The nation and the agreement: Lost in translation or in negotiation

Ilinden 2018 is over! Once again, the celebration of our biggest national holiday, rather than strengthening national unity, has brought a deepening of divisions. The unpleasant events of the celebration at Meckin Kamen reminded us of a similar feuding of the holiday twenty years ago. Our current President, Gjorgje Ivanov, compared himself with the then-President Kiro Gligorov. But, unlike the then “unknown fluid” of Srebra Todevska, the words coming from Ivanov’s mouth were dark and traumatizing. He found that national disasters occur whenever personal and party interests prevail over the general will and national consensus. But he forgot to remind himself that he, as the father of the nation, has the greatest responsibility for the current situation. Setting himself to be the only faithful interpreter of the general will, he granted amnesty in 2015, that is, an abolition of people who treated the nation as a private party grab. What was this if not an introduction to a national catastrophe? Since they exist, nations as modern creations, embody themselves in state bodies whose functions are governed by constitutions and laws, and not according to the will of the party, to the clan represented as a defense of the ‘general will’.
But the president is not the only one that has a problem with understanding the national question, national consensus and nationality in general. The current government is also struggling with itself and us to understand that question. Its servants, however, stigmatize every criticism of the agreement as a national treachery, from VMRO positions, of course! There is no room for independent thinking of a particular product of specific individuals with specific flaws and values. They represent the agreement reached with Greece as a final, once-for-all, confirmation and affirmation of the Macedonian nation! And there is no such thing in the Agreement! The national question is the politically most sensitive issue and at the same time the weakest point of the Agreement. The success of the scheduled referendum in Macedonia, and then the ratification of the Agreement in Greece, depends on the answer to the questions whether the Agreement accepts and recognizes an existing Macedonian nation or not, whether it creates a new national identity (NorthMacedonian) or not.
The careful reading of the official version of the Agreement in Macedonian language shows that in it the nation’s name or the adjectives derived from it as a nationality, the national (s) used the adjective “national level” only once (when in Article 2, paragraph 3 / b / II sets out a “possible referendum at the national level”). This reduced talk about national themes is different from the talk about it in the version of the English-language agreement, which I presume is the original version of the original agreement, and from there, the translations were made in both Macedonian and Greek. The power of the the party that assembled the agreement is written in English.
The official Greek and Macedonian answers to these questions are diametrically opposed. The response of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras recently given to the newspaper Kathimerini reads: “The agreement does not recognize an existing Macedonian nation, but opens a door to construct a new national identity (everyone will call them citizens of North Macedonia). The answer, however, from Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has been repeated many times: with this agreement, Macedonian national identity has been guaranteed once and for all.
So, this means there are two national truths: Tsipras did not recognize an existing Macedonian nation, Zaev did not accept to give up our current identity! This brings out with two questions. First, how can such conflicting truths emerge from the original truth whose translations are the Macedonian and Greek national versions; Secondly, does the designer and the guarantor of the original version consider the written as important to him and how it is received and sold in both countries?
The discourse analysis (speech analysis) of the English version of the Agreement shows that terms that refer to the nation are used at least seventy times. By contrast, in the Macedonian version, the only form in which the nation is mentioned is in the name of the United Nations, and only once in the expression “referendum at the national level”. All other English terms that speak in one way or another about national themes are replaced with the noun state or derived adjectives. The state or its representatives as a replacement of the nation!
Thus, for example, the original English definition of our nationality as a Second Party to the Agreement contained in Article 1 / b (“The nationality of the Second Party shall be Macedonian …”) has been translated and replaced by “Citizenship of the Second Party be Macedonian”). The same is done by replacing the term ‘former national flag’, meaning the old Macedonian flag with the Vergina star. In our version it has been translated with the term “former state flag.”
The same conversion was done in the Greek version. That’s why Tsipras is right when he says that there is nothing in the Agreement that says that the Macedonian ethnicity is recognized. In the Greek version, the English definition of our nationality is conveyed by the term ‘itageneia Macedonians’ (“Η ιθαγένεια θα είναι Μακεδονική”) with the meaning of Macedonian citizenship. So, here the translation also goes with state, and not to the people (ethnos), which connects the idea of a nation in the Balkans.
The creator and contractor of the English agreement has not engaged in arbitration of such opposing local interpretations and calmly monitors them. But if the creator really is interested in the fate of the agreement,there will definitely be comments. Not only in relation to the national issue, but also on the current central issue of the importance of the referendum and, in particular, the outcome of it for implementing the Agreement. According to the local protagonists of the Agreement, there is no need for a referendum, if there is – it will not be necessarily compulsory, and if there is a consultative the outcome of it is not important! The agreement will be put into force regardless of all that, ie, as the Prime Minister says, if the citizens fail to make a decision, the institutions will!
But this is not what the Agreement says. According to what’s written, if the Second Party decides to go to a referendum, the outcome of it should be in the spirit of the Agreement, that is, “to be consistent with this Agreement.” Only with such an outcome of the Agreement and consequently the outcome of the proceeding is a procedure. ” .. for the adoption of amendments to the Constitution …, the First Party shall ratify the Protocol for the Accession of the Second Party to NATO” (Article 2 paragraph 5 / BII).
Such a thing requires a national consensus rather than violation of the procedures.
Lazy, clumsy, ignorant, aggressive or unwashed, or whatever they like to call them, they are Macedonians as well! If a national consensus with them or their representatives is not possible today, it will probably be possible tomorrow if you work on it, and after the cleansing that should / will happen through judicial instances, but also after public considerations and confrontations with oneself.

Ilo Trajkovski