Institute for the Sociological, Political and Juridical Research, Macedonia

Monitoring period: June 2001

RELIGIONS AND CONFLICT IN MACEDONIA

The Macedonian media covered a wide spectrum of issues related to human rights and freedoms during June. These ranged from economic rights and quality of education to the trafficking of both people and drugs. But irresponsible and provocative reporting was also an issue - as was the fate of refugee and internally displaced people.

Examples of irresponsible journalism noted in June included articles by the Macedonian army spokesman which now regularly appear in daily Vecer, under the headline "Word of the Army". One such piece detailed an episode with two American journalists (reportedly from the Philadelphia Enquirer) and their interpreter, a Macedonian Albanian. Vecer reported gleefully that the Macedonian police had caught them "red handed", in front of one of the larger hotels in Skopje, staging a photo of a car sticker with anti-NATO content. The story suggested there was an American-Albanian alliance which was fabricating evidence to support allegations of anti-NATO hysteria in Macedonia.

But religious intolerance as expressed through the media was a serious issue focused on in June.

During the communist era, the Islamic Religious Community, IRC, enjoyed a privileged position over the Macedonian Orthodox Church, MOC. The MOC was considered an "opium for the masses", while the IRC was allowed partial freedom under the principle of "inter-ethnic relations". Therefore, it can be concluded that after the 46 years within Yugoslavia, the Macedonian community was secularised while the ethnic Albanian community never secularised itself. Ethnic Albanian Macedonians identify themselves as more religiously observant than Kosovar Albanians and Albanians from Albania itself.

Macedonia's secession from Yugoslavia resulted in the lifting of many unwritten bans on religious affiliation, and a trumpeted revival of the MOC. This was accompanied by a gradual de-secularisation of both the Macedonian community and the Macedonian state. Suddenly, the three heads of religions in Macedonia - MOC, IRC and Catholic Church - started appearing at the parliamentary sessions. The next step was interlacing the MOC with Macedonian political parties. In 1997, a new law on religions was adopted, and it was here that the two approaches to influencing opinion first collided.

For decades the IRC had based its activities at community level and thus influenced the political elements of the Albanian community. The MOC worked the other way around - directly influencing the senior politicians. And they succeeded.

Last year the MOC started a major project to mark the millenium; opening many small churches across Macedonia. The crowning symbol of this celebration of Orthodoxy is a monumental construction: a 76-metre high cross on the top of Mount Vodno [just outside Skopje] that will be visible from just about any position from the capital.

Furthermore, at the beginning of the crisis in Macedonia, the MOC acquired as a "gift" from the cabinet a hotel on the shores of Lake Ohrid. This donation was first uncovered and criticised by Dnevnik, with the other media soon following suit. However, this criticism occurred at a time when all the media, in different ways, were carrying religious themed broadcasts or articles. The state-owned Macedonian Television, MTV, now broadcasts prayers from the MOC twice a day. When MTV was criticised for this they maintained it was a counter-balance to the communal amplified call to prayer from the minarets. Some local non-Muslim populations complain that this is a disturbance (and there have been letters to this effect in newspapers). The Macedonian media are also paying increasing attention to religious holidays, saints' days and other celebrations connected to the MOC. Very occasionally they try to create a balance and report on celebrations of other religions.

All these "achievements" of the MOC were opposed by the IRC. When it became apparent that the media campaign against the hotel-gift wasn't working, they launched their own protest campaign. The result was rather modest - the "gift" was transformed into an offer to "rent the hotel for an indefinite period, free of charge". The IRC responded severely, using the opportunity to raise the issue of Art. 19 of the Macedonian constitution, which states "The Macedonian Orthodox Church and other religious communities and groups are free to establish schools and other social and charitable institutions, by ways of a procedure regulated by law". The IRC challenged the explicit mentioning of the MOC. This led to a merciless bickering campaign which ran throughout June.

The two religions started the month accusing each other through their mouthpieces (the newspapers Vecer and Fakti) of undergoing a "moral crisis".

The head of MOC, Patriarch Stefan said this meant that " togetherness is not acceptable because of.. religious and ethnic differences ". His IRC counterpart Arif Emini said, " We have forgotten that next to us live people with different values, different feelings and different cultures based on different spiritual values."

Both of them spoke about some "dark, outside forces" and "insiders, traitors". And somehow, everybody knew that they were referring to each other's faith.

This rather abstract theological dispute was combined with open accusations from the IRC that the Macedonians were undertaking ethnic cleansing and were trying to destroy Islamic culture and civilisation, including the mosques. The MOC struck back hard, declaring the Almighty approves of their stance. "The war for peace pleases God," they proclaimed. They called on their politicians to wage war as the only way of achieving lasting peace.

However, the appeal fell rather flat, provoking limited responses among followers but there were no scenes reminiscent of Serbia some ten years ago when the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church called the people to war. On the contrary, the statement attracted a lot of criticism and the MOC found themselves with a lot of explaining to do.

Failing to organise a joint meeting, the two faiths met each other and representatives of the numerous other religious communities in Macedonia on neutral ground, in Morges, Switzerland. The meeting was organised by a Macedonian NGO, with a participation of a representative of the World Church Council, WCC. The mass media all reported this event - the independent newspapers Dnevnik and Utrinski Vesnik, the weekly Start and A1 TV, as well as the governmental daily newspaper Vecher and the state channel MTV. Albanian coverage included the weekly magazine Lobi and the daily Fakti (closely linked to Albanian political parties). It must be emphasised that statements from this 'Morges Meeting' were very humane and positive and so was the way the media reported it.

It was noted that the IRC, which ignored all the actions of the National Liberation Army, NLA, and consistently referred to them as rebels, did not publish condolences for the victims among the Macedonian security forces. On the day that the Morges declaration was announced, the IRC launched an appeal to all followers not to leave places which have been "their homes for centuries", particularly in areas affected by the crisis. This was seen as a response to the appeal of the Macedonian army that all the civilians should leave areas occupied by the NLA.

The IRC's statement was widely understood as a message to Muslims in Macedonia to support the terrorists. So, the MOC struck back - now the IRC was accused of supporting the ethnic and territorial division of Macedonia as well as deleting (from the constitution) the identity of the Macedonian people, by expunging the role of the MOC through the centuries as the guardian of ethnic Macedonian feelings. Yet the earlier mistake with an open appeal for war was not repeated. Instead, numerous comparisons were drawn to the Danish, Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, British, and Polish constitutions and constitutional positions of their (state) religions.

As the two churches fought their war of words, a US contingent of the NATO-led KFOR was sent in to bus out NLA fighters from the besieged village of Arachinovo, on the outskirts of Skopje. A theory first aired in the German media was widely reported by the Macedonian press: that the Americans needed to extricate 17 American "instructors" that were fighting together with the terrorists, and retrieve a weapons cache of American origin.

The MOC condemned the international actors on three counts: that they stopped the offensive of the Macedonian forces; that they dragged out the "terrorists"; and that they let the same "terrorists" free on Macedonian soil to repeat their crimes. The overall result, according to them, was a humiliation of the Macedonian people. On the other hand, the IRC applauded the "Aracinovo move". Both of the churches hid themselves behind "concern for human lives". Yet, both involved themselves heavily in politics.

At the beginning of July, two graduate theology scholars criticised the MOC for their interpretation of the New Testament that war could be acceptable when aimed at achieving peace. Their letter to this effect was published in Dnevnik. It was a courageous act both by the young academics (who risked severe religious punishments) and by Dnevnik. No such reflection was forthcoming over the stance adopted by the IRC, nor was there any self-criticism from within the IRC.

source: http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?balkans_humanrights.html 
published by: Roland Brunner rbr@medienhilfe.ch date of release on this site: 16-08-2001

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