The U stuck its foot into an international dispute about a country’s name.
When the U’s department of languages and literature chose to host the globe-trotting seventh Macedonian-North American Conference on Macedonian Studies, beginning Thursday, it stepped on a land mine between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. Greeks from around the United States inundated the U administration with angry e-mails to cancel the conference, but U President Michael Young issued a statement Oct. 26, saying that this week’s conference, a beneficial academic pursuit, will go on as planned.
“We will have a uniformed security officer on hand,” said Jane Hacking, chairwoman of the languages and literature department. “They’re aware that there might be problems.”
The Republic of Macedonia wants its southern neighbor, Greece, to recognize its country as constitutionally Macedonia and its people as national Macedonians, even though its population is historically Slavic. But Greece doesn’t want another ethnic group usurping the name of its ethnically Macedonian population, which moved out of the region the Slavs now occupy and into modern-day Greece centuries ago. The Republic of Macedonia’s government claims its historically Slavic people deserve the Macedonia title after having lived in the region for a millennium.
The U entered the conflict when it chose to host the conference, infuriating those who don’t support the Republic of Macedonia’s claim to the name.
“You are basically supporting a group that just decided one day to claim the important, historical name of Macedonia for themselves,” said Helen Karipidis from New York in an e-mail to the President’s Office. “Perhaps, if Westminster College decided one day that they deserved to call their institution the University of Utah, that would not bother you at all?”
The U backed its choice to host the conference and released a statement last week saying it supports research and academic pursuits that enhance the school’s understanding of the world.
Hacking said she expects Friday, the second day of the conference, to be the most contentious. A panel scheduled for that day is specifically about Slavic refugees from northern Greece, an issue that has sparked threats against outspoken authors on the matter, Hacking said.
The United States is one of 126 countries in the United Nations that recognizes Greece’s northern neighbor as the Republic of Macedonia, even though Greece has its own state, Macedonia, for its ethnic group. Three American universities and three universities in the Republic of Macedonia have hosted the conference since it began in 1991 and subsequently repeated it every three years.
Hacking said the U is a single school in the middle of a country on the other side of the world from Greece and the Republic of Macedonia’s feud.
“As I said to President Young, this has been under (United Nations) mediation for a number of years,” Hacking said. “I really don’t think that anything we do one way or another is going to decide the issue.”
2) IDENTITY THEFT IS ILLEGAL NO MATTER WHO DOES IT OR WHO IS IGNORANT ENOUGH TO NOT SEE ITFYROM* “By resolution A/RES/47/225 of 8 April 1993, the General Assembly decided to admit as a Member of the United Nations the State being provisionally referred to for all purposes within the United Nations as "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" pending settlement of the difference that had arisen over its name”. --- www.un.org/en/members/index.shtml#yVardarska/FYROM* is suffering from an identity crisis, created by Tito and Stalin who in their effort to expand communism into Greece in the 1940s invaded northern Greece through southern Yugoslavia and armed/funded communists who were pushed back with the aid of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshal Plan.
United States Secretary of State Edward R. Stetinius, upon learning of communist leaders' Tito and Stalin's attempts to create a "Macedonian" state said: “This Government considers talk of Macedonian ‘nation’, Macedonian ‘Fatherland’, or Macedonian ‘national consciousness’ to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic or political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece.” There are over 3 million Macedonian in Greece, and like king Philip and his son Alexander the Great they call themselves Greeks, as do the Athenians, the Spartans, the Cretans, the Eperotes, and all other Greeks from all region of Greece. The Macedonians speak Greek, just like Alexander the Great and King Phillip did in ancient times, and have the same customs, traditions, and ethic identity as all other Greeks. Alexander the Great and his Greek army spread the Greek Language and culture throughout the ancient world ! If he was not Greek he would have spread another language and culture. More than 350 of the world’s foremost archeologist and historians recently send a letter to president Obama reaffirming that the historical and archeological facts prove beyond any doubt that Macedonia and the Macedonians are Greek. More than 5000 archeological artifacts and other items uncovered in Macedonia only show a Greek link for the Macedonians. Not a single item has been brought forth by the Vardarskans to show that they are anything but Slavs and Albanians. www.macedonian-heritage.gr/FAQ.html
macedonia-evidence.org/obama-letter.html
macedonia-evidence.org/documentation.html
www.macedonian-heritage.gr/HellenicMacedonia/en/topic_5_1.html
historyofmacedonia.wordpress.com
www.helleniccomserve.com/fyromlomis.html
(b) How you segregate a Greek Macedonian identity with a Slav Macedonian one?
(c) Utah University administrators ought to ask whether we need historical lectures basing on facts or in political motives ?Thanks for your timing.
This thing about an armed security officer is bizarre, it's unbelievable that these people feel threatened by emails exercising their democratic rights by protesting the conference and its explicit political aims when the conference itself is funded by two organizations, one of which is explicitly racial in its ideologies, setting up a racial purity argument for FYROM's right to the name and the lands of Macedon, and the other organization is involved in a scandal of framing and blackmailing American politicians to vote pro-Turkey in Congress. These are the issues that the U should examine, it must reflect on the ethics of where it's getting its money because this is scary, we are selling our universities to the highest bidder, no matter what their political aims, and along with this sale comes the imposition of "science" and views which are less than sanguine.
Kind Regards
CA
LONDON, UK