On names, Freedom, and identity
While Zoran Zaev and his regime attempt to salvage their own skins, let me take a break from the overall hot mess that is Macedonian politics these days and reflect on a subject I have written about frequently over the years: names and identity and how they relate to freedom and more.
The impetus for this particular column was prompted by seeing NBA basketball star and center for the Boston Celtics Enes Kanter both change his legal name and become a citizen of the United States of America on Monday, November 29.
His new, and very legal, name? Enes Kanter Freedom. That’s right. Freedom. You can call him Mr. Freedom.
It is a name he freely chose for himself. As he said in a number of interviews that he gave, “…freedom is the greatest thing a human being can have…That’s why I wanted to make that word a part of me, and carry it wherever I go.”
Think about that statement for a moment: “freedom” as a word, is something he wanted to make a part of himself. “Freedom” is now not just a noun to him, abstract or otherwise. It is a part of who he is, it is a part of his identity.
Mr. Freedom’s thoughts bring me to this next item: in reading an article about the push among certain political and social activists to the changing of names in certain towns and cities across the United States, I thought these words of wisdom were worth quoting. Nathan Magsig, a county supervisor in Fresno County, California, says that the changing of town and city names must be a “process” and that it must be “driven by the community.” Why? Because, as Mr. Magsig states, “A name is not just something on a piece of paper. Names are identity.”
In the forcible changing of Macedonia’s name, and therefore identity, the process by which this was done was definitely not driven by the community, by Macedonian citizens. It was, instead, driven by the elites, in this case, the Government of Zoran Zaev and Ali Ahmeti and their cohorts in certain media outlets and think tanks in Macedonia, and all aided and abetted by the State Department, EU, NATO, as well as Western media and think tank elites both inside and outside of Macedonia. The communities across Macedonia did not need to weigh in – and they were not invited. It was a top-down process, not a community-driven process.
Macedonians of course did have their say in the September 30, 2018 referendum, which failed in spectacular fashion, but then the Macedonian Government and their elite minders simply ignored the Lockean consent the governed and did what they wanted to anyway. Which is one reason why it cannot – and it will not – last.
This leads me to American authors and scholars Yuval Levin and Adam White. In an article about the value and sanctity of life before birth, they also address our roles as “citizens of a free society.” While they are addressing an American audience, I would posit that their words apply to citizens of any “free society.” And while we may debate whether or not Macedonia is truly free these days, I think it is worth noting their wisdom. They write, “In considering our roles as citizens of a free society, it is crucial that we ask what burdens are due, and so in effect what responsibilities we have. We have some obligations to the past: to sustain and improve what we have inherited, and not to fall into the vain illusion that the people who built all that we now enjoy were fools or scoundrels or that we are any less sinful than they were. We have obligations to the present, too: to respect each other as equals, to build up our society together toward a shared ideal of the good even as we struggle over the meaning of that ideal, and to at least try to forgive each other when we fail in either cause. And there is much we owe the future, which must inform how we think about what we build and tear down and how we use the resources we have.”
The way I see it, and speaking specifically about Macedonia, Macedonians must therefore ask what burdens are due, and what responsibilities they have, to the past, and to the future (I’ll get to the present, well, presently). As Canadian clinical psychologist and author Dr. Jordan Peterson writes, “The wisdom of the past was hard-earned, and your dead ancestors may have something useful to tell you.” This is yet another way of saying that Macedonians not only owe a burden, a responsibility, to their past ancestors to reclaim what is rightly theirs – the good name, Republic of Macedonia – but they also owe this same burden and responsibility to future Macedonians because it was past Macedonians who sacrificed and died for that “ideal of the good” of an independent and sovereign nation-state, the Republic of Macedonia, and future Macedonians who will continue to carry on what Macedonians of the past (and present) will give to them.
And as for burdens and obligations due the present generation of Macedonians? While a few Macedonians may embrace their new name and identity, they are a distinct minority in certain classes who achieved their goal through questionable and undemocratic means. While the majority of Macedonians who value the name, Macedonia, owe them respect as equals, and can try to forgive them for their failures, the ideal of the good of Macedonia as just that – Macedonia – is something that Macedonians, as “citizens of a free society,” owe to the past, the present, and the future. And not only owe, but should also work towards.