23.11.2016
Sitel TV
Macedonia
The majority can only live happily
when the others feel also good
Last week you spoke at a meeting with the Macedonian diaspora in Switzerland organised by the opposition party SDSM. What are your personal expectation from the upcoming elections in Macedonia?
The meeting was not organised by a party but by albaninfo, a NGO which runs a multilingual website to inform and exchange with the Albanian communities as well as their Diasporas. At this meeting I spoke besides the leader of the SDSM and the Major of Struga who is candidate for an opposition party. My only expectation concerning the forthcoming elections would be that it would be fair and integer and allows the whole Macedonian society to express their political priorities.
The leader of SDSM spoke about constitutional changes and going beyond the Ohrid Framework Agreement. What are your thoughts on that matter?
I share his idea, that in the spirit of the Ohrid agreement you need to reform the constitution in order to really integrate the more divided Macedonian society. For instance in the first articles it should be clearly expressed that the Macedonian nation is composed of different cultural communities who are equal and build together the Macedonian society. The today’s formulation discriminates the smaller community in privileges the larger one which does not serve the integration and the respect for the diversity.
You spoke about Macedonians learning the Albanian language. Do you think Macedonia should have two official languages?
I do think this would be extremely helpful. Both communities should also learn both languages, so that all citizens understand each other while each speaking its own language. Learning the other language expresses also the respect for the other community and allows you to open yourself towards it. Furthermore it helps to develop Macedonia when all citizens understand and partly even speak the two main languages spoken in the big region.
What is your opinion on the current inter-ethnic relations in Macedonia?
They are degrading and were hardly ever so bad as today. Together with the political and the economic crises it threatens even the future of the country and its survival. That’s way you need urgently reforms in all three levels if you want to serve the people and their future.
Do you think Macedonia could be constitutionally organised like Switzerland?
The Swiss constitution is surely a helpful source of inspiration, not a model to be copied. But the success of the Swiss way of integrating a very diverse society is exactly that there a culture could be developed in which the majority shared power and other elements more than the constitution and the mathematical share of the minorities required. Because the Swiss Germans understood that they can only live happily when the others feel also good and therefor get more then they’re mathematical share of the whole. This mutual empathy has still to be developed and strengthened in Macedonia.
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