INTERVIEW: Ferid Muhic, coordinator of the Common Vision Project PEV Macedonia

Peace is reality, not a possibility in this region

Building constant peace and overcoming conflicts is the essence of your research as a part of the Common Vision Project PEV Macedonia “Record on Macedonia”. How realistically is peace possible in our country, when the results have shown some polarized attitudes of the citizens, politicians and representatives of the international community, who, everyone in his/her own way, have interpreted the results. So citizens have accused politicians of the events in 2001, foreigners consider that poverty resulted in worsening inter-ethnic relations, and politicians explain that it is about inherited problems?
Peace is reality, not a possibility in this region. Multi-cultural space in Macedonia does not have any historical mortgages. Macedonians and Albanians have never been in war in their millenniums long history of common living! It is a large capital whose value was especially seen in 2001 when in spite of all insistences of some of the then key political factors, the armed conflict did not turn into a civil war. For comparison, let me remind you, only one of the many wars between the English and the French lasted for 114 years! However, in spite of that, it would be completely pointless if someone asked himself if peace between these two nations was possible. It is certain that peace between the Macedonians and Albanians, two nations, that, I emphasize, have never been in war—throughout history would be possible!

An analytical comment of the results of your question would clearly show that the three mutual perceptions of the conflict, in spite of the big differences, are not excluded at all. For citizens, the reality of mutual trust and tradition of common life, clearly direct towards the crucial role of politicians in the 2001 events. Our research, not even in the beginning of 2002, has not concluded a single statement in which, the Macedonians or the Albanians think that it was a clash between these two nations. Indicating economic difficulties, as a fruitful base for ethnic tensions, pointed out by the representatives of the international community, also washes realistically. And finally, politicians are not wrong when they mention certain inherited problems, not so much from the past, but from the fact that it stopped overnight and the process of so-called transitions has some really big challenges and threats for each society.

How can the impressions from talks with over 3000 respondents, who are decisive that Macedonia belongs to the citizens and are not satisfied with the fact that the state receives a dualistic, binational character, be interpreted?
There is a fine ambiguity in the possibility of interpreting such formulation. One option is that citizens are not satisfied with the more noticeable signs that the country is becoming binational, because they want it to stay uni-national; and the second one is that the dissatisfaction with the binational character is an expression of the desire to keep the authentic multi-ethnic character of the society. The research has confirmed the second implication, through some additional questions.

Over 40% of the citizens have an attitude that the territorial division could cause a multi-ethnic clash. At the same time, foreign representatives warn that the social rebellion is considered to be more probable and more dangerous that the multi-ethnic. In you opinion, what is more likely?
We are trying to exchange probability with exactness, supported by empirical evidence. In that sense, even at our citizens, the possibility for the conflict to receive a multi-ethnic character, as a result of any other factor, including the territorial division, is in the third place far behind the economic one, convincingly taking the first place. By the way, before the confrontation about the referendum, ethnic tensions were practically in the last position on the “hot chestnuts list” of the Macedonian social and political reality.

How much can the entry in the EU and the implementation of the Ohrid agreement rescue citizens from poverty, for which half of the respondents say that it can endanger the country’s stability the most?
Realistically, I do not think that acquiring a status as the EU member will automatically mean beginning of abundance and end of poverty. If the EU wanted it, it could set the whole region on strong economic legs with barely 1% of the annual gross-product of this powerful community. It is not good to view the membership as a way for someone else to solve our difficulties. The whole idea with the (too) long lists of previous conditions is basically pedagogical, for my taste even too didactical. However, I absolutely agree with the conception that insists upon maturity and capability, that is, integrity and capacity of each country to solve its problems with its own strengths. However, for a certain more concrete moral support, financially expressed, since long ago there has been a place in the agenda of the EU members with whom this region shares the same continent, to which, after all, gave the name (Homer, Iliad). Postponing such an energetic and unambiguous step in support of peace, leaves a space for different speculations in terms of strategic opinions, hidden agendas, theories of conspiracy that are a part of the atmosphere of much bigger mistrust, both inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic, that is, on a line of local/international factors. Therefore, we should not be surprised by the fact that in the TV A1 questionnaire even 80% of the citizens think that foreigners frighten us, even in a situation where, objectively, they only direct, as signers and guarantees of the Ohrid agreement, which means completely legitimately, towards the effects of the eventual “successful” referendum.

According to the research, citizens believe in the institutions of the system and blame the politicians and judges for being corrupted. What is the “cure” to improve such picture of the people of this country?
First of all, it is true that the mistrust in institutions is not only dominant, in the general corruption at all levels, but in terms of this, attitudes of all ethnic communities practically coincide. One of the main reasons for this difficult situation citizens see in the more present partisation. So, the first cure would have to be a total and systematic departisation in the personnel’s solutions, especially the key ones. Otherwise, completely concretely, people will improve their picture for the state when the state really improves. By that time, the revolt will be changed with melancholy, anger with resignation.

In the end, I think that it is necessary to point out that the three-year researches of PEV Macedonia have also detected some big positive energy present in all regions, all ethnic communities and all social stratums of the Macedonian society. It is here, although latent so far, disorganized, mutually dissociated. The list of references, that the research resulted in, as well as the already created network of associates and friends of PEV Macedonia encourage in terms of this and clearly suggest that the concept of common vision is an undertaking that the strength of the Macedonian society is capable of.