Macedonia & Greece: Name Issue

[Phoenix]

If they didn't boycott the agreement would surely have been forced through as the Yes vote would've passed. There were world records of voting every 3 seconds in some reports near the end.

Romania the past week had a referendum too, to reverse same sex marriage. Guess what, EU openly called for a boycott.

There is no proper law over there, everything was geared to push this through but i get your view. The current Macedonian Psyche is "Shto mi e gajle" and in majority the "Neznam" crew.

Macedonian's rising up won't happen unless the orchestrated 27th of April fiasco happens again.

2001 Macedonians lost their lives for politicians today to build careers

From 2001 - 2018 same crap, opportunism and self interest while the people through social media post a post and thinking their outrage is enough.

The above applies to the whole world now sadly.

In a normal, law abiding society, one that is built on the true values of democracy and with transparent government, the appropriate thing would be to go and cast your vote.
In such places one would have the confidence that the outcome of the vote would be fair and just...but this is not a normal place that we are talking about but Macedonia, where bribery, corruption and dysfunction are the norms.

It is the non-binding nature of the referendum that is the problem, not the vote/boycott strategy...

This was a deliberate safeguard put in place by the architects of the referendum process for exactly the post referendum environment that we find ourselves in today...even if every person on the electoral role had gone out and voted and the majority voted 'NO', Zaev and his handlers would still be focusing on the wishes of the 'Yes' voters...

There is no doubt that the grand strategy here is to change Macedonia's name (at any cost), the referendum was a mere sideshow of feigned democracy...

In a country where democracy and the laws of the land are respected, the PM would recognise that the referendum had failed its first test of minimum voter turnout and it would be duly abandoned and in most cases that same PM would hand in his resignation...the mere fact that Zaev continues full steam with his name changing agenda shows that he neither represents the Macedonian people nor does he respect the laws of the land.

I'm still disappointed that some on this forum continue to attack the boycott movement as dumb. backward or servile.
Even after months of Zaev's lies that the road to the EU (&NATO) is paved with gold, over 70% of the population refused to be swayed, refused to sell the name...I think that deserves some accolades and it definitely needs more support from the diaspora...not condemnation!

[VMRO]

In a normal, law abiding society, one that is built on the true values of democracy and with transparent government, the appropriate thing would be to go and cast your vote.
In such places one would have the confidence that the outcome of the vote would be fair and just...but this is not a normal place that we are talking about but Macedonia, where bribery, corruption and dysfunction are the norms.

It is the non-binding nature of the referendum that is the problem, not the vote/boycott strategy...

This was a deliberate safeguard put in place by the architects of the referendum process for exactly the post referendum environment that we find ourselves in today...even if every person on the electoral role had gone out and voted and the majority voted 'NO', Zaev and his handlers would still be focusing on the wishes of the 'Yes' voters...

There is no doubt that the grand strategy here is to change Macedonia's name (at any cost), the referendum was a mere sideshow of feigned democracy...

In a country where democracy and the laws of the land are respected, the PM would recognise that the referendum had failed its first test of minimum voter turnout and it would be duly abandoned and in most cases that same PM would hand in his resignation...the mere fact that Zaev continues full steam with his name changing agenda shows that he neither represents the Macedonian people nor does he respect the laws of the land.

I'm still disappointed that some on this forum continue to attack the boycott movement as dumb. backward or servile.
Even after months of Zaev's lies that the road to the EU (&NATO) is paved with gold, over 70% of the population refused to be swayed, refused to sell the name...I think that deserves some accolades and it definitely needs more support from the diaspora...not condemnation!

I don't think anybody called the Albanians and SDS lapdogs dumb when they boycotted in 2004.

[Phoenix]

I don't think anybody called the Albanians and SDS lapdogs dumb when they boycotted in 2004.

I think that is the other point in this argument about the usefulness or otherwise of boycotting...this is just a preferred way of protest in that part of the world, it is quite acceptable...too many people from outside are trying to apply the versions of democracy that they are most familiar with in the diaspora to some half-arsed version of the same in Macedonia...

In Macedonia, to boycott is the only foolproof way of eliminating or reducing fraud...whilst conveying the notion of protest.

[VMRO]

I think that is the other point in this argument about the usefulness or otherwise of boycotting...this is just a preferred way of protest in that part of the world, it is quite acceptable...too many people from outside are trying to apply the versions of democracy that they are most familiar with in the diaspora to some half-arsed version of the same in Macedonia...

In Macedonia, to boycott is the only foolproof way of eliminating or reducing fraud...whilst conveying the notion of protest.

Agreed with the above.

[Gocka]

Boycotting was extremely dumb because there was no leverage to be had.

This was not a boycott. This was people throwing around a term they don't fully understand and using it to justify a passive do nothing strategy.

A boycott is a well thought out and strategic action designed to isolate someone/thing into submission.

As Phoenix highlighted, the referendum was non binding, so trying to delegitimize something that was non binding was pointless. By making it non binding, Zaev was actually honest and upfront about being able to continue, regardless of the result. This is a simple fact that no one seemed to comprehend.

I firmly believe that if you remove the word boycott from what was attempted, it literally boils down to stay home and do nothing, even though Zaev was totally upfront with his intentions.

I never supported a boycott, although I did support not voting in the referendum. It might seem like semantics, but I contend it is not just semantics.

Let me explain:

The way it was marketed was: We will boycott the referendum, this will lower the voter turnout below 50% and make the referendum illegitimate.

Again not to beat a dead horse, but it was non binding and thus not a legitimate referendum anyway, merely a glorified national poll.

What the pitch should have been is not that we are boycotting to lower turnout, but that we are not voting because this agreement is illegal and this process is unconstitutional. Not enough focus was put on those aspects, and too much was focused on playing this numbers game. It gave people the illusion that they are playing a game with reverse scoring. Just achieve a lower turnout and you win.

This was a fatal flaw in the mentality behind the movement. Everyone did nothing, let the referendum come on pass, and were left flat footed when the end result was absolutely nothing.

The movement should have been vocal about not voting but should have started a resistance movement around that months ago.

There should have been at a minimum, protest. There should have been protests, before, during, and after the referendum.

Really even protests would have been pointless since it has been obvious for months that they will try to push this through in any case.

If you really believe that what they are doing is wrong, anti Macedonian, anti democratic, traitorous. Then your only choice is to call for resignations, and if they still ignore you, then you have to roll up your sleeves a remove them from power, physically.

There is no avoiding that simple fact. The resistance should have been slowly building up to a point of physical removal which should be coming to a crescendo right about now.

But its not, and we are not even close to even beginning that type of movement, let alone executing the final stages of it.

Again, I don't consider what happened a boycott, I think that term is being improperly used to describe this.

Using the term boycott in my opinion gave people a false sense of importance. It made the whole thing seem much more measured and strategic than it really was. There was 0 strategy behind that movement.

The fact that all these groups with this supposed huge following have seemly fallen of the earth is proof that these were no real movements. Even if the original calculations ended up being wrong, why no momentum to bringing that movement/following into a new plan to do something else now that the referendum has come and gone?

There is no movement, there is no resistance, there never was. Just people doing nothing and glorifying it by saying they are boycotting.

I don't think anybody called the Albanians and SDS lapdogs dumb when they boycotted in 2004.

[Carlin]

U.S. Spycraft and Stealthy Diplomacy Expose Russian Subversion in a Key Balkans Vote

By Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt

Oct. 9, 2018

WASHINGTON — For years, Ivan Savvidis has been the Kremlin’s man in Greece.

A Greek-Russian billionaire, a former member of the Russian Duma and the owner of a professional Greek soccer team, Mr. Savvidis has moved seamlessly between the sporting worlds of both countries. He has a finger in seemingly every facet of life in Thessaloniki, the Greek port city where he lives, and is a well-known player in the often feuding world of Greek and Russian oligarchs.

All of which has made him of intense interest to American spy agencies.

United States officials say they intercepted communications in June showing that Mr. Savvidis was working as Russia’s conduit to undermine an agreement between Greece and Macedonia that would have paved the way for Macedonia to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Greece has long objected to Macedonia’s entry into NATO. Moscow, which sees the expanding alliance as a major threat on its border, was determined to defeat a referendum on the deal.


I will not copy and paste the entire article. Here is the link to the full article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/us/politics/russia-macedonia-greece.html

[Pelagonija]

Fake news.. Carlin don’t believe anything that comes out of the NY times or any other US leftist propaganda news outlets. This mental illness and anti Russian hysteria that has gripped the American god hating homosexual left well may lead to a wider war if not stopped accordingly.

With this deal the Greeks are finishing off the ethnic cleansing started over a 100 years ago, The Greek elite know they are onto a winner, and so would the Greek public if they weren’t stupid enough to know that the Greek state will determine our school history curriculum going forward as well as other racist aspects of the deal. I fail to understand how any Greek would want to halt this deal.

[Karposh]

We keep saying on this forum that the Macedonian Government cannot be trusted with matters of national importance (considering the sellout dogs that they so unashamedly are) and, when you also consider where the US and EU sit on this issue, I think boycotting was the only card the Macedonians in the republic had to play, to be perfectly honest. I can't help wondering, even if close to 100% of the registered voting population of Macedonia turned out to vote and had their say, who's to say that those votes would not have been manipulated by all those desperately wanting this to pass. Personally, I see the boycott as a very shrewd move by all those concerned which needs to be congratulated and not ridiculed (especially by us in the diaspora). Boycotting has taken the potential risk of electoral fraud and manipulation out of the equation.

We even have a thread on this forum that discusses EU/US double standards where referendums that align with EU/US interests and ideals are seen and touted as successful while those that do not are rubbished and pronounced as failures (and vice-versa). Who's to say that voter turnout and the corresponding electoral voice will have been respected and honoured. Manipulation and fraud has been completely taken away from the equation in this instance and I'm of the opinion that it was a brilliant move by the people of Macedonia.

[Risto the Great]

It was a passive move. Passive passive passive. That just barely scrapes in as the will of the people in my mind.

[Karposh]

It was a passive move. Passive passive passive. That just barely scrapes in as the will of the people in my mind.

E sega i ti Risto...Za nashite da ja zemat pushkata vraka, like the old days, and make it a more active resistance will take something extraordinary to happen. In the meantime, I think a passive boycott will have to do for now. The ball is in Zaev's court now on how he wants to proceed. And, by all accounts, he wants to piss on the people's very clear wishes that they are not willing to accept a name change and an identity re-adjustment as a the condition for EU accession. Maybe your wishes will come true if he does push through with his plans to go ahead with the Prespa agreement...Maybe then we'll see Makedoncheto with the pushka in his hands...Time will tell.

[Risto the Great]

We'll see I guess. Given DPmNE were already willing to accept northern Macedonia (and it was their idea), I don't think it's a great leap for them to go next level on this matter. I don't think we'll ever see pushki. I think the people will accept all of this as long as they don't feel it's personally their fault. I'd bet on this and I'm sure Zaev would also

[vicsinad]

I didn't agree with only doing a boycott, but I do think they deserve credit. It is probable that Macedonia would have reached the 50% threshold without a boycott, and the boycott at least succeeded in delaying or throwing a wrench in this whole process. This is something. It's not nothing.

Still, it's a fiction to suggest that most of those who didn't vote were against the deal. You can't convince me that the 50% of Albanians who stayed home did so because they were disgusted with the name change. There were even interviews of Macedonians on the day of the referendum being asked why they didn't vote; some said they supported the agreement but just had other things to do that day. You also can't ignore that the voter rolls are more likely to be closer to 1.5 million than 1.8 million.

To me, this means that it is likely that probably half (or more) of Macedonia's citizens actually do support the name change agreement. That this reality was not reflected in the September 30 vote may be a legal and technical win, but it certainly does not show promise for Macedonia's future as 'Macedonia'.

The government is going to push forward. The boycott movement succeeded in the legal/technical battle for the referendum, but there is no (known) strategy/plan to win the war. How to deal with DPNE members who might switch sides? How to deal with snap elections, if they come? How to deal with Ivanov's departure next year?

There's no long-term strategy, at least not one that's been conveyed. The bottom line is that words on social media can win some battles, but the dirty work needs to happen on the ground in Macedonia. This is where passiveness needs to be turned into activism.

[Gocka]

If that's the case then was it really a boycott? A concerted and planned effort?

Still, it's a fiction to suggest that most of those who didn't vote were against the deal. You can't convince me that the 50% of Albanians who stayed home did so because they were disgusted with the name change. There were even interviews of Macedonians on the day of the referendum being asked why they didn't vote; some said they supported the agreement but just had other things to do that day. You also can't ignore that the voter rolls are more likely to be closer to 1.5 million than 1.8 million.

Technical win maybe, but it can be a legal win if the referendum was known to be non binding from the start. Making it non binding means it never entered the legal realm at all.

That this reality was not reflected in the September 30 vote may be a legal and technical win, but it certainly does not show promise for Macedonia's future as 'Macedonia'.

The fact that there was/is no long term strategy and that supposed boycotters never turned into actual activists makes me question whether there was ever a genuine movement to begin with.

If you look at most historical boycotts, they are almost always coupled with some other type of active movement. Many of the most notable ones were during or right before times of war, many were followed by other types of disobedience, and at a minimum they were coupled with rallies and protests. This is because they were real movements, with real goals and real people behind them.

Its totally silly to and almost unheard of to use a boycott as a singular strategy especially in the context of a referendum.

Its because of these reasons that I can not applaud anyone for something that I view as doing nothing. If no one marketed the term boycott/bojkatiram on social media, and the same end result was achieved, what would be say about it? We would most likely say how lazy and apathetic people were for doing nothing, not that they were smart and successful.

It was not/isn't a real movement and history will confirm that.

I would much rather have a 60,000 person angry mob instead of 600,000 stay at home "boycotters".

The only clever part about it, was the marketing.

There's no long-term strategy, at least not one that's been conveyed. The bottom line is that words on social media can win some battles, but the dirty work needs to happen on the ground in Macedonia. This is where passiveness needs to be turned into activism.

[vicsinad]

Technical win maybe, but it can be a legal win if the referendum was known to be non binding from the start. Making it non binding means it never entered the legal realm at all.

Well, here's the thing with that. If the referendum reached a 50% voter turn-out, it would have been Constitutionally binding. Thus, Zaev would have said that the results were legally binding. So, the boycott's success in this referendum prevented Zaev from proclaiming the referendum a legal victory per the Constitution. This does indeed mean something because it delayed the process. If 50% +1 showed up on September 30, the Constitutional changes would have already been made. North Macedonia would already be etched into the Constitution. (Barring a refusal to sign by Ivanov.)

The fact that there was/is no long term strategy and that supposed boycotters never turned into actual activists makes me question whether there was ever a genuine movement to begin with.

Sure, we don't agree with them or their strategy, but there were hundreds of people working on social media (and on the ground) to make this a reality. Just because we think it was not the right path does not mean it wasn't genuine . I think that's a stretch. Sure, many of the people in the "movement" were Diaspora people; but there are still many within Macedonia who advocated for boycott on the ground.

If you look at most historical boycotts, they are almost always coupled with some other type of active movement. Many of the most notable ones were during or right before times of war, many were followed by other types of disobedience, and at a minimum they were coupled with rallies and protests. This is because they were real movements, with real goals and real people behind them.

You're right about historical movements. There should have been (and should still be) civil disobedience and rallies or protests. I don't understand why you think there were no real goals or real people behind this boycott. It was primarily a social-media driven campaign (they were upfront about that), being that most of the funding and resources came from the Diaspora. And that makes sense. It doesn't fit the historical narrative of movements, perhaps, but it was still a successful campaign: it achieved its only ever stated aim -- to keep voter turn-out below 50%. Now, we agree that's short-sighted because you're thinking long-term, and you're right about that. But I don't recall anyone involved in the boycott campaign having any strategy or goals beyond the referendum. Thus, can you really say they failed to do what they set out to do? This was never a "movement" to defeat the name agreement, so I don't think they can be blamed for failing to do that. This is evidenced by the fact that there's been no real reaction to anything that has happened since the referendum. The only goal was to defeat the referendum. Our issue is that that's all Macedonians were capable of in that moment, to only think about referendum results when we knew that the agreement would be pushed through even if the referendum failed.

Its totally silly to and almost unheard of to use a boycott as a singular strategy especially in the context of a referendum.

I don't even think that matters. In most other examples of boycotts, whether or not accompanied with civil disobedience or protests, the difference is -- and this is what Bojkotiram should have known -- is that in those societies, governments were rather stable and functioned orderly. Macedonian society/government does not function nor is it stable; thus, they should have known a successful boycott could only delay the process and not defeat the process.

If no one marketed the term boycott/bojkatiram on social media, and the same end result was achieved, what would be say about it? We would most likely say how lazy and apathetic people were for doing nothing, not that they were smart and successful.

We'll never know if the same result would have been achieved. But I do think, as evidenced by the number of no-votes, that the idea of not voting resonated with those who would have voted. You can't convince me that only "yes-voters" are active Macedonians who aren't passive while the no-voters were going to not vote anyway even if the boycott movement never happened. It doesn't make sense with the voter turn-out and the referendum results.

It was not/isn't a real movement and history will confirm that.

Probably not.

I would much rather have a 60,000 person angry mob instead of 600,000 stay at home "boycotters".

Yes, but we failed in convincing people to do any alternative. So, in the end, we just got to move on.

[vicsinad]

If that's the case then was it really a boycott? A concerted and planned effort?

Of course it was. They got enough people to stay home. Zaev only needed a little over 200,000 more people to show up and vote. There are plenty of people who are absolutely against this agreement that probably would have showed up and voted no. The passive people (30-40% of the population) would have stayed home anyway, whether or not they supported the name change agreement. The boycott strategy just needed to succeed in getting 10 to 20% not to show up. And I think they did that.