Greek Lobbyist (American Classicist) disputes Miller's letter to Obama

Thursday, 28 May 2009


Responding to Professor Miller

To Colleagues:

[Note: in what follows, I follow the lead of 125 nations, including four of the five permanent UN Security Council members, and use Macedonian as the appropriate adjective for the Republic of Macedonia. Note that it was the usage of the Journal of Modern Greek Studies as early as 1996. Use of a politically correct term would have required, as Chase and Phillips put it, laborious periphrasis.]

Stephen Miller, an American archaeologist, has circulated a number of versions of a statement about Balkan politics, with the expressed intent of influencing the Obama administration. I append the version to which I respond below. It differs somewhat from the online versions posted May 20, 2009 at:

http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-letter.html

Although the ostensive topic is Alexander the Great, the statement commits the author and the many scholars whove co-signed to two extreme positions: that President Bushs 2004 recognition of the Republic of Macedonia by that name was clearly the catalyst for the fantasies of a Slavic Alexander" or unleashed a dangerous epidemic of historical revisionism, and that the inhabitants of the Republic have no right to call themselves Macedonians. The first of these claims is easily disproved: the Republic of Macedonia had sought to appropriate, or share, Alexander long before 2004. As to the second, the Republic occupies land that has long been called Macedonia, and is, to boot, a sovereign state.

In other words, Prof. Miller takes extreme positions that are not required in a scholarly discussion of ancient ethnicity. Doing so, he converts the thicket of Balkan politics into a lawn. In particular, the challenge to the sovereignty and name of a neighboring state puts Prof. Miller and his co-signers in a position to the right of the Greek government. Thats quite an achievement.

The form of the letter its seemingly dispassionate appeal to scholars, its assurance in one draft that many of us would prefer to avoid politics should not blind readers to its tendentious and inaccurate historical claims, or to its extreme conclusions.

Lets start at the beginning. This spring, Professor Miller circulated a draft ( dated January 22, 2009) of the letter we now have. He criticized an article in the January / February 2009 Archaeology Magazine by Matthew Brunwasser: Letter from Macedonia. Modern Macedonia Lays its Claim to the Ancient Conqueror's Legacy. Professor Miller complains that the magazine would not print his response (which ran to 1500 words, almost as long as Brunwasser's original). Professor Miller has not shared his correspondence with the magazine. In his short piece, Brunwasser interviews some archaeologists and visits some sites, and says, "Greece insists that Macedonia should change its name, claiming that it implies ambitions over Greek territory -- the northern province of Greece is also called Macedonia -- and opposes the name as an appropriation of Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great), whom the country claims as Greek." A bit later he adds: "But the subtle relations between the ancient Macedonians and Greeks are sometimes lost in today's acrimonious debate over who has the exclusive claim to Alexander's homeland."

Thats it. If I, or I think most of the co-signers, were intent on ridiculing Greek claims, wed be somewhat more assertive and vicious. Brunwasser does mention a Macedonian kitchen utility salesman who likes Alexander as a countryman, but then quotes workmen with the opposite opinion:

"If we had to choose between Alexander and joining the EU and NATO, wed choose Europe," says Goran Nikolovski. "History is in the past," says his colleague Zlatko Petreski. "We want the name of the country to remain Macedonia because we are Macedonians," says Nikolovski. "But we want to move forward."

Sick of Alexander? History is in the past? That is not the way people talk when theyre out to undermine the scientific basis for our professional lives, as Prof. Miller puts it, perhaps a tad portentously.


In the body of his letter, Professor Miller comments problematically on both ancient and modern history:

a) The ancients: Professor Miller spends considerable space reciting literalist claims about early Macedonia that can be found on many Greek disapora websites, including a very selective presentation of Alexander I in Herodotus. The goal is to demonstrate a linear and unbroken sequence of Greekness from Alexander I to Alexander the Great and up to today.

Linearity, however, is the stuff of propaganda, not of history. Discussing the Macedonia issue a decade ago, some very prominent Greek social scientists mentioned the strategic manipulation of nationalist ideology by the Greek government in its presentation of political and cultural myths. They noted that The historical trajectory of the nation has been traced in a linear form and without ruptures or discontinuities from antiquity to modernity. Thus, any questioning of the 'Hellenicity' of Alexander the Great is perceived as a threat to the very essence of the nation because it casts doubt on the continuity of the national community through history. The nationalist feelings of the population have been manipulated by political parties as a campaigning device. (Triandafyllidou, Calloni & Mikrakis [1997])

Any country seeking to map itself onto ancient history confronts a host of problems. Herodotus illustrates these clearly in his portrayal of Alexander I, who is sometimes a satrap engaged in lucrative dynastic marriage-relations with Persian royalty, and sometimes a "Hellene." He is one of only two people in Herodotus accused of athemista, lawlessness. Other Greeks challenge his standing as a Hellene. Much of this is well discussed by David Fearn, in a fine recent essay, "Narrating Ambiguity: Murder and Macedonian Allegiance (5.17-22)." Two months ago, when Prof. Miller floated his essay, I recommended the Fearn piece, but there is no sign that Prof. Miller has read Fearn or senses any scholarly obligation to do so. He remains undisturbed by the paradox of this single Greek satrap in all of Herodotus.

The claim to be a Hellene is one, but only one, of several cards this Alexander plays. He protects himself and his people by cannily playing the odds (and using the talent of silver his mines produced daily). Thats why Spartans and Athenians treat him with such contempt at the end of Book 8. Scholars of ethnicity and acculturation in antiquity wont be surprised at his ambiguous status, especially given Jonathan Hall's warning against a "transhistorically static definition of Greekness." (Hall, p. 166) Prof. Miller's letter shows no awareness of the anthropologically sophisticated work on ancient ethnicity now being produced in our field.

Now, it is true that both the Greek and Macedonian governments, as well as their diaspora supporters, have gone to absurd lengths to claim ancient ties. The list of examples is endless. Classicists seeking the ancient Via Egnatia may be surprised to observe that it now begins in Igoumenitsa not Durres, and lies wholly within Greek borders. The Greek-American Pan Macedonian Union urged not only denial of its northern neighbor's right to name itself and the return of the Marbles, but US intervention on behalf of the "Kalash of the northern Himalayan region of the Hindu Kush Mountains of Pakistan [who] are Hellenic descendants of the armies of Alexander the Great." Skopje claims its own Nepalese "relations" an initiative the supposed propagandist Mathew Brunwasser has reported many Macedonians find funny or pathetic. (International Herald Tribune, October 2, 2008)

For an even-handed comment on the name issue, consider Roudometoff in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies:

In the case of the controversy between Greece and Macedonia, two identifications have been developed with respect to one homeland (that of Macedonia). Consequently, two narratives have formed, each of which seeks to establish a genealogical tie between a people and the land which that people inhabits. The affirmation of minorities is interpreted, according to the nineteenth-century Balkan mentality, as representing the first step toward irredentist activity.

Both sides operate with the assumption that nationhood provides the essential component for nation-building. Both view national narratives as providing an essential ingredient for their national identity. The two national narratives, however, encroach upon one another, tending to claim Macedonia exclusively for their particular side. For Greeks, Macedonia is a name and a territory that is an indispensable part of the modern Greek identity. For Macedonians, it provides the single most important component that has historically differentiated them from Bulgarians.

Elsewhere, Roudometoff says, Greeks rallied to defend their national narrative--in effect, denying the claim of the Macedonians to stand for an independent nation. (1999: 459)

b) Turning to the modern world, what is noticeable is Prof. Millers insistence that the Republic of Macedonia has shown deplorable manners: "Why would a poor land-locked new state attempt such historical nonsense? Why would it brazenly mock and provoke its neighbor?"

Prof. Miller treats the question as a rhetorical one. But its not rhetorical. While Ive no inside information, the current nationalist tendency of Macedonian history seems in part to be a response to seventeen years of interference and economic oppression by the large neighbor to the south. Its not only Cavafys narrators who celebrate an oppressors frustration: To ousiodes ine pou eskase (The important thing is, he blew up). Monteagle Stearns and Susan Woodward both discussed the danger that Greek actions would have a negative outcome in 1997.

What do I mean by oppression? Most notably, the threats of Serbia and the Mitsotakis government in the early 90s to carve up the new Republic between them. Milosevic seems to have proposed the idea. See the discussion of this topic, of the Samaras Pincer, and of Virginia Tsouderous convenient 1992 discovery of Hellenized Vlachs in need of rescue in Macedonia, in Michas, pp. 53ff. Michas provides some testimony about initial Greek willingness to invade, though he has no documentary proof. Prof. Millers little joke (Greece should annex Paionia) may betray unawareness that annexation was seriously considered. Macedonians dont see the humor.

Then came the blockades (I use the plural because Michas mentions several unofficial blockades as well as the official one). For 20 months in 1994-95, Greece imposed a crippling embargo that cut off two-thirds of the new state's oil. One Greek official proclaimed, "We will choke Skopje into submission." Export earnings for the Republic of Macedonia fell by 85%, imports of food by 40%, of crude oil by two thirds. Inflation soared. (As Michas points out, Foreign Minister Antonis Samaras was a major promoter of these and other destabilizing measures, in partnership with Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic. Coincidentally, Samaras is now Minister of Culture, in charge of Greek antiquities.)
How many classicists co-signed complaints about that?

Unembarrassed by such cruelty, Prof. Miller pours on the self-pity -- even when he is blind to the irony: The USA can effect just about anything it wants with smaller countries, he complains. But it was Greece, not the USA, that tried to choke a far smaller and weaker neighbor into submission -- and boasted about it. Blockades are the closest a state can come to an act of war without gunfire.

Officially sanctioned indignities have continued, on a smaller scale, up to the present day. And all Macedonians are conscious that by keeping Macedonia out of NATO and the European Union, Greece is keeping Macedonia poor. Macedonians I met in January marveled at the reports of Athenian youth rioting because they earned only 750 euros / month.

The brutal 1994-95 blockade backfired, cementing a sense of national unity in much of the Republic. As Mark Mazower, a real historian, remarked in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies:

[T]he development of modern Macedonian nationalism, and its extension from small groups of intellectuals to a more popular base, depended upon the combined idiocies of three nation-states--Greece, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia / Serbia.

Mazower, p. 233

That's why Macedonians call their neighbors "the wolves."

The serious problems to be settled in this region trump the name-calling about Alexander. These include the personal and property rights of those who were forced out of the country in the civil war of the '40s (some former fighters were allowed to return in 1982 -- but only those who were Greeks by genos or who renounced a more complex ethnic identity). Cases are pending in the European Court of Human Rights and The Hague about both the blockade and property rights. Greece also faces a blizzard of negative human rights reports, including one from the US State Department; Athenian human rights expert Alexis Heraclides has been quoted as warning that current court cases may blow up in Greeces face.
The area the Republic occupies has been called "Macedonia" on maps for many years, though the borders have long been disputed or unrectified. Livanios, while showing that the Great Powers and surrounding nations have been more opportunistic than dispassionate in defining Macedonian ethnicity, says that it is widely accepted that Macedonia comprised the Ottoman vilayets of Salonica, Monastir and Kosovo. (4, 46, 67, 77) Note his reference to the monumental paternalism of the British. (113) Greek sources sometimes claim that the name of the Republic will spark irredentism, but irredentism requires not pictures on t-shirts but military or political action. Greece has a military budget 50x that of the Republic, and a per capita GDP of $8,000 versus Greeces $29,000. This may explain why Greek sources never specify exactly what danger really looms: the behavior they brand irredentist barely merits mention in Myron Weiners scholarly analysis of irredentism in the Balkans and elsewhere.

In short, it is hard not to be dismayed at this letter, which rejects modern scholarship on ethnic formation, reads the text of Herodotus as if it was a newspaper, complains about imagined verbal slights in a bland magazine article and ignores the immense material damage Greece has done to its neighbor though we must acknowledge that despite the rhetorical noise, Greece and Macedonia now have important trade relations.

There remains ample room to argue about Alexander the Great, and about the supposed linear trajectory without ruptures or discontinuities from Alexander to the present. We ought to be able to do this without endorsing violation of sovereignty or applauding or ignoring efforts to impoverish others.

Prof. Miller hopes to influence the Obama administration, which has acted with cool realism in the Balkans. He says he prefers the goal of right-wing Greek nationalism: a blanket prohibition on use of the name Macedonia. But he acknowledges that that is unachievable. (Two Greek diplomats have publicly recommended dropping the name issue. They lost their positions.) He doesnt mention NATO or the European Union, though they are an important part of the picture. Should Obama, then, force Macedonia to drop its claims to Alexander? It is hard to see why, and even harder to see how this issue can be separated from other matters, including NATO, the EU, and the rights of ethnic Macedonians in Greece. (It is Greek policy not to acknowledge the existence of ethnic minorities within Greece.)

Interestingly, many of the sources Ive cited above are Greek. There are plenty of fine academics, human rights attorneys, and others in Greece who do not follow the company line (one Athenian friend who does not found a swastika painted on his house). Ive not consulted with anyone Ive quoted, but hope Ive represented them fairly. I also recognize that Ive passed over some issues, including Macedonian sentimentality toward land they recently inhabited. This is just as profound as Greek feelings about Constantinople, I Poli, or about lands in Turkey or homes in Alexandria they themselves have lost. My Macedonian friends would love to go to Greece but to get much-needed work, not to reclaim the White Tower.

Ive worked on Greek causes since 1969, sometimes actively, sometimes dangerously. But I happen to believe that the current nationalist policy toward Macedonia is disastrous and has brought no gain.

Dan Tompkins
Department of Greek and Roman Classics
Temple University
mailto: pericles@temple.eduThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Bibliography

Graham T. Allison, editor. The Greek Paradox. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press 1997.
Mathew Brunwasser, Macedonia Dispute has Asia Flavor; Claiming Alexander's Heritage, Pakistanis Enter the Fray. International Herald Tribune (October 2, 2008).
David Fearn. "Narrating Ambiguity: Murder and Macedonian Allegiance (5.17-22)." In Elizabeth Irwin and Emily Greenwood, editors, Reading Herodotus. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007.
Jonathan Hall. "Contested Ethnicities: Perceptions of Macedonia within Evolving Definitions of Greek Identity." In Irad Malkin, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Ethnicity, Washington DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2001.
Dimitris Livanios. The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939-1949. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Mark Mazower, Introduction to the Study of Macedonia. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 14.2 (1996), 229-235.
Takis Michas. Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic's Serbia in the Nineties. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002.
Victor Roudometof. Nationalism and Identity Politics in the Balkans: Greece and the Macedonian Question. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 14.2 (1996) 253-301.
Victor Roudometof. Invented Traditions, Symbolic Boundaries, and National Identity in Southeastern Europe: Greece and Serbia in Comparative Historical Perspective (1830-1880). East European Quarterly 32.4 (1999) 429 468.
Stearns, Monteagle, Greek Security Issues, in Allison, 61-72
Anna Triandafyllidou and Andonis Mikrakis, Greece. A Ghost Wanders Through the Capital. In The New Xenophobia in Europe edited by Bernd Baumgartl and Adrian Favell (Leiden: Brill, 1995)
Anna Triandafyllidou, Marina Calloni & Andonis Mikrakis.
New Greek Nationalism. Sociological Research Online 2.1 (1997)
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/2/1/7.html
Anna Triandafyllidou. National identity and the `other. Ethnic and Racial Studies 21.4 (1998) 593 612.
Anna Triandafyllidou and Anna Paraskevopoulou. When is the Greek Nation? The Role of Enemies and Minorities. Geopolitics 7.2 (2002) 75 98.
Myron Weiner. The Macedonian Syndrome: An Historical model of International Relations and Political development World Politics 23.4 (1971) 665-683.
Woodward, Susan L. Rethinking Security in the Post-Yugoslav Era. In Allison, 113-122.

Comments

2. 29-05-2009

TRUTH
This response to Miller's politically motivated "letter" to Obama, makes a mockery of that discredited individual's intent! It's a pathetic tactic of "greeks" to slander any messenger of truth that frankly, does not prescribe to their way of "thinking"... I'd like to remind that throughout history, truth has always been ridiculed by its bigger, more powerful opponents ; two examples, Jesus and Galileo!

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Dimitar


5. 28-05-2009

Revisionist history

Great job summarizing the craziness of Greece. The only mistake Dan made is posting his email address. He'll be flooded now by 100's of hate emails by Greek diaspora, though the first email will probably come from the Führer of "Pan Macedonia" and the rest of the 'Supreme' leaders there.

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Nora

6. 28-05-2009

well put

Very well put.
Dan shows it's easy to beat "Greeks" even with their own sources.

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Sage