International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Regarding the Prespes Agreement and the nationalist rallies

OKDE-Spartakos — 2019-02-19T08:28:38Z

Τhe Prespes agreement between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia imposes in the clearest manner the hegemony of the Greek state over the neighboring Macedonian state and constitutes an overwhelming diplomatic and political victory for the Greek bourgeois class. According to the agreement, the Republic of Macedonia was forced to change its constitutional name to Republic of North Macedonia, to refrain from any claim over the recognition and rights of the Macedonian ethnic minority in Greece, to rename its public buildings and infrastructure (national highway, Skopje airport) so as to not include names that are considered part of the Greek history (Alexander the Great etc.), to submit its school textbooks for revision to an equal parity committee with Greek officials and to secure the free right of investment to the Greek capital in the country. In return, Greece consents to the admission of Macedonia to the NATO and the EU, which both the US and European imperialism favor as a means to gain ground in their rivalry with Russia.

- IV529 - February 2019 / Greece, Macedonia

“We need a Balkan socialist movement”

2018-05-14T14:56:59Z

LeftEast spoke to Alek Atevik who is working in Skopje. He is an editor of Nova iskra and a member of Marxist Organization Crveni. He is a founding member of Levica, where he is a coordinator of Program Sector Foreign policy, Defense and Security.

- IV520 - May 2018 / Greece, Macedonia, Balkans

Declaration of OKDE – Spartakos on the Macedonian issue

OKDE-Spartakos — 2018-02-19T13:27:32Z

1. The “Macedonian issue” is not a historic national issue, but rather a modern political one. The formation of the Macedonian nationality and national consciousness follows a parallel course with that of the other Balkan nations (Greek, Serbian, Albanian, Bulgarian), throughout the long term collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the ensuing armed conflicts among the newborn nations (Macedonian Struggle, Balkan Wars, First World War). From this point of view, two things follow. First, the term “Macedonian” used to define the nation, is just as old as the others in the region and is not an invention of the 90's with irredentist motives. Second, the creation of new states, whose borders were drawn in the blood of the peoples of the region, did not solve any “national question”, but on the contrary many ethnic minorities remained inside each state and were persecuted without mercy. For this reason alone, the historical demand for a Socialist Federation of the Balkans remains a compass for the peoples of the area living together.

- IV517 - February 2018 / Greece, Macedonia

The deep roots of Macedonia's protest wave

Adela Gjorgjioska — 2016-04-26T08:10:19Z

“In a neoliberal universe, where markets are the gauge of value, money becomes, more straightforwardly than ever before, the measure of all things. If hospitals, schools and prisons can be privatised as enterprises for profit, why not political office too?”

Perry Anderson in London Review of Books, 2014, 36:10, pp. 5

Mass protests have vigorously and consistently spread across Macedonia for over ten days now. The spark of citizen revolt was caused by a Presidential blanket amnesty acquitting 56 officials from charges ranging from election rigging, embezzlement of public money and property, to corruption and party capture of state institutions. This act has confirmed that the presidential office is only another one on the list of institutions privatized by an elite of capitalist politicians in service of their interests. As such it represents a manifestation of a specific form of Balkan neoliberalism, born out of a symbiosis interlocking profit and politics, and built on three mutually supportive pillars: privatization of institutions, privatization of the commons, and privatization of the electorate/demos. Rather than an ephemeral crisis caused by a political elite gone rogue, it represents a symptom of the ongoing logic of neoliberalism, which has in fact created the ideological background against which criminal politics have thrived, whilst suffocating the rule of law, democracy, equality and social justice.

- IV495 - April 2016 / Macedonia

We Demand Removal of the Fence on the Macedonian-Greek Border!

2016-03-31T07:41:45Z

Note from LeftEast editors: We publish here a demand for removal of the fence on the Macedonian-Greek border as requested by a list of Macedonian grassroots movements and NGOs. At the beginning of March 2016, Slovenia announced the re-establishing of the Schengen zone and the visa regime- only people with valid documents and visas were allowed entry on its territory, which effectively meant a closure of its borders for refugees. Croatia and Serbia followed Slovenia's example. Macedonia followed suit last week, when it sealed off its border with Greece. With this act, “the Balkan route” last year's main refugee route has effectively been cut off. If you would like to voice your support individually or as an organisation, please send an e-mail to ld.solidarnost@gmail.com, with the following subject: Solidarity with the people on the move.

- IV494 - March 2016 / Migration, Macedonia