Hundreds of thousands of Greeks protest against government compromise with use of the term Macedonia in the name of neighbouring country, on the seafront in Thessaloniki before statue of Macedonian king, Alexander the Great, January 21, 2018. NurPhoto/ Press Association. All rights reserved.About five years ago, I found myself in the curious circumstance of boarding a ship from the Greek port of Patra to Italy, in a battered van full of Greek punks. Van and driver happened to be Macedonian. Predictably, we were stopped by the coast guard. His treatment of myself (the only woman among ten men) and the driver, was horrible. Refusing to speak to the driver, the person in charge of the van, he returned our passports, saying: “Tell your friend he needs to change the number plate. This one is not admitted in Greece”.
Of course it is not true. Greece has obligations to acknowledge all internationally approved plates. But this was not the point. As a foreigner, I was really struck by his hostility, although I knew its source. Just ask any Greek man or woman the name of their north-western neighbour, and you will get various answers. The one that always impressed me was “Skopja”, literally the lands of Skopje.
These days I find myself compelled to speak up about this delicate phase of a troublesome dispute concerning what is, ultimately, just a name. A name, though, that has drawn around 200,000 people (500,000 according to the organisers) onto Thessaloniki's streets after about a month of media coverage and, it should be emphasised, one that is busy helping to stage the Golden Dawn comeback if straw-ballots are to be believed.
