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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Macedonia Slowly Becomes Multinational StateIs Macedonia on the brink of ethnic breaking? The question was raised again a month ago when clashes between the local police forces and the ethnic Albanian guerrilla were reported from different parts of the country. The much more concentrated look at the country shows that it's far from splitting. On the other hand, it's also much closer to become federation of two ethnic communities. Which in the Balkans as the history shows has been always the first step toward state breakout alongside the ethnic cleavages. 2 years ago Macedonia was facing its most difficult moment in its short history as independent state. Albanian community protested against what they called ethnic discrimination. There were many clashes with the police forces, comprised almost exclusively by ethnic Macedonians. At the end the peace was restored under condition that the ethnic Albanian would be integrated into the security forces and the state administration. So far it seemed that this promised was kept, but instead of peace the country was again shaken by clashes. So what went wrong? There are no monolithic social and ethnic groups and the Albanians in Macedonia aren't the only exception. Many of them decided to integrated peacefully into the government bodies, but small groups, presumably those who benefited from illegal trans-border trade continued to play the nationalistic card. In the Balkans every nation can produce tones of documents showing how it was mistreated in the past by its neighbors, so it was not at all difficult to find stupid enough young followers ready to raise again arms. As far as the mass of the Albanians stay away from this, we may not fear about the peaceful future of the country. But what will happen if again the innocent blood is spilt? Can this revive the old wounds and fire up new conflicts? To complicate further own task, as usually there are some external factors that play unusually important role in the power balance in this part of the Balkans. One of them is the Serb province of Kosovo, populated by Albanians and practically independent from Belgrade since 1999. Will this almost full independence influence the other Albanians from Macedonia and Montenegro to assert their right of self-determination? Will the return of this province to Serbia start new chain-reaction of ethnic hatred between numerous groups involving the neighboring states? Every scenario can produce ethnic splitting of Macedonia as well as its preservation as one state although with different structure as federation or confederation. Perhaps the most peaceful solution will be to include in the future all of the countries of the region in the European Union. The ethnic hate will probably remain, but at least there will be no borders between the states to reshape. The Albanians will be one united people even without formal reunification as the Basques in Western Europe. Unfortunately the demographic dynamic makes this scenario less plausible in long run. The Albanians, whose natural growth is much higher than among the other ethnic groups, including Macedonians, have nothing to fear from federalization of Macedonia. Sooner or later they will dominate this state as more numerous group. On the other hand, the present ethnic majority has everything to fear from such development. So at any given moment it can initiate separation of the country in order to preserve its control at least over some parts of it. For this majority the prospects of European integration will ultimately mean being put under direct Albanian domination. Such unpleasant perspectives can only deteriorate the present situation of hatred and mutual suspicions.
Macedonia profile: --------------------
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