Sunday, March 20, 2011

Valon Bela: POLITICAL CULTURE NEEDS AN AMBIENT

There is no political culture in a situation of encroaching into the other people’s identity
There are no doubts that this is a wide topic for anyone to find oneself into and contribute with one’s own considerations.
In order to have a political culture and real dialogue, an ambient has to be created, conditions and standards with the purpose of being as effective as possible.
The lack of these categories escalates with dilemmas and vicissitudes, with the inappropriate, but I would also say, very tendentious vocabulary. There are also arguments in the speeches and political retorts that we are daily faced with here in Macedonia.
The genesis of this problematic is since the establishment of the country autonomy – since the non-participation of the Albanians in the referendum for independence, the person-to-person privatization, which was also mono-ethnical, up to the most recent underestimations between the coalition partners, whereby, the government decisions are pointless, first being denied by one, then by the other coalition partner.
There is no political culture in a situation of encroaching into the other people’s identity.
At first, I would mention the usurpation of the memorial and figure of the Great Mother Teresa, whereby she still does not have a nationality and is still called “native of Skopje”. Maybe we should process this terminology and call ourselves, as colleague Stevo mentioned, with one national identity. There are the other historical figures of which we are not certain where they really belong to, since we have reactions, once from Greece, once from Bulgaria. So, someone else’s history has been encroached.
We cannot talk about political culture in a situation of suspicious secularism. We have a country that claims that it is democratic, and has settled its accounts with secularity; however, only the orthodox religious community is present in all the projects.
We cannot talk about political culture when the institutions are discriminating the culture and the economy of the others. We know that 95% of the republic budget is unjustly appointed to one ethnic community.
We cannot talk about political dialogue if these institutions come to illegal resolutions with exclusivity by the state. In relation to this is the studying of Macedonian language in first grade in the Albanian schools, which is illegitimate and illegal, considering the fact that in the Law on Primary education it is clearly stated that studying Macedonian language should start in fourth grade.
The things that can be noticed here are the paradoxical sides of this government. The absence of cohesion between the coalition partners, is illustrated by the fact that they did not want to act upon the Badenter principal while changing the Law on Primary education, because of the fact that other compromises should follow, as we have had a compromise on the pedagogical e records, but it was unfortunately boycotted by the Albanian media, the Albanians know nothing about that. Whether it is done by investments of the institution, I am not sure and I do not want to speculate.
I am going to mention one scandal more. The President Ivanov congratulated the President of Kosovo on the second anniversary of independence, at the same time not mentioning, at least once, the word independence. What a paradox! We are talking about a democratic country all the time.
There is also the case of the intrusion in Tetovo University, where 500 policemen have been sent and the rectorship of that educational institution has been completely replaced. Assistants without a master degree are gained entry in the deanery. So, there has been a violent intrusion in a Temple of knowledge that is sacred.
I am not going to keep only on criticizing the government. I want to implicate the colleagues from the non-governmental organizations, too, that is, the civil sector, considering the fact that while registering our organization we found out that there are over 5.500 organizations in Republic of Macedonia. This is an unbelievable figure, whilst the situation down there has change for quite a bit. In terms of the fact that the non-governmental organizations are involved in informal education of the population; if every one of these 5.500 organizations educates 10 persons properly, sending them on seminars, no matter of the topics considered, we would have a little bit different communication inside the society of Macedonia.
The consequences are obvious.  I would hereby quote Francis Fukuyama, who says that the weak governments are not only incapable of creating strong, stable and new institutions, but they are furthermore creators of the problems.
It is a fact that there is no cohesion here. The Ambassador Fouéré said that the citizens recognize politics and institutions and political leaders as examples, they identify themselves with them. Now, how does the fact that the partner of the government coalition VMRO was not present at the eighth anniversary of the Ohrid agreement, affects the citizens.
Hereby, regarding the solutions, I would appeal to the institutuins to urgently stop with the discrimination of minorities, not only the Albanians, bu the others as well, because the society and the country should be really multiethnical, and that reuires urgent complete implementation of the Ohrid agreement.
The Macedonian citizens, besides their freedom and rights, should experience the state benefits, too.
Besides the previously mentioned, it is necessary to respect the domestic judicature completely, as well as clear understanding of the international factor, and certainly not to abuse it. 
(Valon Bela is the leader of the Albanian League)

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