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Tipping the Scales
Opinion: Western reporting of the fighting in Macedonia is more likely to
inflame than inform.
by Eran Fraenkel
SKOPJE, Macedonia--The crisis in Macedonia over the past several weeks has
illustrated once again that irresponsible international media have as much
ability to incite violence as people with guns. By putting out inflammatory and
unfounded reports, the media are complicit in convincing people in Macedonia
that their only resort may be to join the bloodletting.
Rather than providing balanced and unemotional information, international press
reports have been extremely provocative reports during a very sensitive
situation. For example, within the first two days of the conflict, CNN reported
that Tetovo had "been taken by the 'rebels' who are advancing on
Skopje." The BBC also broadcast equally alarmist and unconfirmed reports
about ethnic Albanians flocking to join the armed rebellion against the state.
Those stories were not only unfounded, but incredibly dangerous besides. Such
reporting contrasted particularly poorly with the local media that initially
were behaving with restraint and a sense of responsibility.
It is a sad commentary that international reporting on the current crisis in
Macedonia again demonstrates how poorly the Western media understand events in
this part of the world. Both articles and editorial comments are often full of
half-truths and factual inaccuracies that misinform and mislead readers. Like
the witness oath at a trial, the question is whether the press not only tells
the truth, but the whole truth. My answer is: absolutely not.
I have been working in Macedonia for the past thirty years, the last seven
directing a non-governmental organization engaged in conflict transformation.
Many explanations exist for the violence that has been afflicting Macedonia
recently. There are also various reasons why some of Macedonia's ethnic
Albanians may popularly support such violence, and why some ethnic Macedonians
deeply fear or mistrust Macedonia's ethnic-Albanian community. None of those
phenomena, however, is absolute. Macedonia is not just another Balkan country
waiting to explode, no matter how convenient that perspective is for reporters
looking for a simple story line.
There can be no justification for this quest for a journalistic badge of honor,
when reporters struggle their way to the guerilla headquarters in the Tetovo
hills and presume after a day or two to become experts in local affairs.
Commonly reiterated statements such as ethnic Albanians "have been denied
basic rights, including the use of their own language in schools and other
institutions" are an outright falsehood: Although not recognized as an
official second language, Albanian-language usage is provided for by law in any
part of the country in which Albanians constitute 20 percent or more of the
population. It is revisionist history to claim that "dozens of schools
teach an Albanian-language curriculum" because Arben Xhaferi, the leader of
Macedonia's main ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Party of Albanian, joined
the government in 1998. Albanian-language schools have existed continuously from
the time of the former Yugoslavia and through the present.
Another claim, that ethnic Albanian unemployment is double the Macedonian
national rate, is believable only if one takes ethnic Albanian and government
labor statistics at face value. Ethnic Albanian numbers are high, and government
statistics are low. Anyone sincerely reporting on Macedonia would discover that
fact within days of arriving here. Rather than educating readers, reporting of
that nature biases the public toward one side or another in the conflict.
Photographs such as the one used by Newsweek in a 2 April article on Macedonia
are anything but objective. The picture of spent ammunition, taken from a
ground-level perspective, entirely exaggerated its size. Showing a
bullet-covered foreground with tanks behind may be dramatic, but it is
inflammatory--not informative. What is the point of using it?
Editorial comments are more complicated. For example, virtually every Western
medium insists on distinguishing between ethnic Albanians and Macedonian "Slavs."
Macedonia's population consists of a numerical majority of ethnic Macedonians,
and a numerical minority of ethnic Albanians. There are no Slavs as such. By
refusing to refer properly to ethnic Macedonians, the media are denying that
community its cultural and ethnic identity. They allow ethnic Albanians their
cultural identity, but ethnic Macedonians only a racial one. By what right? Do
the media refer to British Anglo-Saxons, Russian Slavs, Arab Semites, or to
German Aryans? If they did, the media would rightfully be accused of racism. If
not, are the media deliberately supporting one side in the ongoing regional
political debate about the name of the Macedonian state and people? If so, the
media should reveal their political positions and not presume that their
language is value-free. It isn't.
Furthermore in the 2 April Newsweek, the commentator advocates the abandonment
of "the fiction of multiethnic states." Does this mean he recommends
the partition of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Albania to recreate a Greater
Macedonia, or only the creation of some greater Albanian state? Does he also
call for the partition of Germany, Poland, France, Belgium, and other
pluralistic European (and non-European) countries? The Balkans have no monopoly
on minorities, let alone on discontented minorities.
Why do the media ignore that many people here are trying by various means to
halt the erosion that is occurring in Macedonia? Why is Macedonia's demise
presented as inevitable, pre-ordained, or justified?
Why are the various local media appeals for unity and reason and NGO appeals
against violence overlooked? Why are people who, in their everyday life and
existence, are struggling to prevent this allegedly inevitable dissolution of
their country, disregarded? Where are their stories?
In other words, where are the media's efforts to understand Macedonia and not
just to feature breaking news? If the answer is that breaking news sells, that
is a condemnation of media in the West and not of Macedonia. Like the reporting
of the Kosovo war and Macedonia's role in that crisis, it is a challenge that
the Western media fail to meet. Such attitudes anger, insult, and ultimately
discourage Macedonia's citizens of all ethnicities from believing that their
reality truly matters to anyone outside the country.
Those are the images that the Western media create. If they care to, they can
also change them.
Dr. Eran Fraenkel is executive director of Search for
Common Ground in Macedonia, a non-governmental organization engaged in conflict
transformation.
The article combines the "Appeal for Responsible Reporting" from
Search for Common Ground in Macedonia (16 March 2001), and an unpublished letter
to Newsweek's editor, sent on 3 April 2001.
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