The Lessons of Macedonia
by Géza Jeszenszky

In mostmulti-ethnic countries, and in the Balkans particularly, ethnicity and languageis the source of primary loyalty. The U.S. ideal, an integrated multiethnicsociety, is a far cry here. The main reason is the experience that the majoritynational group always aims at undermining the position and reducing the size ofthe national minorities.


Whereas there is a general commitment not to allow newethnic cleansings and to reverse the results of earlier ones, there is nosimilar commitment for preventing the slow, creeping version of artificiallyinduced ethnic change and all the concomitant suffering and conflicts. In theeastern half of Europe the state has traditionally not been neutral in mattersconcerning the national minorities, rather it has been a centralized tool fortheir harassment. Figures prove that: minorities are hardly represented in thecentral government, in the public administration, in the officers corps, in the police. The proportion of the national minorities is considerably lower inhigh schools and even more at universities than that of the members of thenational majority. (That is the case even where the educational traditions ofthe minority have been very strong, like in the case of Hungarians in Romania,Slovakia and Vojvodina.) Local officials seldom speak the language of theminorities even in regions where the latter form a substantial group, often alocal majority.

The Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe ingeneral is not a melting pot, the present national minorities emerged not bypeople crossing borders but by borders crossing people. Any attempt at turningthis region into a melting pot turns it into a powder keg, as older and mostrecent history amply testifies.

The remedydoes not lie in individual minority rights. That approach is exactly thenotorious one when rich and poor have an equal right to sleep under the bridge.Real equality requires opportunities, and a positive, at minimum neutralattitude by the authorities. This has not been the case in most multi-nationalcountries.


Self-determination, devolution and the cantonalarrangement

Localself-government is the foundation of genuine democracy, but the "successorstates" that emerged out of the ruins of the large multinational empires afterWorld War I all denied the right of their national minorities to run their ownaffairs, to have a decisive say over the allocation of taxes collected fromthem, to have their own educational system in their mother tongue, to haveofficials and policemen who understand and speak their own language. One of theresults has been the substantial reduction of the number and even more theproportion of these communities. It is not too much to call that process, theresult of deliberate policies, creeping ethnic cleansing.

The eventsof the last ten years demonstrate that the way to achieve and preserve a trulymulti-ethnic state does not lie in mixing peoples that speak differentlanguages, follow different religions and even use different alphabets, but byallowing each national group autonomy, self-government. In most cases thisautonomy can have a territorial basis, and where it cannot, it can be based onthe voluntary association of the individuals, like the various denominationsare organized. (In the 1900s that was proposed in the Habsburg Monarchy underthe term "cultural autonomy.")
What is desirable is an arrangement where thestate is decentralized, where the smaller regional units are based ontraditions and on ethnic/national composition, where those units decide overtheir own affairs and receive a due proportion of the taxes paid by thecitizens. Why not following the Swiss model of such autonomous units, Kantons,bound together by geography, common traditions and economic interests in afederal state. The model has been found working not only in Switzerland, butalso in South Tyrol, and in several states in Western Europe. Sadly that is notwhat the international community is striving for in the Balkans.

A version of thatsystem is the autonomy of a larger region. That has eliminated the age-oldconflict in Spain with the Catalonians and most of the Basques are satisfiedwith that. It promises to work in the U.K., in Scotland and Wales. That modelis probably the only chance to avoid the renewal of violence and partition inMacedonia. It may now be introduced in Serbia, in the Vojvodina. That is whatthe millions of Hungarians in Slovakia and Romania are striving for.

The members of the EU and NATO have great influence over all the countries which aspire formembership in these organizations. That influence can be used to prevent measuresviolating the rights and interests of the national minorities. That influencecan be used for bringing about fair and lasting arrangements on local government,including genuine local democracy through decentralization or "devolution".

An "Eastern Switzerland" in the Danubian Basin was a dream once, advocated by many. South-Eastern Europe, composed of several countries made up by autonomousself-governing Kantons can find not only peace but eventually also unity withinthe framework of European integration.

* The author, an historian, was Foreign Minister of Hungary in 1990-94 and is the present Ambassador to the United States. The views expressed here are his personal onesand should not be regarded as the official position of the Government of Hungary.
By Géza Jeszenszky on Friday Nov 16th, 2001