LGBTI Rights, Social Democracy and South East Europe

The coming together of three of my passions – The Labour Party, LGBTI rights, and the countries of South East Europe. This conference/workshop was a follow up from one held in Belgrade last year. Initiated by the European Forum for Democracy and Solidarity, and hosted by the Labour Party through the Westminster Foundation for Democracy; this session sought to provide practical aims and objectives for delegates, from the social democratic sister parties of the region, to pursue further LGBTI rights.

To put LGBTI rights in context of the countries of South East Europe, one only needs to look at ILGA Europe’s ‘Rainbow Europe Map’. The range amongst all the countries of the former Yugoslavia sees Croatia place 10^th and Macedonia 39^th out of the 49 countries of Europe. And this is solely on legislative terms. The attitude of society towards LGBTI people is overwhelmingly negative, and is hardening.

So the objectives for the conference delegates – representing Bosnia & Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and Vojvodina; as well as leads on LGBTI groups from Sweden and the Netherlands – were threefold.

First, the delegates had to contextualize the struggle for LGBTI rights. This came from speaking about their experience of furthering LGBTI rights both in society and within the party, the uneven passing of LGBTI legislation across the countries in the region and its relation to EU accession, and learning from the experiences of LGBTI social democratic groups in Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK.

Second, the delegates had to analyse and evaluate the successes and failures of integrating LGBTI rights into their social democratic parties. Here, breaking into three groups helped each group focus on one or two countries at a time, but allowing the entire delegation to pick out differences and similarities during the roundup at the end.

Third, the delegates had to then draw together an action plan for them to take practical steps to further LGBTI rights.

Throughout the conference, many shared observations were made. One of the agents of change in advancing LGBTI rights that was mentioned was the EU. Delegates commented that the EU guided the hand of Governments into passing legislation, even if only as a ‘box ticking’ exercise. Governments could easily ‘blame’ the EU on the need to pass these changes in order to achieve the overarching objective to join the EU. However, these changes have not yet acted as an agent of change in society.

Another observation was that the party leadership’s seemed to be positive towards the LGBTI community in most countries, but it was the middling and lower ranking membership of those parties that had a problem of accepting LGBTI rights. However, it was pointed out that future leaders and representatives of the parties were where delegates could exert pressure to further LGBTI rights, both in the culture of the party and future party policy. The youth sections were agreed as a starting point to entrench political education on LGBTI rights and increase activism.

And so it followed that many delegates agreed there seemed to be no comprehension amongst party members or some leaders as to how or why LGBTI rights were central to the values of social democracy. This turned into a debate on the meaning of social democracy, which the delegates would take back to their parties.

The lack of leaders, local and national, to either come out as LGBTI or be pro-LGBTI was a constant weakness most delegates raised, especially from Macedonia. Lack of visibility meant there was a lack of seriousness to accept the LGBTI agenda, as it is seen as an electoral negative rather than a potential electoral positive. Those contributors not from the region emphasised the parallel processes of greater visibility meaning greater social acceptance – and hence less electoral disadvantage.

The conference ended after delegates from each country agreed to small, achievable steps to take. These included arranging a meeting with the leader of their party, asking for a safe space in Headquarters for LGBTI members to meet, asking for an email to go out to all party members to make them aware of the existence of an LGBTI party group, setting up a Facebook group, and looking towards future local government elections to develop cost-free pro-LGBTI policies.

The success of this conference will be seen in the actions that these individual delegates take. As I said in my remarks at the start of one of the sessions, they are the founders of the LGBTI rights movements in their parties, and through those they will change laws and societies, and continue the march towards LGBTI equality. A heavy burden for them to shoulder, but one this conference motivated them to lead.

Independence, the ‘Transition’ and the Road to Ohrid (2/5)

The communist period had no bearing on the wider discussion on social democracy in its development or present state, other than on the impact of communist legacies from this period, which is highly relevant and will be pursued. Avoiding to address the causes of the collapse of communism, as this event was in no way influenced by social democracy, allows us to look at this as an historical fact in its influence upon social democracy, in that the League of Communists transformed into the later named Social Democratic Union of Macedonia and so social democracy could have parliamentary expression. 

Kiro Gligorov - First President of the Republic of Macedonia

Enter Democracy

Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott see that ‘democracy is a political system in which the formal and actual leaders of the government are chosen within regular intervals through elections based on a comprehensive adult franchise with equally weighted voting, multiple candidacies, secret balloting, and other procedures, such as freedom of the press and assembly, that ensure real opportunities for electoral competition.’ However, from this come many variables as to the practice of democracy, not just in Macedonia, but the world over. Further to this, these practices will, and often do, change over time. Hence there is a need to avoid applying non-communist democratization processes to post-communist states, as their experiences are starkly different. Dawisha and Parrott note these variables include the international discourse relating to democratization at the time, whether a state exists or needs to be created, the homogeneity of the population, the extent of political participation, the nature of the party and electoral systems, the legacies of communist elites in the new era, the functioning of political society and culture, and economic liberalization. However, for democracy to function an awareness of, and adherence to, the rules of the game is needed; a major component of this is the ability to accept defeat (Ghia Nodia). Yet, independence is linked to democracy via nationalism according to Ghia Nodia: ‘Whether we like it or not, nationalism is the historical force that has provided the political units for democratic government.’ Thus independence, even if only covering part of the Macedonian nation, fulfilled the political goal of nationalism, and thus provided a space for democracy to function. Nationalism has been said to be able to either unite or divide a country, but a state that has to cater for a sizeable ‘other’ nation within its borders creates problems in the configuring of that state.

A State for the Nation?

During the transition to multi-party elections a debate on how to define the constitution of the new independent Republic of Macedonia emerged. The choice was simple; either an ethnic state for the Macedonian nation, which nationalists wanted and even sought to extend its boundaries to their brethren in Greece and Bulgaria, or a push for a civic state of individual citizens. The balance was between group rights and individual rights, but fundamentally it was about inclusion and exclusion. President Gligorov had to balance the demands of nationalists on both sides of the ethnic divide who thought in group terms. However, the result didn’t appease either side and highlights the downside to democracy. Donald Horowitz states that ‘The problems of inclusion and exclusion do not disappear when new institutions are being adopted and put into operation. At these points, conceptions of the scope of the political community will limit the participation of some groups in the institutions of the new regime.’ Therefore the ethnic divide that derived from nation building prior to independence, acted as the cleavage with which to include and exclude people using citizenship, when debating the relationship between the state and the nation(s) in the constitution during democratization. 

However, ethnic conflict was avoided, unlike elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. A model for explaining this from Gojko Vuckovic involves two dichotomies, the first are ethnic violence and ethnic accommodation, and the second are whether integration or disintegration results. The alignment of certain variables place states, at different times, within this matrix. Macedonia during the transition managed to resist ethnic violence and disintegration by functioning within a multiethnic state system through bargaining between the groups. Given that democracy is in essence competition, the management of these divisions expressed during competition is necessary in an ethnically divided society.

Development of the Electoral and Party Systems

The role of the electoral and party systems, which are interlinked, initially helped eased tensions because this is where groups or individuals engage in the democratic process. Yet set in an ethnic frame, these became institutionalized and thus hard to change in the future. The electoral system after independence elected officials via a two round system, it then moved to a mixed one with elements of proportional representation, to one of full proportional representation for the 2000 elections (Peter Emerson and Jakub Sedo). Although democratic in theory, the definition of democracy, as previously illustrated, was open to interpretation. The setting of constituency boundaries is one mechanism by which ethnic divisions and exclusion can be fostered, either by grouping ethnicities separately or by demographically engineering a mono-ethnic victory in a mixed area (Horowitz). Given the minority status of the Albanians, numbering 25.1% of the population in 2001, they could never achieve power at the national level alone. So it became an unspoken rule, then codified in 2001, that the winning ethnic Macedonian party would include Albanians in the coalition. However, this is assuming that ethnic groups vote for ethnic parties, which sadly was the case in the 1990s and beyond. There remains an element of ideological difference between the two dominant ethnic Macedonian parties, yet all parties were more or less led by identifiable leaders of an ethnic type. In summary, Lenard Cohen and John Lampe state ‘Questions of party ideology or socioeconomic cleavages between the two largest ethnic Macedonian parties have been less important. There has been considerable partisan identification by adherents within the two parties, and a low rate of voter movement between the two organizations.’

So what we have are two mutually supportive processes whereby an ethnically divided party system is supported by a proportionally representative electoral system that reifies ethnic difference and exclusion, which gradually come to institutionalize ethnic politics in the state. This consociational form of government, as detailed by Arend Lijphart, may not provide majority rule but it ultimately provides stability, and that is its purpose. This stability rests on the attitudes of the political elites along with the type of political culture and extant subsystem autonomy in action. Pessimistically, this insinuates that a move to an ideologically based party politics will be difficult because of this institutionalization. This I will approach further on. However, debates on minorities in the party systems have failed to address minorities within dominant parties in multi-ethnic societies.

The Conflict over Macedonia™ 

Since independence, disputes over the unique identity of ethnic Macedonians have fed both internal ethnic divisions and external foreign relations, leading to a test of the country’s stability. The perceived threats were to the cultural, historical and ethnic nature of Macedonian identity and thus seen as a threat to the security of the state itself.

Ulf Brunnbauer’s polemic on historiography in Macedonia argues that during socialism, the task of creating the Macedonian nation was ongoing, yet after socialism’s collapse it actually intensified. He believes that this is because there was a need to provide continuity, in the economy and administration, which included the sciences. The creation of myths aided by historians could not go against this continual nation building, so it progressed. But its foundations were in the very period mentioned earlier, immediately after the Second World War. So Brunnbauer argues that in the 1990s ‘Any Macedonian national narrative that wanted to present the events on the territory of “Macedonia” as Macedonian national history was bound to come into conflict with these older historiographies.’ Greece was the main threat to Macedonian nationhood. The disputes ranged from what the independent state should be called and the design of the flag, to the more recent claim to Alexander the Great in order to trace the history of present day Macedonians to ‘ancient Macedon’. From the Greek perspective, this highlighted Macedonian expansionist intent for northern Greece. According to Loring Danforth, underlying impacts such the suspension of economic relations by Greece in 1994, international recognition of the republic, and the situation of Macedonians outside its borders all added to Macedonia’s problems stemming from its identity crisis. Ultimately ‘the Macedonian Question is a symbolic conflict that centers on the construction (or production) of conflicting ethnocentric national narratives.’ (Roudometof). This links to Hobsbawm and Ranger’s thesis on the invention of traditions, and is built upon the definition of where Macedonia is and the historical origins of the nation, which I tackled in the previous chapter. 

An important point to note is that by the time of independence, everyone under forty five years of age had been born within this Macedonian national culture. So, irrespective of claims to the ‘creation’ of Macedonians, this is what people were socialized into, how they understood their history, and went about ‘existing’ as a nation with a state in the 1990s and beyond.

Ethnic Division and the Pull of Nationalism

As the 1990’s came to a close, along with the symbolic contest with Greece, ethnic tensions within Macedonia began to increase. During this period, UNPROFOR then UNPREDEP was in the country providing stability and peace at the request of the President. However, their departure in 1999 along with the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo led to a renewed politicization of the ethnic Albanians domestically. The binary of inclusion and exclusion were in evidence during this period and reflective in the processes and discourses previously outlined. Strikingly leaders didn’t want independence or incorporation into Albania. Instead they grew tired of the political system that had not answered their calls for Albanian rights. These issues included language and education rights, one important example being the request for a university in Tetovo taught in the Albanian language. The failure of the system, the political parties as actors within this system, and of events outlined, altered the variables that kept the peace, which led to a challenge to the state’s stability. ‘Feelings of insecurity and lingering threat perceptions also contributed to the Macedonian majority’s reluctance to respond favorably to Albanian demands for expanded rights in the areas of education, language and state employment.’ (Jenny Engström). The incompatibility of Albanian nationalist demands with that of Macedonian nationalism present in the state, as well as the feeling of inclusion and exclusion from the state and access to power, led to a security dilemma and conflict (Thomas Hylland Eriksen). The unrest was situated in the Albanian areas, and the guerilla forces were clashing with Macedonian state forces. A political solution was fashioned and agreed by the two ethnic Macedonian parties and two ethnic Albanian parties at the time in 2001. The deal fulfilled the demands sought by Albanians the previous decade involved in the parliamentary process, but had now been accepted after violent conflict, and resulted in the National Liberation Army leader, Ali Ahmeti, entering the formal political system. But of importance was the fact that the state remained intact and the decentralization of power was agreed as a solution to end perceived ethnic oppression. However, ‘the decentralization model in Macedonia did little to de-ethnicize political loyalties or transcend intergroup conflicts…’ (Cohen and Lampe)

During this period a political culture developed, but one that may not have been suited to the changing situations in the country. A delicate balance of factors and pressures meant that although nationalist sentiments could be observed in the politics of the country, ethnic conflict was avoided for a considerable period. It was when the equilibrium between these factors altered that led to conflict.

Thoughts on The Death Of Yugoslavia by Laura Silber and Allan Little

My reading of this text, in a way, ‘bookends’ my knowledge and study of South East Europe. It was my original viewing of the series The Death of Yugoslavia that drew my attention to the region two decades ago. So in this book I was seeking to find a deeper portrayal of events by the authors.

This text does not seek a theoretical understanding of the conflict, and it only fleetingly calls upon historical or anthropological perspectives on why events may have unfolded as they did. This is rather different to the TV show, whose audience included those not familiar in the history of the region, so could have led one to believe that their analysis of events was the classic ‘ancient hatreds’ paradigm. The start of the book clearly indicates this as not being so. Instead, the book walks the reader through a series of key events that the authors see as being essential to fueling the subsequent wars and ethnic cleansing.

Echoing the same timeline as the TV show, you get further insight to some of the events and key players in the drama that was taking place in the 1980s and 1990s. It cleverly portrays the balance between the agency of individuals and those of institutions, which led to the Yugoslav state’s collapse. 

Symbolic individuals are familiar; Milosevic, Tudjman, Izetbegovic, Kucan – all heads of the republics/states they sought, and eventually came, to control. However, the spotlight also moves onto other individuals who were aggressors, and even those trying to calm the rising ethnic tensions. Borisav Jovic was Milosevic’s right hand man. Holding various functions at the Serbian and Federal level, Jovic was one of the key disciples of Milosevic’s attempts initially to centralize power in the Yugoslav state, then into the goal of uniting all Serbs. Milan Babic and Milan Martic are two individuals in Knin who took on the Serb Nationalist mantle once independence was sought by Croatia. What began as the Croatian states’ attempts to impose law and order, soon escalated to Serbian defense of their villages and towns, drawing battle lines in the process.  The Croat Josip Reihl-Kir, regional police chief in eastern Croatia, continuously tried to halt small skirmishes between Serb militia and Croat police from developing into a civil war, all the while facing pressure from above in the form of the hawkish HDZ officials.

Aside from individuals, the portrayal of institutions and forces as agents in the descent to state collapse and war are superbly woven into the story. As mentioned, the contest between centrifugal and centripetal forces for power in the Yugoslav state began in earnest once Tito died; although under him they had precedent. The multi-member presidency effectively reified the implication that republics were now the keepers of their resident nations, with a couple of notable and dangerous exceptions to that logic. Economic decline and social strife fuelled this polarized debate – symbolized by the western republics of one side, and the eastern on the other, or richer versus the poorer states. However two institutions kept them together, the League of Communists and the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA). ‘Brotherhood and Unity’ was still the central plank to their worldview. Any violation to the sovereignty and territoriality of Yugoslavia was verboten. It was the former that was to go first.

At the seminal, and what was to be the final, conference of the League of Communists in January 1990 (I have covered this in a past blog piece), it was Kucan as head of the Slovene delegation that led the walkout that saw the end of the League of Communists.  The centripetal forces had won. The JNA on the other hand clung on, even after the loss of Slovenia and Croatia. However, by that time, its Serb contingent moved from working under the JNA banner in Croatia then Bosnia to local Serb units. The detail of the movements on the ground are vividly portrayed, with lines of communication – either between Croatian Police forces and the leadership in Zagreb, or the Serb militias and the ‘Yugoslav’ leadership in Belgrade – explained concisely.

Further on, the details of the war and sieges on the ground, and the pathetic response by world community, is despairing. Hindsight only makes you question why the EC and UN did not do more. Initially wanting to keep Yugoslavia intact, splits developed in the international community that led to different directions and approaches on how to stop conflict emerging. Within Yugoslavia, the tussle of whether 'self-determination' should be exclusive to the republics or the nations fed into the splits in the international community. The price paid was ethnic cleansing.

What gives this book its power is the knowledge garnered from the active participants. Although written in 1996, and with the participants possibly not giving a full and frank account, the authors weaved a compelling account from numerous actors and actions of institutions, to describe the events and processes that took hold of the former Yugoslavia from the early 1980s. How it slowly describes the ethnic untangling of peoples is a daunting prospect for us in communities that are ever becoming more multi cultural. However, the book doesn’t give, nor does it need to, an account of how to stop this. Instead this book is more a warning, a warning to those who seek political power by manipulating institutions, individuals and the masses, through tools of fear and hatred, in order to put into practice a narrow nationalist agenda. 

The Development and Consolidation of the Macedonian Nation (1/5)

This series of posts are re-drafts of my dissertation entitled '20 Years On: Social Democracy in Macedonia'. This piece was written in the summer of 2012, and involved my spending a week in Skopje speaking to individuals in the SDSM and wider social democratic movement. This first post sets the scene and provides an historical overview of the emergence of Macedonian nation.

(Macedonia - without borders both cognitive and material)

Three important historical developments impact on how social democracy in Macedonia constitutes itself today. The first two, to be covered here, from the pre-democratisation period are, the development of the Macedonian nation and the establishment of the first republic for Macedonians. An understanding of these place contemporary issues surrounding national identity, nationalism, and relations with neighbours in an historical footing. The establishment of a republic for the Macedonians, within the context of a Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), puts forth arguments as to why the communist political leadership pursued this task and would have future implications for the Social Democratic Unions of Macedonia in the post-independence era. 

Nation and Nationalism – Definitions

But first, I must clarify what I see are the definitions of ‘nations’ and ‘nationalism’. I use Benedict Anderson’s understanding that the nation ‘is an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.’ For nationalism, Ernest Gellner’s definition that ‘Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent.’ and Eric Hobsbawm’s observation that ‘Nations do not make states and nationalisms but the other way around.’ are my anchor and both hold true in the case of Macedonia.

The ‘Macedonian Question’ in the 19th and 20th Centuries

The emergence of the ‘Macedonian Question’ arose during the latter part of the 19th century at a time when established territories surrounded the region whilst it was still formally part of the Ottoman Empire. In the words of Barbara and Charles Jelavich ‘When the struggle over Macedonia became more heated after the Congress of Berlin, anthropologists, linguists, and physiologists from the Balkan countries all used their specialty to claim the area for their own particular nationality.’ Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece were the three states that eyed the region, whose population was a diverse mix. The attributes for their claims came from religion, language, education, history, and culture; and were easily contested. Fundamentally, the geographic-strategic importance of this area for territorial expansion, economic gain and possible regional power status, were the reasons these claims were made, and backed by the ‘Great Powers’. Ottoman era social structures were breeding grounds for these contests, especially in regards to the church organization, to which language and education were tied; yet pro-Ottoman sympathies resulted from these clashes coming from all sides. The Balkan War of 1912 was fought to overthrow Ottoman rule, and Macedonia was split between the three states; however Bulgaria was unhappy and a second war in 1913 erupted, the result of which was the Treaty of Bucharest. During this period the people’s ‘perception from below’ in the region could be characterized as ‘not necessarily national and still less nationalist.’ according to Eric Hobsbawm. But this was of lesser importance for these belligerent states, which previously based territorial claims on co-nationals, but that soon became redundant.

The Foundations of Macedonian National Consciousness

Although a small group of people began to attest to a unique Macedonian national movement in the last decade of the 19th century, especially the establishment of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in 1893, their sympathies were specifically Bulgarian (Jelavich and Jelavich). In applying Victor Roudometof’s ‘thesis that national identity is socially constructed, fluid, situational, and modified through encounters and interaction with other groups, thereby fostering the necessity for boundary preservation and the exaggeration of cultural difference.’, one can see that these clashes could be unending. In Ottoman administrative records there was no categorization of Macedonians with a distinct identity. The idea that the people in the region were a ‘blank canvass’ upholds Roudometof’s constructivist approach. However ‘the notion that Macedonian Slavs were not yet Serbs or Bulgarians was the germ of the idea that they formed a distinct ethnic category, neither Serbian nor Bulgarian’, according to Roudometof. This idea has its legacy in contemporary debates in the region. The debate amongst the intelligentsia revolved around delineating where Macedonia was, its administrative position within the Ottoman Empire, and took on attempts to unite the Christians of the region through a Bishopric. Although multi-ethnic autonomy was their aim, including during the Ilinden Uprising in 1903, the division of the region during the Balkan Wars took on a more important meaning. So, up to the Balkan Wars the region had become defined and markers were established as to who people were not; yet the division of this ‘imagined’ area (up to that point in time) sowed the seeds for future discontent.

Between the Two World Wars

After this territorial division of ‘Ancient Macedonia’ into Pirin, Aegean and Vardar Macedonia, and its subsequent codification after World War I, demographic consolidation occurred. Greece settled Greeks from Turkey in their area and established demographic dominance, whereas in Bulgaria the ‘Macedonian Question’ played heavily on domestic politics. Focusing on the Vardar region, whose borders are co-terminus with those of present-day Macedonia, assimilation was attempted by the Serbs with the aim to de-Bulgarize the region via methods such as name changing. Again, Macedonians weren’t acknowledged in the 1921 and 1931 census calculations as a separate entity, but were counted as Serb or as speaking Serbocroat according to Joseph Rothschild. Politically, Ivo Banac notes that in the 1920 elections ‘The chief beneficiary of Macedonian discontent was the Communist Party, which won 36.72 percent of all Macedonian votes…’ doing better in the urban areas of Kumanovo, Skopje and Tikves. Communism also provided an ideological alternative to nationalism in the region at the time, seeking to establish a Balkan Federation. However, with no sizeable proletariat, they sought to exploit national oppression for social revolution. According to Pavlos Hatzopolous the ‘nationalization’ of the peoples of the Macedonia region by the conquering states proved ripe for this agitation, even if it ultimately failed. Whilst de-Bulgarization, Serbianization, and the Comintern agreeing the existence of a Macedonian nation in 1934, were ongoing processes and events, Alexander Maxwell believes that the masses simply wanted an easy life and identified with whichever state controlled their area.

From World War II to a Socialist Republic of Macedonia

Alexander Maxwell continues that with the arrival of World War II to the Balkans in 1941 came the governance of the most part of Vardar Macedonia by the Bulgarians. At first they were welcomed, but re-Bulgarization and the removal of local elites, as well as the effects of war and displaced peoples, led to increasing support for Tito and the Partisans. The Partisans establishing a Macedonian literary language in 1944 accelerated this. ‘Macedonia’s Slavs simultaneously espoused both “regional Macedonian nationalism” and “ethnic Bulgarian nationalism” in the early twentieth century, but by 1945 an “ethnic Macedonian nationalism” incompatible with Bulgarian loyalties had emerged.’ Rooted in language, Tito sought to capitalize on this. It justified his attempt to gain control of Macedonia, retain it, eliminate Bulgarian national consciousness, and ultimately to act as a step to Yugoslav regional hegemony, according to Stephen Palmer and Robert King. The ‘Macedonian Question’ was a useful vehicle for this, and can be judged as a success in comparison to the strategy employed by interwar communists as suggested by Hatzopolous.

Only with the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, albeit obligated to be part of the Socialist Federal Yugoslavia, could state resources create the Macedonian nation. This was achieved by creating schools, a university and a press in this new Macedonian language. Added to this was the longer-term goal of acquiring an independent Orthodox Church. Thus the state existed because of communism, so when the Tito consolidated the communist organization in the republic via patronage and trading political and economic centralism for cultural autonomy, he could command the loyalty of large sections of the population (Ulf Brunnbauer). But fundamentally, echoing Hobsbawm, ‘the republic was established, but the nation had still to be created.’

Thoughts on The Anthropological Field on the Margins of Europe, 1945-1991 by Aleksandar Boskovic and Chris Hann

Anthropology – the study of humanity – has a well-argued history over the nature of the discipline.  Can it be objective, when it’s the product of an author that is to some extent subjective? Can the observed group of people really open up to the researcher about their ways of life?  To what extent do ideologies intersect with anthropology to shape what is studied, how it is studied, and ‘when’ it was studied? In this book, the central question is to what extent anthropology has been swayed by nationalism, and later socialism, in its development as a discipline.

The interplay in this book is between western ideas of anthropology merging in with local practices of folklore, ethnology and ethnography. It also looks at the dichotomy of local and foreign anthropologists (and folklorists) and their impact on the nature of the discipline in each country, all under differing conditions of nationalism, socialism and levels of intrusion by the state.

One of the keys to understanding this text is to have an awareness of the political climate during the period, and the tumult that occurred. The examples range from orthodox communism as in Albania, through to conservative militaristic rule as was the case for a while in Greece, and via Titoism in Yugoslavia – all having periods of strict then relaxed impositions of ideology, with some having changes in ideology too. But the one process that they all went through was democratization, the end date of this book.

Yet, underneath the political clouds above, there were clashes between those who practiced the different methods of the study of humanity – whether in the present or historically.  For many, this book will read as an emergence from the outmoded ways of the study of folklore towards the western standard of social and cultural anthropology. Or, in other words, a move from an inward looking study of oneself, to one where comparison with others takes precedence. Nationalism or, more specifically, the extent to which the state reifies the dominant nation, is evident when looking at which communities are studied by folklorists/anthropologists.

The first example of this is Greece, where an oscillation of direction within the folkloric/anthropological field occurred. These have been strongly tied to the political leadership of the country, swaying between conservative dominance harking to a more folkloric unveiling of the past of Greek people, to the reformist Government in the late 1950s wanting state to have a modern vision and the ‘other’ to be studied. And back again. As the 21^st century approached, the education of students in western universities saw social anthropology being brought into Greece more pro-actively, but still having to compete with the historic and entrenched folklore of the past.

In Albania, the epistemological debates were secondary to historical materialism, relying heavily on a Marxist version of history, to draw up an ethnographic/ethnological narrative derived from Engels. Again the narrative was used to explain how ‘ancient’ the Albanians were by exploring folklore, yet while wanting to discover folkloric artefacts, the ideology also wanted it banished. Strict adherence to the one party state was obligatory, and thus no other methods of anthropology were explored.

Although under Socialism and with Marxist thought being the favourite methodology and practice, studying communities didn’t properly emerge in Slovenia until the late 1940s, and even then folklore and ethnology was dominant, as it was pre World War II. This detailed material, social and spiritual culture via a classificatory system and through collecting artefacts. After World War II there were no paradigms or theoretical perspectives to follow, so collection took priority over interpretation. From the 1950s onwards, academic trips and contacts began to occur, albeit limited. But this led individuals to move towards ethnology and the methods of analysis of daily culture and phenomena, allowing students in the 1970s and beyond to study and develop the variety of subjects they could discover.

Macedonia is probably one of the more intriguing because of its history prior to 1945 being that of a contested area by Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks and Serbs.  The forbearers to anthropology all had a ‘nationalising’ slant to their work.  During socialism, Macedonia had to contend with the 4 established nation-states around it assessing it, claiming it, whilst looking for areas of similarity in order to acquire it. But the authors look more at how knowledge was produced in the work of the academics, and how politics had penetrated deeply their modes of working. Although the paradigm shifted from socialism to ethno-nationalism during this period, the two approaches of folklore and ethnology still worked on creating and recreating the nationhood of Macedonians.

One key observation is that this book buys-in to the ‘national narrative’ because the states that had a settled will of how anthropology should be researched, always saw the limits of its own borders as the limits of research. The investigation into the origins and development of the nation became the task these academics were enrolled in, irrespective of the name given to them by their methodology; social anthropologist, folklorist etc. Each state had a dominant nation, and those communities who could be studied had to confirm and reconfirm the uniqueness of that nation, irrespective if the political leaders were socialist or conservative. This is still the case after democratisation.

When reading anthropological texts, one should always place into context the time of writing and the persuasion of the author. One can never be purely objective, whether that is when classifying cultural or material objects, or when analysing and describing social relations and rituals in a community. As humans, we have our own unique perspective of the world, and base our judgments of the meaning of objects, rituals, and relations from that perspective. Whether from the community or foreign to it, the meanings will be different, and over time can and will change.  So by accepting the subjectivity of this social science, we can develop our own interpretation of those studied peoples, which have themselves been re-interpreted by the social scientists in a myriad of ways.

Thoughts on Ethno-Baroque by Rozita Dimova

This book has intrigued me for some years. Since writing my essay on spatial and temporal aspects to national identity and history in the Republic of Macedonia, I have seen and read more essays and books on the topic. This book I felt would add to my knowledge of the role aesthetics and materialism play in reshaping ethnic, national and social relations in Macedonia.

Rozita Dimova seeks to account for the changing roles and relations that have occurred during socialism and since the fall of socialism between, mainly, the Albanian and Macedonian ethnic groups in Macedonia. Her central theme revolves around the axis of loss and gain in the perceptions of members of both of these groups. This perception reaches back beyond the emphasis that is usually placed on the economic demise of Yugoslavia in the early 1980s, and instead looks to the 1950s and 1960s when consumerism became apparent in Macedonia and peoples experiences of it started to cement. These experiences accelerated once democratization ensued, and flowed in tandem with migrations from rural to urban settings.

Dimova’s anthropological research displays examples of how ethno-national ‘conflict’ can arise in the tamest and most innocent of circumstances. Reading the accounts, from both ethnic communities, you get a sense of how these people slowly realized their sense of loss, gain or entitlement based on their past experience and yearning for times gone by or for a better future. One example is a young Macedonian mother, Lela, who lives in an apartment block where she has to save for minor luxuries in life. The description of her deteriorated flat can be viewed as a metaphor for how the Macedonians’ feel about their place in present society. A family of Albanians moved into the upstairs flat, the constant noise of children and residue of bread making on the balcony, both creeping into the downstairs flat. This intrusion leads Lela to feel nostalgia for the past, a sense of a loss and a former entitlement because of the position her ethnicity led ‘her’ to have in the past.

Another story is of an Albanian father who is paying for her daughters wedding. His tastes reflect those of Macedonians, and underlines how Albanians are aligning their tastes to those of Macedonians. Among the Albanian community, the ability to purchase this ‘Baroque’ furniture elevated your social standing within your ethnic community. In relation to the Albanians’ standing with the Macedonians, they see it as one of eliminating the ethnic stereotype of being backward through the medium of purchasing commodities, as a way to show their advancement and economic strength. However, from a Macedonian perspective, the move towards similar tastes becomes a threat to their identity, with ‘us’ and ‘them’ becoming less distinct. Dimova believes that Macedonians don’t like the idea that Albanians want to be like them and get jealous of their commodities, but also don’t see why they would want what Macedonians like when they are richer than them and can afford other styles.

This theme of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is explored in relation to gender, especially in respect to Albanians, with an air of ‘nesting orientalisms’ about it from Dimova. Here she observes how women are seen as the carriers of Albanian national identity and outlines why Albanian men seek to keep their women ignorant and uneducated so that they wouldn’t contribute to the decline of the nation. Yet, Albanian men, particularly those who work abroad, have mistresses and are happy for them to be ‘loose’ women. This hypocrisy within Albanian masculinity arises because Albanian men fear Albanian women may prefer Macedonian men. This exemplifies loss on the Albanian side, as families in the past were rural, subsistence based, with the women uneducated and home based. A market economy and democratization works for Albanian men, and any extension to Albanian women is seen as a threat to the Albanian nation, hence Albanian men don’t want ‘them’ (women) to become like ‘us’ (men).

I see these examples highlight the importance of movement in what Dimova observes. Where there is movement, or a transition, then differing or opposing forces converge and conflict emerges. Conflict can only occur if there is a movement of peoples, commodities, customs etc, into spaces and times that haven’t experienced such movement or change. Conflicts emerge and are seen as ethno-national because the two ethnicities experience movement, or lack of movement, differently. For some Albanians it is the desire to have commodities similar to their Macedonian co-nationals; a market economy has allowed them to purchase it, and moving homes near to Macedonians meant they saw and wanted to acquire their ‘Baroque’ style of interiors. For Macedonians, they see their place as having slipped from the Yugoslav days to where they are now challenged in their dominance of the state. Former jobs pay less or are gone, and they historically didn’t need to be guest workers as their positions at home were secure. The free market has meant new neighbours and Albanians wanting to emulate them, although they now cannot keep up that same aesthetic pretence due to the last of money. Hence the basis of Macedonian or Albanian nationality is questioned. This doesn’t affect all people across Macedonia, and neither is there solely resentment or mimicry between ethnicities because it is also experienced within each ethnicity.

But Dimova delivers a fresh account of how low level ethno-national conflicts form part of people’s daily lives, and describes their attempts to rationalize their lot in life at present due to factors that are historical, cultural and economic.