The issue of national identity is taken seriously by Balkan people – including the least serious among them.
The EU and NATO - the New Religion
Tirana | 07 April 2009 | By Besar Likmeta
True, cardboard missiles targeted at NATO have been replaced by modern plasma screens and graphics beamed into the collective consciousness.
But they embody the same old propaganda principles. The message is: we love NATO, and we adore it as much as we once adored the Warsaw Pact, the USSR, China and whatever alliance we were engaged with before.
That sense of fetishism, of wanting to stand on the right side, with the powerful and the almighty, has an almost religious quality.
Albania first applied for entry into the Atlantic alliance back in 1992, being the first country in the former communist bloc to seek the new military partnership with the West.
Although we did make it in the club after nearly two decades and Albanian politicians proudly declare that 95 per cent of the population supports this accession, one can’t help but wonder why everything produced in the West tends to be consumed in our little corner of the world without question.
Like a mirage of the Garden of Eden, entry into the EU now gleams in the distance. Every politician in this country, and its neighbours, likes to portray himself like Moses, taking us to the Promised Land - the Western club, where the grass is always green.
The journey started with the nationalistic state and the breakaway from the Ottoman Empire, which, like the Pharaohs of Egypt, had kept us, according to the politicos, from fulfilling our destiny.
In the 20th century, communism took over and they all tried to lead us into proletarian heaven - yet another creation of the West.
Now they all want to lead us into NATO and the EU. For the last two decades everything in this country has been measured in accordance with NATO or EU standards. People had to reach EU standards, as did laws, toilets, schools, politicians, protest and God knows what else.
Now we did make it into NATO, having been weighed, measured and found worthy, it’s time that we questioned these standards. By that, I don’t mean that they are necessarily bad or good. But if history teaches anything, it is that it’s doomed to be repeated. We have consumed ready-made ideologies produced in the past by the West, like nationalism and communism, with problematic results.
Let’s think for a moment, Albania made it into NATO, but Macedonia didn’t. Was it because our military or democratic standards are higher? Bulgaria and Romania are part of the EU club and they are certainly not the beacons of good governance.
What I am trying to say is that we should have our own standards in terms of democracy and good governance, instead of being told by someone in Brussels what they are, or how we can fulfill them.
As the flock wanders in the desert we are deluged with photo-opportunities with Western leaders. They try to tell us that these God-like figures of good power support one or other politician. And if these almighties themselves approve of our leaders, who are we to question such thing?
Our politicians all subscribe to the EU-NATO religion, leaving us only to wonder who is the prophet to lead us through the endless desert of transition.
All we have left, unfortunately, is the hope that journey will be worth it. However, despite our blind faith in the West, we should be able to question it. In the end, if what the West propagates is true, it will only make such faith stronger.
2009-04-07 19:44:20