GREEK HELSINKI MONITOR
(Greek National Committee of the International
Helsinki Federation)
& MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP - GREECE
(Greek Affiliate of Minority Rights Group International)
P.O. Box 51393, GR-14510 Kifisia, Greece
Tel. 30-1-620.01.20; Fax: 30-1-807.57.67; E-mail:
helsinki@compulink.gr
_______________________________________________________________
Panayote Dimitras, Mariana Lenkova
6/10/1997, AIM Athens
Human, and especially minority, rights are supposed
to, and should, be universal and
inalienable. However, this does not mean that
all these rights should also be universally
applicable in the same way. On the contrary,
many need to be pursued in different ways,
depending on the specificity of the prevailing
conditions and circumstances. What is a
legitimate pursue in one country may justifiably
be considered as excessive if not extremist
in another.
A characteristic example of this is the situation
of the some six million "Albanians" in the
Balkans. For all these people, Albanian language
(in its various forms) is the only unifying
element. Otherwise, they differ in ethnic identity
and/or religious orientation. They all have
acquired some rights, while striving for other.
However, the rights they rightly claim in each
case are different, because the historical, social
and political context differs for each sub-
group of them.
Ethnic Albanians of Albania
The total population of Albania is 3.4 million
people (1992). On the face of it, at least the
ethnic Albanians (over 90% of the citizens) there
should be the people with the best
accommodated needs and the least number of concerns,
because they have their nation-
state and have achieved self-determination. In
reality though, the country's human rights
record has been historically tarnished by the
worst form of dictatorship during Hoxha.
Moreover, in the past few years they have been
the ones subjected to the newly
"democratic" experiments of Berisha's authoritarianism.
With all this in mind, maybe it is not surprising
that police in Albania have been mistreating
ethnic Albanians more than police in Macedonia
have mistreated that country's ethnic
Albanians. All this comes to suggest that the
lack of democratic traditions and stable
economic growth as we have recently witnessed
brought forth disaster. The new
government is promising in its determination
to strive for democracy. Still, one should keep
in mind that the same warm feelings were invested
in Berisha a few years ago. The mere
fact that a Socialist MP shot at a colleague
from the Democratic Party in the Parliament is
suggestive enough of the fragile state of affairs.
The most urgent thing which the new
government has to do is to overcome this unstable
equilibrium which may break down at
any moment making people feel insecure and aggressive
towards law and order. The
principal means to provide people with security
and self-respect is naturally by offering
them social and economic stability, but especially
by fully respecting human rights.
Non-Ethnic Albanians of Albania
In Albania live also an estimated at least quarter
of a million non-ethnic Albanians. The
Greek minority, usually considered as the largest,
consists of some 150,000 people. Other
minorities which live in the country are: Vlachs,
Macedonians, Serbs, Montenegrins and
Roma. It should be stressed that despite its
grave problems, Albania has been treating its
minorities in a less intolerant way than most
of the other Balkan neighbors: it is safe to
state that most violations of the human rights
of non-ethnic Albanians have resulted from
the fact that they simply lived in Albania rather
than that they belonged to some minority. In
Albania, all minorities are recognized either
de jure or de facto, but historically they have
had fewer educational rights than Albanians in
former Yugoslavia used to have. While
Albanians in Serbia and Macedonia strive for
university education, minorities in Albania
have at most the opportunity for an eight-year
primary school education in their mother
tongue; and they do not ask for more. Like elsewhere,
precisely because of such lack of
appropriate education, minorities in Albania
have had difficulties in organizing themselves
politically and in claiming, as they have a right
to, the recognition and respect of their rights
in Albanian society.
Another aspect of the problem concerns the Orthodox
Church of Albania, to which belongs
the largest number of non-ethnic Albanians. Although
there are not many instances of
religious intolerance in that country, the Orthodox
Church, because of the ethnic belonging
of most of its followers, has been seen as suspect
and has been treated in a hostile way,
while the restitution of its property still remains
a problematic issue. Moreover, this church,
like all the other "traditional churches" in
the country, does not have any legal status which
makes it vulnerable in case "the political wind"
changes direction.
Albanians of Kosova
In Kosova, where most ethnic Albanians outside
Albania live, they comprise more than
90% of the overall nearly two million strong
population. The region, between 1974-1989
had an autonomous status, a fact which makes
the international community support a
return to that status quo ante. Having acquired
the experience and the sense of liberty
provided by years of autonomy, the suppression
and loss of that political liberty
progressively led the Albanians of Kosova to
develop a stronger sense of self-
determination and made all more difficult their
coexistence with the Serbian authorities.
The successful operation of a parallel state
with all its institutions since 1989 has
enhanced the credibility of the demand for a
separate political entity, though few favor
internationally the calls for independence supported
by the vast majority of Kosova
Albanians. On the other hand, however, Serbs
will not let go easily of Kosova, because
they consider it "the cradle of Serbianism."
The latter may not be historically inaccurate,
but one should take into consideration the present
state of affairs, and the fact that the
greater part of the Kosova population is Albanian.
After all, Kosova is as much the "cradle"
of Serbianism as Ohrid is of Bulgarianism, or
Constantinopole (Istanbul) of Hellenism.
Every Balkan people can claim a "cradle of nationhood"
somewhere outside its borders
but these historical references do not legitimize
modern times territorial claims.
Albanians of Macedonia
In this country of some two million people, Albanians
comprise the most numerous
minority of some half a million people. Like
their Kosova "brothers", they used to have a
large spectrum of rights in the years of old
Yugoslavia. Until the late 1980s they were living
in a rather tolerant society by communist standards
and had their own schools and
Pedagogical Academy and were able to send their
children to the Albanian university in
Prishtina. They lost the higher education possibilities
in the final years of "ailing"
Yugoslavia, and the new Macedonian government
was not able to meet their needs
promptly. Nowadays their rights are guaranteed
by the Constitution, but practice shows
that things are not that perfect in reality.
The recent trial in the predominantly Albanian
town of Gostivar showed that in its essence the
"Albanian issue" is quite complex and
"thorny." Here Albanians' only wish is for equal
rights in the Macedonian society, combined
with the right to have education in their language.
Their demand for higher education
sounds reasonable, but the experience of the
Tetova university lacks credibility. Albanians
in Macedonia have a traditional Islamic structure
of life, which makes them different from
the secularist Albanians in Albania, and the
not so religious Albanians in Kosova. Although
here the questions of autonomy and secession
do not exist, Albanians are accused of
trying to make a "Kosova scenario" in Macedonia,
which would destabilize the whole
region: more specifically, they are charged with
efforts to set up "paralle institutions" which
are considered in Macedonia as destabilizing
and extremist unlike in Kosova where they
are appreciated and admired.
Ethnic and non-ethnic Albanian Immigrants in Greece
Immigrants from Albania in Greece are estimated
at 300,000 people: most are ethnic
Albanians, while a large number are ethnic Greeks.
The biggest problem which these
people face is the fact that most of them are
illegal. That is why they are extremely
vulnerable and oftentimes they are treated like
slaves. The amount of Albanophobia in the
media and its impact on public opinion are alarming.
The climate of intolerance and
aversion which are built cannot help the integration
of these immigrants, who strive for
legalization and decent rights similar to those
provided to immigrants in other EU
countries. They do not have schools and cultural
centers in which to educate their children
in their mother tongue, so that when eventually
they go back to Albania, they would have
equal chances with their compatriots.
Arvanites (Arberor) of Greece
It is interesting that very often Albanophobia
in Greece is observed among members of a
group, who speak a form of Albanian but do not
identify themselves with the Albanian
ethnicity. The estimated 200,000 Arvanites are
Orthodox Christians established for
centuries in Greece. Nowadays they are one of
the strongest proponents of Greek
nationalism and Orthodox fundamentalism (Old-Calendarism)
and they have an aversion
to anything which would relate them to the "Shqiptar"
nation. They have been assimilated
so completely that their language has been led
to oblivion. Many people in Albania, as well
as in the diaspora, claim that the Arvanites
are actually members of an Albanian minority
in Greece. However, this will not bring anything
more than keeping Arvanites on the
defensive and destroying their specificity. After
all, they want to be considered nationally, if
not ethnically, Greek and they have the right
to do so. They should be encouraged to
preserve their language, but it is again up to
them to decide. Arvanites have the right to
"forget" their language, as much as Kosova Albanians
have the right to strive for
autonomy.
Conclusion
One important aspect of human rights is respect
for the "other." "Otherness" is abundant
even in the supposedly homogeneous group of Albanians:
they all speak some form of
Albanian, but they different identities. The
degree of religious affiliation, cultural aims and
political demands of the various Albanian groups
lead to different human rights claims that
are considered acceptable internationally. Albanians
in Albania strive for more democracy;
they want autonomy if not independence in Kosova;
they will be satisfied with constitutive
equality in Macedonia; while the large immigrant
community in Greece demands no more
than a decent immigrant status, in a country
where another "Albanian" immigrant
community of many centuries ago, the Arvanites,
expect the world to respect their
adherence to Greek nationalism.
Human rights are undoubtedly universal. But their
application should be very
"particularistic." As in the case of the various
"Albanian" communities, people with
apparent cultural similarities have indeed the
right to ask for very different, sometimes
even opposite, things. The right to self-determination
can indeed mean independence for
some or assimilation for others. Religious freedom
too is compatible with dominantly
modernist secular or traditional religious cultures.
The world is indeed full of such
"Albanian" examples.
senden