Severna Makedonija, zemlja velikog društvenog diverziteta, kontraverzi i izazova
North Macedonia a Country of Big Social Diversity, Controversies and Challenges

Author(s): Rubin Zemon
Subject(s): Politics, Sociology, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation, Politics and Identity, Identity of Collectives
Published by: Институт друштвених наука
Keywords: Macedonia; Macedonians; identity; divided society; “One society“; antiquation
Summary/Abstract: In the processes of bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia, Macedonian society was described as a “peace oasis“ since it successfully avoided the war conflicts in the 1990s, though some inter-ethnical tensions were present “in the air“, as well as some physical clashes between the ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. After the collapse of Tito’s Yugoslavia, the Socialist Republic of Macedonia entered into the process of building a new social order, which brought new moments in the relations between the individual and the society, but also in the relations between the groups and the society. The newly formed political pluralism and multi-party system did not reflect the social division, or channelize the different socio-cultural and economic interests of the citizens. Ethnic affiliation and ethnic polarization strengthened significantly, especially through the establishment of political parties based mainly on ethnic identity. Thus, in Macedonian politics, the ethnicisation of the political system was widely promoted An issue of higher education in the Albanian language was the biggest inter-ethnic dispute in the 1990s! The Kosovo issue and the war in 1999 exerted inertia in which resulted in the civil conflict in Macedonia in 2001 that was concluded with the so-called Ohrid Framework Agreement and transformation of the Republic of Macedonia from a national to hybrid state and society. Ethnic Macedonians want to build nation-state, ethnic Albanians are implementing bi-national politics and the other smaller communities are dreaming of multicultural society. The Ohrid Framework Agreement brought to practicing of the so-called Power Sharing policies and adequate and just participation in state institution and the society. With the proclamation of the independence, the so-called name dispute surfaced, concerning the name of Macedonia. The name was not disputed only by Greece, but the ethnic identity, language and history of Macedonians also resonated with Bulgaria, while the Serbian Orthodox church objected to the autocephaly of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. On the other hand, the debate concerning the conflict between the Ancient Macedonian and Slavic Macedonian identities, or continuity between these two identity constructions was very much present in the public discourse. The culmination was achieved with the project titled “Skopje 2004“ and the so-called “Antiquation“, when a large number of new monuments were erected in the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. Its ethnically diverse and religiously divided society, with the permanent danger of ethno-political and economic instability, is a source of a continuous human mobility and emigration. Looking for better life, citizens of Macedonia found a lot of “alternative ways“ to realize their need for human mobility, or emigration to the Western EU States, including: getting Bulgarian citizenship, seeking asylum, establishing companies in EU-member states etc. Statistical data from the census in 2021 indicate that the total population in the country has degrease by more than 10% in the last decades.

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