Syndicate: 2 aspects

[Melentie Pandilovski <mpandil@soros.org.mk>]

I see that there are many misunderstandings in the understanding of the
situation regarding the conflict Macedonia/Kosovo.
I thought that I can maybe also elaborate a bit about the more
historical aspects of this situation, and present the wider processes going on 
which have to be taken in consideration when speaking about the crisis
in Macedonia, which will perhaps help people on the list to undertsand
better the roots of what is going on.

1. about the etnic Albanian space
We were all witnesses to what happened when Yugoslavia broke apart.
Many processes were visible, but also the break up resulted with less
visible processes.
One of these processes was the break up of communication within what we could define as the virtual 
ethnic Albanian space. This space had a center. It was Pristina.
The entire Albanian population from SFRJ (mostly from Kosovo, Macedonia,
and Montenegro) was gravitating towards it. It had a University, an
Academy of Arts and Sciences, governmentally sponsored TV and radio station and numerous other
Institutions and characteristics of a "national capital", heavily funded
by the Yugoslav Federation. The Albanians had a sense of an integral
space with-in the larger ex-Yugoslav space.
These processes were partially interrupted by Milosevic, but the whole
process was paradoxically finalized and symbolized by the break up of
Yugoslavia.

2. About the presence of ethnic Albanians in the Macedonian cultural space
There have been disputes about the number of ethnic Albanians in
Macedonia. 
Numbers vary, but we can say with a certainty that the number of
Albanians in Macedonia is steeply increasing in the past decades. 
Partly it is a result of an extremly high birth rate but partly it is a
result of a massive immigration into Macedonia
Historically the key moment of this 22% presence of Albanians in
Macedonia is precisely the immigration from Albania and Kosovo. 
Namely, by the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties there
was a large movement of ethnic Turks and  Torbesh (Macedons of Islamic
Faith) towards Turkey. 
This vacant space (but also houses, land, and property, which were ready to be used)
was filled in by Albanians that were arriving from, what was
then the Ultra-Communist Albania (under Enver Hoxha), and Kosovo.
The Communist Party leader and State leader in Macedonia, in the period 1945 - 1985, Lazar Kolisevski 
(there are probably some people on the list who remember that he was the first
Chair of the Presidency of SFRJ after Tito's death), was noted to have
said in the sixties "we will inhabit the country with Chinese if necessary
as long as they are Communists". 
This movement of people from Albania and Kosovo towards Macedonia was never interrupted, and is 
still happening en mass.



Melentie Pandilovski

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