROM Slavs have to realize that they cannot monopolize the word Macedonia and its derivatives. They have to hyphenate Macedonia and acknowledge that they are neither the sole, nor the first inhabitants of geographical Macedonia.
After all, they make up only 60% of the FYROM’s total population. Given the Albanians’ higher birth rate, in 10-15 years, the FYROM Slavs will make up less than 50% of their country’s total population. What right do they have to give it a national name?
You write in p.155 that “Macedonians can only be secure as Macedonians in Macedonia”, given what you call Greece’s and Bulgaria’s repression of their Macedonian minorities.
You make it sound as if large populations of FYROM Slavs live under repression in Greece. This is yet another lie of the FYROM propaganda. The people who consider themselves “ethnically Macedonian” in Greece have their own party, called Rainbow/ Vino Zhito/ Ouranio Toxo, and they get something like 6,200 votes out of a Greek national total of 6,300,000.
Their site is www.rainbow.org and the site of the Greek ministry of Interior (where you can find the election results) is www.ypes.gr .
Greece is an advanced democracy and its elections are free and impeccable, always according to the highest OSCE and EU standards.
I will be more than happy to lobby for the recognition of those 6,200 individuals and their non-voting family members as a minority once the name issue is resolved, but please, do not let anyone tell you that there are “hundreds of thousands of enslaved Macedonians in Greece”.
Dear Heather, please write to me about any question you might have about the Greek position on the name of the FYROM.
To round it all up, Greece has been extremely helpful of our northern neighbor in more than one ways, and we do recognize them as a distinct nationality. Our problem lies in the monopolization of the name Macedonia on their side, which is viewed as an aggression against Greek history and tradition.
Thanks for your attention.
Stergios.
August 16th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
This is a correction.
The website of the Rainbow/Vino Zhito/Ouranio Toxo party is www.florina.org
Thanks.
Stergios.
August 25th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I’ve actually seen some pictures recently that act as a counter-argument to the post, but these are rare.
First, I think it’s context. The pictures I’m referring to are at EnglishRussia.com, for instance http://englishrussia.com/?p=1110 and other sections of this site. I can now see directly that the Soviets were as common as we were then, and viscerally affirm that I knew this to be the case in general.
Second, I think the messenger of course is to blame in many cases. W, media, etc. Well worn but pertinent argument there, so I’ll not go further.
Lastly, are the images of war so interesting to us because they are not the norm? When we hear of tragedy too much, we often become desensitized to it. In this line of reasoning, images tied to the word “peace” may be a red herring in that pictures not of war and conflict are of peace, and those putting energy to creating images representative of peace tend to push the envelope to such a point of triviality - as you spotlight.
October 15th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
I hear you are coming to Chicago for a book discussion which is great! Please keep up the good work and it is interesting to see someone outside of the Balkans to be interested in the Macedonian culture-I am sure you already know this but be prepared to be criticized by Greeks who claim that we do not exist-there is a long history of being ethnically cleansed by these people,Greece did not even become a country until 1812,we were under so many occupations that they all try to claim us,and they even say that Macedonians tend to be passive when it comes to taking control of its destiny,hopefully through your book that is not the case and I am intersted to see what you have to say in this book.
November 4th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Hi Heather,
In this context, let me tell you a joke that I recently heard about us (Macedonians) from a foreigner…I know it’s stereotypical and therefore untrue, but…it does make a point.
“On a convention of the KPJ (Communist Party of Yugoslavia) someone put nails on some of the chairs.
First a Slovene delegate sat on a nail and yelled in agonizing pain. He then grabbed the nail, looked at it carefully and thought “Hmm, maybe we can produce these”.
Then a Serb sat on a nail and also screamed. He then stood up and when he saw the nail yelled “Who did this, who did this?!?! I’ll stab it in your eye…”.
In the end, a Macedonian delegate also sat on a nail. When he realized what had happened, he sighed and said to himself “Ahh, it was meant to be.”… “
November 5th, 2007 at 3:42 am
During the First and Second Balkan Wars (1912-1913) Macedonia’s neighbors fought with the Ottoman Turks using the Macedonian people as a ploy in an effort to grab land. As a consequence, under the Treaty of Bucharest, Macedonia was partitioned and Greece annexed the southern portion of Macedonia (what Macedonians call Aegean Macedonia). Before 1913 and throughout history Macedonia was never a territorial part of Greece.
After 1913, Greece, which was still ruled by a Bavarian king, undertook a policy of forced assimilation to unify its many different ethnic groups. Let me highlight a few examples of Greek policy towards Macedonians:
In 1925, the primary school textbook (the ABECEDAR) sponsored by the League of Nations and printed in Athens, was revoked by Greece in order to deny Macedonians an education in their native language.
Greece changed the names of some 1500 Macedonian towns and villages, as well as the personal names of the population it acquired when it annexed Aegean Macedonia, in order to make them appear Greek.
Do you recall the humiliation, torture and killings inflicted upon Macedonians who refused to assimilate or call themselves Greek?
Greece declared there are no Macedonians, only Greeks and referred to those Macedonians who refused to assimilate as “Bulgarians.”
Macedonia, the Macedonian language, and everything Macedonian was forbidden by the Greek dictator, Metaxas. Even our ancient churches and cemeteries were destroyed to cover up any historical evidence of the Macedonian people in the area.
One could only hear whispers from the Macedonians who lived in Greece, and they were whispering when they spoke in Macedonian because they where afraid of the Greek police who constantly monitored them. If the police heard them express their Macedonian identity in word or song they would place them in jail, their businesses would be confiscated and they would be beaten, and worse.
Everything was going on, and on, like this in Greece, until the Republic of Macedonia became independent from Yugoslavia. At that time, Greece started worrying about the Macedonian territory it annexed in 1913 and all the Macedonian properties it had confiscated over the years. It became concerned about the Macedonians who were forced to flee Greece because they declared their nationality as Macedonian and not Greek.
My grandmother was born in Chegan (Agios Atanasios), in the Voden (Edessa) region. For centuries, all of her ancestors were born there. They were never Greeks. Like hundreds of thousands in the Kukush (Kilkis) area, the Lerin (Florina) area, the Kostur (Kastoria) area and the many other areas of Aegean Macedonia they spoke an older Macedonian language, which was the precursor of today’s standardized Macedonian.
My grandparents’ ancestors transferred the history of Macedonia and the Macedonian people orally for centuries within the family, “od koleno na koleno” (from knee to knee) as we say. My grandfather was murdered in a jail cell by Greeks because he declared his Macedonian ethnic heritage and refused to say he was Greek.
I feel very sad when I think about my grandmother and grandfather and the mistreatment they received under the Greeks only because they were Macedonian. I know that thousands of Macedonian families suffered a similar fate.
Macedonians never stated that they were not Greek citizens, they just wanted to have the right to freely express and preserve their ethnic identity, language and culture. Greece never permitted this because it would undermine its revisionist claims on Macedonia.
The terms “Macedonia” and “Macedonians” were suppressed in northern Greece until the late 1980s. When it finally became clear the Republic of Macedonia would separate from the Yugoslav Federation just about everything in Greece was instantly renamed “Macedonia.”
Greece became anxious the Republic of Macedonia might make a (legitimate) claim to be re-joined with its ancestral southern portion, the Aegean part of Macedonia, now the heavily-colonized northern Greek province of Macedonia.
At that moment Greece had a golden opportunity to take responsibility for the mistreatment of its Macedonian minority and get beyond the Macedonian issue. Instead, it whipped up nationalist frenzy, closed schools and businesses and initiated a huge, “spontaneous,” demonstration in Solun (Salonica) aimed at silencing any dissent.
Nowadays, through its unofficial extensions like the Pan Macedonian group, it uses questionable political tactics abroad to promote revisionist histories and myths of Greek racial purity in Macedonia.
I believe it is a fundamental right that people be allowed to freely express their ethnic identity. That Greece, via the Pan Macedonian Association, would try to impose a Greek identity upon its Macedonian minority reveals the extent to which racism is still rampant in Greece today.
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Hi Heather.
It is exasperating just how brainwashed many people from the FYROM are. I urge you and your readers to do their own independent research and find out for yourself whether a Slavic “Macedonian” people and nation ever existed before 1945.
All Ottoman and European statistics make references to Bulgarians and Serbians, not “Macedonians”. The “Macedonian” ethnicity is completely fictitious, a brainchild of Tito.
As for Greek racism and oppression, the accusations are plain ridiculous. Ever since democracy was restituted in Greece in 1974, there is absolute freedom of expression in Greece, anyone can say and write and vote whatever they want.
As for minorities… the national census in the FYROM completeley disregarded the fact that as many as 100,000 ethnic Greeks live in FYROM territory, mainly in the SW, in cities and towns such as Bitola (Monastiri), Krushevo (Krousovo) and Ohrid (Ahrida). The reason is simple. The actual FYROM territory has never been under Greek control. According to the FYROM Slavs’ propaganda, Greeks were only dispatched in geographical Macedonia after Greece annexed that territory, so how could there be Greeks living on land that was never seized by the Greek state?
The FYROM Slavs are people with a very weak sense of ethnic identity. Sad to say, but it is true. They try to convince the world that they are a distinct nation, but as many as 10%(and growing) of all FYROM Slavs have ALREADY asked for and gotten a BULGARIAN passport! The list includes former PM Ljubco Georgievski who was granted Bulgarian citizenship on the basis that his parents are Bulgarians!!!
February 29th, 2008 at 2:12 am
I’M HAPPY THE WAY YOU STATED THIS, ON U TUBE WE ARE ALL ANGRY. GLAD YOUR FINDING MORE PROOF. DURING THE DAYS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, THERE WERE NO BALKAN STATES AND IF YOU ASK THE AFGHANS OF KALAS, THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE GREEK BECAUSE ALEXANDER THE GREAT’S ARMY REMAINED AND INTERMIXED WITH THE WOMEN AND NOW THOSE CHILDREN UP THERE ARE GREEK AND PERSIAN. THEY ARE NOT CHRISTIAN NOR MUSLIM. ITS SO INTERESTING. HERE IS THE MAP
/Users/ELADITSA/Desktop/map-lg.jpg
February 29th, 2008 at 2:19 am
ITS UNFORTUNATE THAT GREEKS FOUGHT GREEKS LIKE ATHENIANS AGAINST SPARTAN AND TROJANS AND SO FORTH BUT THEY ALL SHARED THE COMMON LANGUAGE. WE UNITED AND FEEL AS ONE RACE. I M HALF SPARTAN PART ATHENIAN, PART GREEK OF MACEDONIA AND FROM ASIA MINOR. BUT I’LL ALL GREEK. : 0 BUT SAYING THAT MACEDONIA WAS NOT GREECE OR LIKE SOME JERK SAYING TROJANS WEREN’T GREEK, ITS LIKE SAYING THAT ROMANS ARE NOT ITALIAN AND NEITHER ARE THE VENICE, FLORINA AND SO FORTH. THEY ARE ITALIAN BECAUSE THEY ALL SPEAK A COMMON LANGUAGE. WE CAN’T GO BACK IN TIME AND SEPARATE THEM TOO? CAN WE? OR ARE THEY GREEK . - WINK. SOME PEOPLE TOLD ME THEY WERE TOLD THAT BY SOME THAT THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE A BAD SECT OF GREEKS WHO HURT THE OTHER GREEKS. ALSO DON’T FORGET ALL GREEKS FOUGHT TO BE # 1 AND THAT WAS OUR DOWNFALL, BUT WE WILL READ ON THAT IN THE FUTURE, ONE THING ATA TIME.