Akis Gavriilidis

Name Trouble: an Especially Difficult to Understand Refusal

and its Inevitable Failure
1
I. Introduction
In an interview for Macedonian Television in February 2011, British dilo!at "obin #$%eil
declared,

The Greece&Macedonia na!e row is the !ost bi'arre dilo!atic disute in (uroe today) %o one
outside of Greece can erceive why should Macedonia chan*e its na!e) +hat is Greece,s national
interest in doin* this- Greece has not suffered in any way as a result of Macedonia,s e.istence under
the current na!e in the ast 20 years, and Greece never oosed Macedonia,s e.istence as art of
/F" 0u*oslavia)
2
1e also said that 2the consistent Greek oosition to Macedonia,s %AT# and (3 accession is
esecially difficult to understand4 5ibid.6)
#$%eil here states the obvious in ter!s of dilo!atic ractice and international relations, but
what he says is also valid eiste!olo*ically) I think that his state!ent is a very useful way to start a
treat!ent of the issue via olitical theory as well7 in fact, if dilo!ats are havin* a hard ti!e
fi*urin* out what Greece is tryin* to achieve or avoid by its reaction, social theorists have not done
!uch better u to now)
#f course, it is fair to say that they did not bother !uch about this 8uestion) In Greece itself,
!any 5self&roclai!ed6 secialists were !obilised9al!ost in the !ilitary sense of the ter!9
and:or volunteered to e.a!ine the issue and write e.tensively about it) But, their work was of a
urely aolo*etic nature, and what they wrote was reetitive ad nauseam, in any case not really
worthy of bein* 8ualified as scientific in any !eanin*ful sense, althou*h9or !aybe recisely
because9a clai! to such character is stron*ly !ade in their discourses) In this lethoric clai!,
scientificity is bein* conceived in a na;ve, ositivist way, and the findin*s of history, archaeolo*y,
ethno*rahy, literature, lin*uistics, and other si!ilar discilines are suosed to rove unani!ously
9beyond any doubt9the official truth of the state) 5I consider it robable that si!ilar heno!ena
1
<ublished in7 M) =asule et al) 5eds6, The name issue revisited, Macedonian Infor!ation =entre, /ko>e
201?, ) @1@&@@A)
2
2"obin #,%eil7 The na!e issue is the !ost bi'arre disute in (uroe4,
htt7::!iaweb)!ia)co!)!k:default)as.-vIdBC101D10EFlIdB2F!IdB
1
!ust also have taken lace in the "eublic of Macedonia, throu*h the !echanis! that /ino'a
would call 2the i!itation of assions4, but I unfortunately do not know Macedonian, so I cannot be
!ore affir!ative about this con>ecture6)
In contrast, non&Greek social scientists did not dwell on the 8uestion very !uch, artly
because they were not very interested in it anyway and also artly because they saw that this is a
very loaded and sensitive 8uestion for Greeks, so they referred not to !in*le)
In this way, those who had a icture of what was *oin* on in Greece were for a lon* ti!e
too artial9or too discoura*ed9to analyse it, whereas those who were i!artial were too far
re!oved fro! the issue to analyse it) But, I think that such an analysis, which is still endin*, would
be e.tre!ely useful to doG indeed, I consider this heno!enon a true goldmine for social and
olitical thou*ht, and it takes so!ebody who is close enou*h9and knows the lan*ua*e, of course
9to be able to see it, but not too close to be burned by it)
I hoe I 8ualify as one)
Thus, I !aintain that the 8uestion osed in the above interview, the 8uestion of why Greece
oosed9and still ooses9so fiercely the event of a state bein* reco*nised by the na!e
HMacedonia$ is a *enuine theoretical 8uestion and a very fruitful one9indeed, an aoria) The fact
that this disute has already been very heavily investi*ated, both affectively and theoretically, and
that, in it, the social sciences have been invoked constantly to rove the Hri*ht$ of each side, renders
the roble! all the !ore co!licated, but, for that sa!e reason, !ore interestin* for olitical
theory)
In the resent article, I will try to take this inco!rehension seriously and develo so!e
lines of thou*ht that could hel address it) Fro! the start, I ad!it that these lines, or any others that
I know of, do not e.haust the issue and do not rovide a totally satisfactory construction coverin*
all asects of this refusal, which see! to be !ultile and ossibly indeendent fro! one another,
but conver*in* into this uni8ue for!ation)
I.1. Defining the Problem
First of all, let !e situate the theoretical roble! and identify recisely the heno!enon that
I consider to be callin* for an interretation) As such, I define the fact that, fro! the be*innin* of
the A0s on, after the "eublic of Macedonia declared9and i!le!ented9its intention to beco!e
an indeendent state followin* the dissolution of the 0u*oslav Federation, a very fierce reaction
a*ainst this intention e!er*ed within Greek society, esecially in %orthern Greece, and then in the
whole of the country and a!on* the diasora, which eventually translated into a state olicy with
the accetance of ractically all olitical and intellectual leadershi 5includin* the cler*y6G this
2
olicy was that Greece will under no circu!stances accet the e.istence of a state callin* itself
HMacedonia$, or even usin* this ter! 5for e.a!le, as an ad>ective6 in its na!e)
Iery soon, a fi.ed discourse surroundin* and e.lainin* this denial was roduced and
started bein* reeated continuously, to the oint that it obtained the status of an official self&evident
national truth, reroduced in countless articles, books, TI shows, fil!s, stickers, son*s, and
!assive rallies) The !anifest content of this discourse *oes as follows7
1) The na!e HMacedonia$ belon*s e.clusively to Greece and its cultural tradition, and this
has always been so for at least 2D00 yearsG therefore, the use of this ter! by so!ebody
else is an ille*iti!ate aroriation)
2) The use of the ter! HMacedonia$ to describe a nation and a state was a deliberate and
arbitrary choiceG the eole who did it were not really Macedonians, but started clai!in*
so out of the blue fro! a certain oint in ti!e onwards)
@
These eole also invented an
artificial lan*ua*e and tradition, which they started callin* HMacedonian$)
@) Most i!ortantly, the reason why they did this otherwise ine.licable !as8uerade was
that they had sinister lans7 they wanted to *ain the accetance and sy!athy of
owerful forei*n actors, !ainly of (uroeans and A!ericans, in order to attack Greece
and anne. art of its territory, in articular the northern art of it, which also bears the
na!e HJeart!ent of Macedonia$ 5M!6, usin* as a rete.t the e.istence of a
!inority of the sa!e ethnic ori*in and seakin* the sa!e lan*ua*e 5the very lan*ua*e
that was nevertheless declared ine.istent and 2invented4 under oint 26)
This activity went as far as inventin* *enuine urban legends, which also ac8uired the status of self&
evident truth throu*h reetition) #ne such !yth was the Hhistorical fact$, to be found still today in
!any Greek&lan*ua*e websites, that, durin* the K0s, General Je Gaulle had vetoed the 3L$s bid for
!e!bershi to the then&((=, because it wanted to use the na!e HGreat Britain$, which was a
usuration of the traditionally and e.clusively French na!e Breta*ne:BrittanyM #f course, this
e.lanation is a retrosective ro>ection with no historical basis whatsoeverG the reasons for that
veto were totally different) But, this is a very useful invention of a so&called historical recedent that
can hel >ustify the Hinco!rehensible refusal$ and !ake it less unusual) Many years later, AndNnis
/a!arOs, the Greek forei*n !inister at the ti!e, narrated with obvious ride to >ournalist Ale.is
<aahelas, for his TI ro*ra! "a#eloi PfilesQ, how he had e.lained this 2historical recedent4 to
fellow !inisters at an (3 =ouncil, who had critici'ed hi! for vetoin* Macedonia$s accession)
@
/o!e eole think that they can even *ive the e.act dateG for e.a!le, for!er M< and !inister /telios
<aathe!elis rooses 2the 2
nd
of Au*ust 1A??4 52<ros /koia7 Rs edS kai !i arekei4 PTo /ko>e7 (nou*h
is enou*hQ, $leftherot%&ia newsaer, 2E&A&A16)
@
Aarently, Mr /a!arOs ket believin* in the truth of this story for all these years and never ca!e
across anybody who would advise hi! to the contrary)
/o!ethin* we !ust first note about this discursive outbreak is the &re&osterous 5in the
te!oral !eanin* of the ter!6 structure by which it is characterised) This was a narrative about
history, indeed, one which clai!ed an uninterruted continuity and validity of a centuries&old
history, but it itself has in turn its own history, and a very short one7 nobody took the above
state!ents as true, or, better, nobody cared whether they were true or not, before 1AA0)
?
I can
indicate as !uch after havin* seen it with !y own eyes) I was born in Thessaloniki in 1AK? and
lived there until 1AA@G durin* the C0s, two or three eole9for e.a!le, <aathe!elis, as already
!entioned, and %ikolaos Martis, another conservative olitician and self&roclai!ed historian and
folklorist9were tourin* towns and villa*es of Greek Macedonia *ivin* assionate lectures about
the 2usuration of our national herita*e by /ko>e4, whose attendance was li!ited to a few do'en
ersons, usually retired !ilitary officers, riests, school!asters, and other elderly !e!bers of the
local elite) The whole activity was not !uch different fro! the functionin* of a rather har!less
reli*ious sect)
+ithin a few years, this !ar*inal belief was launched into the centre of olitical life and
beca!e a sort&of !ainstrea! reli*ion and a assionate ob>ect of identification for the vast !a>ority
of Greeks in Greece and abroad)
This is, in itself, a !ost unusual heno!enon) The sole fact that the Macedonian "eublic
was reviously a !e!ber of a Federation and was now beco!in* an indeendent state !ade, of
course, so!e difference, but this could not by itself >ustify this i!ressive chan*e of !ood)
=ertainly, this evolution was art of a lar*er icture, linked to a whole series of destabilisin*
events and wars in the Balkans) But still, this was not a reason for such disroortionate reaction)
#n the contrary, one could say that &recisel% this, that is, the dan*er of war, would be one !ore
reason for Greece to reco*nise Macedonia so as not to add further sources of instability) Also, the
instru!entalisation of fear by ruthless oliticians such as the afore!entioned /a!arOs, the current
5/rin* 20116 oosition leader, who wanted to build a career on nationalis! no doubt layed a
role, but not even this is sufficient as an e.lanation) #ortunistic oliticians have always e.isted,
but they did not always !ana*e to sta*e events and de!onstrations with the articiation of
hundreds of thousands of eole)
<recisely this articiation leads us to note the very intense affective dimension of this issue)
+hoever assisted these frenetic three or four years 5at least6 in Greece could not fail to notice that
there was a very active, widesread, and *enuine senti!ental involve!ent of the oulationG it was
not >ust the effect of roa*anda)
?
In this sense, too, "obin #$%eil is absolutely ri*ht to oint out that 2Greece never oosed Macedonia,s
e.istence as art of /F" 0u*oslavia4 5see fn) 16)
?
For the uroses of this article, I will, hereinafter, refer to this ense!ble of 5seudo6scientific
clai!s, state!ents, silences, affects, institutional ractices, and social !obilisations that were
released around this issue as a discursive formation 5followin* Foucault$s ter!inolo*y
D
6) In what
follows, I will try to analyse it in ter!s of two a.es7 on the one hand, the linguistic, and on the
other, the affective facet it co!bines)
II. The '()inguistification* of the Political "ield+
It is very interestin* to note that the whole heno!enon, the whole discursive formation we
are tryin* to analyse here, is very !uch a ,uestion of languageG its stakes, fro! a certain oint of
view, lay out co!letely within lan*ua*e)
For one e.a!le, as soon as Greek nationalis! led to contestin* the rocla!ation of
Macedonia as a soverei*n state, it also i!!ediately led to challen*in* the very e.istence of a
Macedonian lan*ua*e)
But, the link to lan*ua*e not only is li!ited to the fact that the discourse in 8uestion takes
5the Macedonian6 lan*ua*e as one of its ob-ects 5which is already a very i!ortant oint6, but also,
on a deeer level, consists of the fact that lan*ua*e is the ver% field where this stru**le is bein*
carried out and the ob>ect of the stru**le itself) The olitical ai! of this !ove!ent, its e.licit
clai!, concerns a nameG !ore recisely, it de!ands that a certain na!e not be usedG therefore, it
tar*ets the lin*uistic ractice of others7 not >ust an% others, or so!e of the!, but all the others9of
the international co!!unity) This i!ersonal e.ression 5what should Macedonia be called-6 refers
i!!ediately, and necessarily, to the .hole of humanit%, because if one state, or even one erson,
says HMacedonia$, the clai! is not satisfied)
/o this is a de!and addressed to nothin* less than 2the bi* #ther4 itself, to ut it in
Tacanian ter!s) In fact, it is an ob>ection to its very structure, a non&accetance of it)
In this sense, it is a de!and that shows us how ine.tricably soverei*nty is linked 5throu*h
lan*ua*e6 to erfor!ativity) Therefore, one could ertinently read it throu*h so!e very interestin*
re!arks that Uudith Butler wrote several years a*o on a totally different sub>ect7
I read the fi*ure of soverei*nty as it e!er*es within the conte!orary discourse of the erfor!ative
in ter!s of the Foucaultian view that conte!orary ower is no lon*er soverei*n in character) Joes
the fi*ure of the soverei*n erfor!ative co!ensate for a lost sense of ower, and how !i*ht that
loss beco!e the condition for a revised sense of the erfor!ative-
The interest in this fi*ure of the erfor!ative follows fro! a conviction that a si!ilar way of
re*ardin* seech as conduct is at work in several olitical sheres at the sa!e ti!e and for olitical
D
/ee7 Michel Foucault, The /rchaeolog% of 0no.ledge, transl) A)M) /heridan /!ith, %ew 0ork7 <antheon
Books, 1AE2, <art II 5es) ) @C6)
D
uroses that are not always reconcilable with one another) 3tterance itself is re*arded in inflated
and hi*hly efficacious ways, no lon*er as a reresentation of ower or its verbal eiheno!enon, but
as the modus vivendi of ower itself)
+e !i*ht re*ard this overdeter!ination of the erfor!ative as the Hlin*uistification$ of the olitical
field)
K
+e will co!e back to both of these theoretical references of Tacan and Butler later) But, to
be*in with, one has to note that the re>ection of the na!e in 8uestion, curiously enou*h, was not
acco!anied by any definite alternative na!e that should be used instead) In the be*innin*, so!e
intellectuals tried to invent one 5which is already a self&defeatin* endeavour, because if you invent a
na!e, you cannot clai! it to be Hthe ri*ht one$, the one that has always been used6 such as
HIardaria$, or other !ore i!a*inative ones) But, in rincile, !ost eole didn$t really bother very
!uch) +hat !ostly !attered for the! was to re!ain faithful to this censorshi they i!osed on
the!selves and each other)
1ere, one arenthesis is needed7 of course, as is known, for the uroses of international
relations, the acrony! F0"#M 5For!er 0u*oslav "eublic of M)6 was created) But, here, we are
concerned with the discursive ractices within Greece and:or within the Greek lan*ua*e, within
what we could call 2Greek cultural inti!acy4 5to follow anthroolo*ist Michael 1er'feld$s ter!
E
6,
not with co!!unications of the hostile and inco!rehensible international co!!unity) As far as
this ractice is concerned, HF0"#M$ was ractically never usedG it is considered a default
rovisional solution, one which we unwillin*ly accet and retend to follow for the sake of
forei*ners but do not really believe in or endorse in ractice in our everyday erfor!ances) The rest
of the world, on the other hand, saw the ter! $F0"#M$ in e1actl% the same .a%2 only fro! the
other end7 they used it as a co!ro!ise with the inco!rehensible Greeks, and only when a Greek
official was around and likely to ob>ect) #therwise, they ket sayin* HMacedonia$ as they did
before)
/o, without an alternative na!e, the ca!ai*n a*ainst the "eublic of Macedonia started
havin* at least one roble!, or one 2erfor!ative contradiction47 in order to attack so!ebody, it
!ust at least be named) If we re>ect the na!e HMacedonia$ and don$t roose any other instead, how
can we carry out these attacks, and who! are we *oin* to critici'e-
In ractice, !ost eole sontaneously started usin* synta*!as such as Hthe so&called 5or,
the false, self&roclai!ed, and so on6 Macedonians$
C
9and the like) But, they soon realised that this
was not a *ood enou*h solution for the!, because the rohibition was violated all the sa!e on a
K
Uudith Butler, $1citable 3&eech. / Politics of the Performative, %ew 0ork F Tondon7 "outled*e, 1AAE, )
E?)
E
/ee7 Michael 1er'feld, 4ultural Intimac%5 3ocial Poetics in the 6ation7state, %ew 0ork F Tondon7
"outled*e, 200? P1AAEQ, es) chater 1)
K
second level, at the very !o!ent when it was for!ally co!lied with7 the taboo word was
nonetheless ronounced, albeit to be ne*ated at the sa!e !o!ent) /o, little by little, a ractice was
established and eventually beca!e a universal ruleG a device was stabilised to counter this erceived
threat and to revent the ille*iti!ate contestation in a erfor!ative or, better, in a &erlocutionar%
way
A
7 the Hbad$ word was substituted by the ter! Hthe statePletQ of /ko>e$ and later lainly H/ko>e$G
the caital was used as a synecdoche for the whole of the country) For the ne.t ste, ad>ectives were
also roduced7 the inhabitants started bein* called H/ko>ans$, even if they were, for e.a!le, fro!
Bitola or Tetovo, the lan*ua*e H/ko>an lan*ua*e$, and so on)
And, !ost i!ortantly, the whole issue was *iven the rather ridiculous na!e Hthe /ko>an
P8uestionQ$)
10
This leads us to another ossible illustration of this erfor!ative contradiction) This
synta*!a, as in the other cases, ca!e to substitute the e.ression Hthe Macedonian P8uestionQ$,
which had been reviously relaced by the inter!ediate for! Hthe so7called Macedonian 8uestion$
or Hthe non&e.istent 5to an%&ar#to6 Macedonian 8uestion$)
11
But, those who declared this issue to be
Hnon&e.istent$ were soon9or erhas not that soon9to discover that their clai! was truer than they
would wishG this ,uestion .as constructed as such onl% in8and through8their o.n discursive
&ractice. Anywhere else, it was indeed a literally non7e1istent issue, in the sense that nobody e.cet
Greek nationalists saw any roble! usin* the na!e HMacedonia$) If the% did not brin* u this
8uestion in the first lace, nobody else would)
C
In this, they followed a fir!ly established lin*uistic attern in the discourse of Greek nationalis!, which
had been rehearsed for al!ost twenty years in 4%&rus7 when the Turkish occuation authorities roclai!ed
the HTurkish "eublic of %orthern =yrus$ in the 1AC0s, a si!ilar colossal effort was undertaken, and a *reat
deal of attention was invested in order to not ever er!it this "eublic bein* na!ed as a roer "eublic in
the Greek lan*ua*eG every ti!e Greek&seakin* oliticians, dilo!ats, >ournalists, and ersons in *eneral,
whatever their caacity, referred to this ower for!ation and its institutions, they took *reat care to add the
eithet Hso&called$ before it) /o, if one listens to or reads reorts in the Greek =yriot !edia, one is bound to
co!e across e.ressions such as Hthe seudo&arlia!ent$, Hthe so&called olice$, Hthe self&roclai!ed ri!e
!inister$, and so on every two lines)
A
For the definition of 2erlocutionary acts4, see7 U)") /earle, 3&eech /cts, =a!brid*e7 =a!brid*e 3niversity
<ress, 1AKA, ) 2D)
10
+hich, incidentally, is a very awkward solution in Modern Greek, lin*uistically seakin*) Althou*h, u to
now, it has been a very diffused ractice to use the neutral for! of an ad>ective by itself, droin* the noun,
in order to refer collo8uially to an i!ortant issue of international olitics 5for e.a!le, Hto 0%&ria#o
9&rovlima:$ for the =yrus roble!, Hto Mesanatoli#o* for the Middle (ast 8uestion6, or even of do!estic
olitics 5(to asfalisti#o* for the social security issue, (to metanastefti#o* for the !i*ration issue6, it sounds
e.tre!ely inele*ant to use the neutral for! of an ad>ective that si!ly denotes the city where so!ebody was
born) As this so!ebody is always *endered, it is only natural to say (3#o&ianos* for a !an fro! /ko>e, or
(3#o&iani* for a wo!an) But (to s#o&iano* is an absurd construction, created and used only to describe the
international disuteG it is not used anywhere else, and besides, no such ad>ective e.ist in Greek for any other
city in the world) +e can say (o Pari;ianos* for the !an fro! <aris, but nobody ever says (to Pari;iano*)
11
In resect of these issues, I take the liberty to refer to !y article 5in Greek67 2To yarkto, to tehnito kai to
Hanyarkto$) Merikes skeseis yia to Hle*o!eno !akedoniko$4 PThe e.istin*, the artificial, and the Hnon&
e.istent$) /o!e thou*hts about the Hso&called Macedonian 8uestion$Q, Theseis review, @C, Uanuary&March
1AA2)
E
This brou*ht the! to the a!bivalent, al!ost i!ossible, osition of being constantl%
obliged to bring u& an issue themselves2 onl% to declare that it is not reall% an issue9to seak about
so!ethin*, only to i!ly that there is nothin* really to be said about itG everybody knows the
answers)
This is why this is a discourse that can be rolon*ed ad infinitum) #nce instilled, it contains
in itself the !echanis! for its eternal reiterationG as soon as it is enunciated, it annuls itself and at
the sa!e !o!ent roduces the void that calls for a new enunciation to fill it, like the loos in
!ini!alist !usic) It is an insatiable discourse, a discourse that literally can get no satisfaction. As I
said before, it was roduced at a certain oint in ti!eG but as it has no ti!e and no evolution in
itself, it is in a sense ate!oral, in the sense that Touis Althusser had clai!ed that ideolog% has no
histor%8a clai! which is itself insired fro! the Freudian thesis that the unconscious has no
histor%.
12

This is also why this erfor!ative contradiction can be co!ared to the arado.9or the
un e.ressed by hrases such as 2There are no cannibals left in our areaG we ate the last one last
week4)
1@
The erfor!ative nature of such state!ents, their nature as a *esture, is in a certain tension
with their verbal contentG this tension is recisely the tension between the sy!to! and the absent
cause that it is tryin* to efface)
II.1. 3%m&tomatolog%
The use of the ter! Hsy!to!$, of course, refers to a very recise theoretical settin*7 that of
sychoanalysis) Indeed, I consider that it would be useful to draw fro! this theoretical tradition, as
it rovides us with tools suitable for analysin* a roble! such as that of a discre&anc%7 the
discreancy between one$s discourse, on the one hand, and one$s !aterial ractice, on the other)
Indeed, one ossible descrition of the sy!to! is as an act9includin* seech acts, of course9
which does not fit in the rational account we *ive about ourselves to others and:or to ourselves,
what see!s ine.licable, or not totally e.lained on the basis of our conscious thou*hts)
This could be easily clarified with a counter e.a!le) +e should carefully distin*uish the
inco!rehension of this sy!to! fro! a disa*ree!ent with9or re>ection of9a olitical view)
Greece9or so!e eole in Greece9want its territorial sea to be e.tended to 12 !iles) Turkey does
not a*ree with that) But, everybody understands why Greece would refer to have 12 rather than K
!iles of territorial seaG however, other interests and 5conscious6 desires are oosed to that) This is
an international disute)
12
Touis Althusser, 2Ideolo*y and Ideolo*ical /tate Aaratuses 5%otes towards an Investi*ation64, in )enin
and Philoso&h% and <ther $ssa%s, Monthly "eview <ress, 1AE1, available online at
htt7::www)!ar.ists)or*:reference:archive:althusser:1AE0:ideolo*y)ht!)
1@
(.a!le borrowed fro! Michel <Vcheu., 2The Mechanis! of Ideolo*ical 5Mis6reco*nition4, in /lavo>
WiXek 5ed)6, Ma&&ing Ideolog%2 Tondon F %ew 0ork7 Ierso, ) 1D1)
C
+e can talk about a sy!to! when a sub>ect9in this case, a state and:or a society9invests
an incredible a!ount of ti!e and ener*y into a *oal that see!s ointless to others, when others are
not able to tell what this sub>ect would have to *ain by obtainin* that)
This is not to say that this is an irrational reaction, at least not in a nor!ative sense) This
ter! is 5!is6used fre8uently in the fra!ework of a !odernist&(uroeanist kind of discourse, which
!ay even invoke sychoanalysis itself
1?
, whereby !anifestations of oulis!, nationalis!,
traditionalis!, and si!ilar stances are cate*orised as backwardly re&!odern heno!ena, fallin*
out of the aradi*! for what a civil5ised6 society and state should look like) But, !y concern in this
article is not to ut forward any !oralist view on how a society should look) The way I would like
to utilise sychoanalytic theory is not to *ive lessons to eoles in a self&colonisin*:self&balkanisin*
way, 5which, by the way, would not be very consistent with what sychoanalysis is about
1D
6, but to
release a otential for !aterialist critical understandin*) The reason why I a! interested in this
discreancy between deeds and the reasons *iven for the! is, first and fore!ost, to try and .or# on
it, to roduce any additional reasons and layers of !eanin* not contained in the necessarily non&
e.haustive list the sub>ect rovides for her ractice, not necessarily to >ud*e this ractice as
Hun>ustified$ !orally) 5It !ay be so in an ethical understandin* of the ter!, but we will co!e back
to that towards the end6) The fact that a sub>ect cannot *ive a full account of the reasons why she is
doin* so!ethin* does not !ean that these reasons do not e1ist) 1owever, they e.ist in another
sceneG they are dislaced)
It is interestin* to note that, even before Tacan$s effort to introduce a se!iotic aroach to
sychoanalytical theory, the 8uestion of substitute names had already received !uch of Freud$s
interest and attentionG esecially in his Ps%cho&athologie des /lltagslebens
1=
, the founder of
sychoanalysis rovided nu!erous e.a!les9includin*, fro! his own ersonal e.erience,
thou*hts 5or non&thou*hts6, arara.es, ara!nesias, and so on9a!on* which several have to do
not only with na!es of ersons, but also of laces)
In a curious way, several of these laces are situated in the Balkans in *eneral, and in the future 5at
the ti!e6 or for!er 5today6 0u*oslavia in articular) #ne of the! is very fa!ousG it is the e.a!le
with which the book ractically starts 5=hater 17 2For*ettin* of <roer %a!es46, consistin* in his
for*ettin* the na!e of the Italian ainter /i*norelli, which was overdeter!ined9that is, by the
1?
Thanos Tiowat', 2(nli*hten!ent and irrationalis! in culture4 Pin GreekQ, 0athimerini newsaer, 0A&01&
11)
1D
JuYan B>eliZ9in 2Madness as a olitical factor4, Ps%choanal%sis2 4ulture > 3ociet%, 1D, 5March 20106, )
20&@K9oints out usefully such instru!entalisations of sychoanalytical theory within the for!er
0u*oslaviaG he concludes, however, that these are not !isuses but the very essence of sychoanalysis, which
is by definition racist and colonialist) I find his re!arks e.tre!ely interestin*, but obviously do not share the
rather si!lified conclusion)
1K
/i*!und Freud, Ps%cho&atholog% of ever%da% life, transl) , 1ar!ondsworth7 <en*uin, 1AEK P1A01Q)
A
na!es of Bosnia and 1er'e*ovina9facilitated by the translation of the Italian 3ignor to the Ger!an
?err for HTord, Master$ 5ibid), ) @E ff6) But, there is yet another one7
#ne day I found it i!ossible to recall the na!e of a s!all country of which Monte 4arlo is the
chief town) The substitute na!es for it ran7 Piedmont2 /lbania2 Montevideo2 4olico. /lbania was
soon relaced in !y !ind by Montene*roG and it then occurred to !e that the syllable HMont$
5ronounced HMon$6 was found in all the substitute na!es e.cet the last) Thus it was easy for !e,
startin* fro! the na!e of <rince Albert, to find the for*otten na!e Monaco 5) AK6)
1ence, it see!s that, in so!e stran*e way, 8uestions of ?errschaft 5soverei*nty6, when co!bined
with the +estern Balkans, lead to so!e 2na!e trouble4, and to the suression and relace!ent of
national na!es and:or their 2chief towns4 5I suose the (n*lish translator uses here the literal
counterart of the Ger!an ?au&tstadt rather than the !ore usual ter! ca&ital6, or the for!er by the
latter, not to !ention the invention of na!es for non&e.istent 2s!all countries49or the invention of
non&e.istent na!es for e.istin* ones)
The reason why Freud *oes throu*h all these, and !any !ore, dislace!ents, condensations, and
overdeter!inations, is a scientific ro!ise, indeed, a very a!bitious one)
The rocess that should lead to the reroduction of the !issin* na!e has been so to seak dislaced
and has therefore led to an incorrect substitute) My hyothesis is that this dislace!ent is not left to
arbitrary sychical choice but follows aths which can be redicted and which confor! to laws) In
other words, I susect that the na!e or na!es which are substituted are connected in a discoverable
way with the !issin* na!e 5) @C6)
In site of these bold declarations at the li!its of ositivis!, I consider that sychoanalytic insi*ht
can be fruitful and hel us, !aybe not to 2redict4 the course of the si*nifiers or to discover 2laws4
to which they confor! in a deter!inistic way, but at least to shed so!e li*ht on certain di!ensions
of the 2na!e trouble4 of Greek nationalis!) #f course, in the latter case, we don$t have a te!orary
for*ettin*, but a er!anent9and er!anently i!ossible9su&&ression of the na!eG the
substitution of Monte =arlo for Monaco is not the sa!e as the substitution of /ko>e for
MacedoniaG this is >ust a coincidence 5as is the occurrence of the letters M&#&% in both cases6) Also,
i!ortantly, the 8uestion of the correctness of the na!e 5as in the e.ression 2incorrect substitute4
used above6 is not osed the sa!e way, as we shall see in the followin* section) But, the
roductivity of the absent cause, and the roliferation of na!es and of discourses it roduces, is
resent in both cases)
10
II.@. Ahat is Bree# for 'Macedonia+C
A violent tension toward the %a!e 5e)*) 2French!an4, 2=orsican4, 2Losovarian4, 2[uebecois46
e!er*es within the contraction of the contract which, because it is contractin* and contractual, that is
to say, not *enerative, foundational or identifyin*, but enunciative, leaves the na!e of the eole on
the ed*e of lan*ua*e, devoid of roriety and conse8uently desi*natin* the one of the eole as non&
one, neither uni8ue nor unitary9untranslatable, therefore, but oenin* uon an indefinite translation
within the eole, who do not cease bein* unna!ed)
1E

(8ually resent in both cases is the role of another !ore technical way of transferrin*
!eanin*s and si*nifiers)
+hat is noteworthy in this *eo*rahical and se!iotic travellin* rovided by the Freudian
te.t is the i!ortance of translation, even of translation of names) In rincile, na!es are fi.edG
they are not suosed to chan*e when we ass fro! one lan*ua*e to another) But, there are
e.cetions, and so!e of these e.cetions facilitated the assin* of !eanin*9and of sychical
ener*y9across the various si*nifiers at lay here) In another account of the sa!e for*ettin* of
na!e,
1C
Freud e.lains that what favoured the sliin* fro! Albania to Montene*ro was the
sy!!etrical oosition of the meaning of the resective na!es 5albusBTatin for white,
negroBblack6, whereas certain thou*hts of his related to Munich 5called MDnchen in Ger!an, but
Monaco in Italian9e.actly the sa!e as the rincedo! at the Mediterranean coast, headed by the
<rince /lb&ert6 had overdeter!ined the 2ob>ect choice4 of this for*ettin*)
1A
Translation has a otential, whether conscious or unconscious, for trans*ressin* or byassin* a
na!e blocka*eG Freud knew that very well and used it in his favour in order to e.lain his *ettin*
back fro! the na!e of the chief town:caital to that of the country as a whole) This otential is also
known to Greek nationalists about the censorshi i!osed on the!selves and on everybody else,
and this knowled*e led the! to so!e 5!is6translation solutions, which one could 8ualify as
inad!issible or >ust funny, deendin* on one$s te!oral and:or senti!ental distance fro! the facts)
For e.a!le, esecially durin* the A0s, whenever a cli with an official or dilo!at 5a foreign
official or dilo!at, of course6 seakin* in (n*lish or French about the Macedonian 8uestion was
shown on Greek TI news, each ti!e the erson in 8uestion used the ter! HMacedonia$, this ter! in
the subtitles was une.cetionally rendered as H/ko>e$, without anybody feelin* they had done
anythin* wron*)
1E
Uean Tuc %ancy, \The so&called:self&sayin* eole\, in %aoki /akai&Uon /olo!on 5eds)6, Translation2
Eio&olitics2 4olonial Difference 5Traces ?6, 1on* Lon*7 1on* Lon* 3niversity <ress, 200K, ) 2D@)
1C
/i*!und Freud, Introductor% )ectures on Ps%choanal%sis2 1ar!ondsworth7 <en*uin, 1AE? P1A1DQ, ) 1?1)
1A
It is very interestin* to note, in assin*, that the si*nifiers of .hiteness, which deter!ined Freud$s name
trouble2 are recisely si*nifiers very heavily loaded with !eanin*s linked to ?errshchaft in the sense not
only of soverei*nty, but of domination as well, !ore secifically linked to (urocentris! and to racial
su&eriorit%)
11
In fact, can we really bla!e the translators for that- And for which wron* e.actly- In
rincile, this act see!s as a fla*rant violation of the ethics9and even the ele!entary rofessional
standards9of translation) But, if we think about it, it see!s that these translators have a stron*er
case than it would aear) %ot 5only6 because if they re!ained faithful to the ori*inal they would
lose their >ob, but also because here it is not so self&evident what Hfaithfulness$ !eansM It is often
said that the activity of the translator is not innocent, and it often involves olitical choices) For one
e.a!le, %aoki /akai has recently stated that 2the reresentation of translation brin*s about socio&
olitical effects and serves as a technolo*y by which the individual i!a*ines his or her relation to
the national or ethnici'ed co!!unity4)
20
But, one can hardly i!a*ine a clearer e.a!le for this
involve!ent than the resent case) Because, after all, is this not the word that !ost9if not all9the
!e!bers of the resective lin*uistic co!!unity, that is, the users of Greek, use for HMacedonia$
when they seak and write- /o, if one conceives translation accordin* to the co!!unication !odel,
or the 2sche!e of co&fi*uration4, as /akai calls it, one could lausibly ar*ue that this .as the
correct Bree# translation of the term) To ut it in another way, if there is a roble! with this
translation act, it lies at the level of the language itself2 of the language communit% as a .hole, not
of the individual translator)
(.ectin* fro! the state TI e!loyees a different translation olitics 5a heterolingual
a&&roach to the ethics of their rofession, to use a*ain /akai$s ter!6 would be erhas too !uch)
1owever, the roble! was not only ethical, but also ractical 5besides, this was >ust a !anifestation
of the ethical di!ension6, because, esecially when eole follow this ractice in written te.ts, as
they soon started doin* 5for e.a!le, when such state!ents were 8uoted in newsaers and, later,
on internet sites6, this, a!on* other thin*s, only contributed to the further affir!ation of the
censorshi, to its enlar*ed reroduction, and thus to its naturalisation and oblivion) Fro! a certain
oint onwards, the resence and intervention of the 5!is6translator was no lon*er visible 5*iven
that, in the case of the written for!, the reciients by definition have no si!ultaneous access to the
ori*inal6G so, !ost of the addressees *ot the !isleadin* i!ression that this .as the .ord that the
original s&ea#erF.riter had actuall% used) The TI and co!uter screens functioned as an artificial
world where, like in a drea!, one$s wish aears as alread% fulfilled7 like a self&fulfillin* rohecy,
this erfor!ance created, or reinforced, for its reciients the i!ression that not only they, but also
the whole world was alread% conforming to their demand and has stoed usin* the taboo word)
It is really hard to tell whether9and to what e.tent9eole are really ersuaded about that)
But, so!e evidence can be drawn fro! another instance of this Hostrich 5broadcastin*6 olicy,4
*iven the su!!er of 200A, when the (uroean Basketball cha!ionshi was takin* lace in
<oland) Jurin* that event, the national tea! of Greece had to lay a*ainst that of Macedonia) ("T,
20
%aoki /akai, 2Translation4, Theor%2 4ulture > 3ociet%2 2@52]@6, ) E2)
12
the Greek national channel, was showin* the *a!e live, trans!ittin* the i!a*e it was receivin*
fro! its <olish counterart) This i!a*e, of course, included an electronic Hcard$ showin* the na!es
of the tea!s every ti!e the director wanted to infor! the viewer about the score, the ti!e
re!ainin*, and so on) These na!es were *iven with the acceted three&letter abbreviations for
international sorts events, that is, G"( and MLJ, resectively)
After about fifteen !inutes, the seaker who was describin* the !atch felt the need to^
aolo*ise to the ublic, who, as we were infor!ed, flooded the channel$s offices with an*ry hone
calls of rotest for the use of these *uilty three letters alludin* to the M&wordG the seaker, who
aarently shared their indi*nation and found it totally >ustified, e.lained that these deno!inations
were not the choice of ("T7 2that was how they were receivin* the i!a*e4 and 2unfortunately there
was nothin* they could do4) But, after so!e !ore !inutes, due to the insistence of the viewers, it
roved that there nevertheless .as so!ethin* they could do7 usin* electronic !eans, the technicians
at the Athens studio intervened on the i!a*e and literally erased the MLJ si*nG they !ade it
disaear fro! the ictureM They did not relace it with any other abbreviationG they >ust left a blank
ne.t to the nu!ber of oints scored by Macedonia) /o, for about three 10&!inute eriods, as far as
("T was concerned, the Greek national tea! was layin* a*ainst^nobody, a*ainst the tea! with
no na!eM
These an*ry reactions su**est that the Greek ublic was indeed ersuaded that the entire
world not only must, but have already stoed sayin* HMacedonia$ 5or !aybe, that they never did at
all-6) But, what is even !ore i!ressive, in !y view, is that, after this ridiculous atchwork
solution, everybody was satisfiedM The rotests ceased, and all viewers dedicated the!selves to
en>oyin* the !atch, even !ore so as Greece !arked a clear victory) I a! frankly not really sure
what e.actly to !ake out of both this ob>ection and its withdrawal) It is not clear which ercenta*e
of the eole who rotested really e.ected <olish TI to share their obsession, and which
ercenta*e really did know that the roble! e.ists but were satisfied by >ust hiding it fro! their
vision, even if this would not chan*e its essence)
Because, of course, the viewers bothered by the aearance of the MLJ si*n could not
i*nore 5or could they-6 that everybody else in the rest of the world .ere seein* this si*n and that, in
any case, the cha!ionshi continued, and in this continuation the Macedonian tea! layed other
!atches as well for which the sa!e abbreviation was used) But, they did not telehone <olish TI to
ask the! to abolish this si*n fro! their icture as well) Aarently, they didn$t care whether the
whole world was seein* it, rovided that the% didn$t see it)
+hatever the case, I hoe these e.a!les are convincin* evidence that this very eculiar
heno!enon is an interestin* field for !odern thou*ht about lan*ua*e and about social bonds) In its
develo!ent, esecially in the work of Tacan, sychoanalytic theory *ave *reat i!ortance to the
1@
8uestion of lan*ua*eG cf) the fa!ous for!ulation that 2the unconscious is structured as a
lan*ua*e4)
21
As is obvious by this indefinite article, the 8uestion of .hich lan*ua*e is not ertinent
hereG althou*h Tacan$s se!inars abound in ter!s and hrases in lan*ua*es other than French
5esecially Ger!an, (n*lish, and Italian6, no difference is !ade accordin* to whether one$s
unconscious is structured as this articular rather than so!e other lan*ua*e, or ossibly as more
than one lan*ua*e) /o, in this aroach, there doesn$t see! any sace for considerations concernin*
the national or*anisation and construction of lan*ua*e, and the relationshi between different
lan*ua*es)
In the sychoanalytical literature, there is at least one !a>or contribution that deals with
recisely this toic, or rather, that tries to take into account the fact that an analysand9albeit
so!ebody else$s analysand9was fa!iliar with !ore than one lan*ua*e and, hence, so was his
unconscious) Accordin*ly, if the analyst is to be able to understand the for!ation of his or her
sy!to!s and translate the! to a !ore !eanin*ful account, s:he will necessarily have to have
recourse to translation in the strict sense of the ter!, or take into account translation acts already
erfor!ed by the erson$s unconscious7 translation between "ussian, (n*lish, and Ger!an) This
contribution is the revisitin* of Freud$s fa!ous +olf!an case by the Uewish&1un*arian coule of
%icolas Abraha! and Maria T_r_k, ublished in French in 1AEK)
22
It is not a coincidence that this
work attracted the attention of Uac8ues Jerrida, who, alon* with three other eole, was directin*
the collection in which this work was ublished and who wrote an unusually lon* foreword to it)
Many years later, Jerrida, without *ivin* any direct reference to that foreword, ca!e back to the
discussion of the sa!e issues and dedicated a whole book to the!, drawin* e.a!les and !aterial
fro! his own ersonal case as a French&seakin* Uew in Al*eria)
2@
There, in one of his favourite
arado.es, Jerrida stated that 2we only ever seak one lan*ua*e, but this lan*ua*e is not ours4,
which can also be for!ulated as 2we never seak only one lan*ua*e4, because no lan*ua*e is one
and the sa!e thin* with itself)
2?
Tacan hi!self also insisted that 2there is no !eta&lan*ua*e4, and ri*htfully soG but his
re!arks !ay er!it us to con>ecture the e.istence of a trans7language, a sace bet.een 5nationally
constructed6 lan*ua*es and:or a lan*ua*e besides, above2 or belo. each nationally constructed
21
This aears at several oints of his work7 for e.a!le, Uac8ues Tacan, Gcrits7 / selection, transl) Alan
/heridan, Tondon7 Tavistock, 1AAE, ) DA, or The 3eminar2 Eoo# HH5 $ncore2 <n "eminine 3e1ualit%2 The
)imits of )ove and 0no.ledge, %07 %orton, 1AAC, ?C) This hrase, alone or in various co!binations, has
also served as a title for at least one book and several articles)
22
)e Ierbier de lJhomme au1 lou&s, `d), <aris7 Fla!!arion&=ha!s, 1AEK) /o!e useful but scarce re!arks
on this toic are also !ade by Irane Jia!antis in )es Phobies ou lJim&ossible se&aration, <aris7 Fla!!arion&
=ha!s, 200A P200@Q, ) 121 5and the whole of that chater entitled 2b`nohobie) Ta lan*ue `tra*are46)
2@
Uac8ues Jerrida, )e monolinguisme de lJautre ou la &rothKse dJorigine, <aris 7 cditions Galil`e, 1AAK,
available on line at htt7::www)>ac8uesderrida)co!)ar:frances:!onolin*uis!e)df) Uac8ues Jerrida,
Monolingualism of the other2 or2 The &rosthesis of origin, transl), <alo Alto7 /tanford 3niversity <ress, 1AAC)
2?
Jerrida, )e monolinguisme L2 a*es 21, 2D, 12@, and assi!) My translation)
1?
lan*ua*e, roducin* so!ethin* like a diffMrance, a distance of each lan*ua*e fro! itself, which
e!er*es each ti!e a work of translation is needed9esecially of a translation so crucial and loaded
with conse8uences as the e.a!les *iven in this section) In theorisin* this sace, these trans&
national:trans&lin*uistic relations, a deconstruction aroach could be useful, and this is what
Jerrida atte!ted to sketch in his afore!entioned book)
Uean&Tuc %ancy, one of Jerrida$s fellow directors in Fla!!arion$s )a Philoso&hie en effet
collection, also ursued a si!ilar vein, and his discussion led to an eni*!atic but fascinatin*
assa*e, a for!ulation arahrasin* that of Tacan$s7 \the unconscious is structured li#e a &eo&le4)
In effect, the creed, considered not as adherence to a fantastic knowled*e but as affir!ation of that
fir!ness where all knowled*e is lackin*, is the act 5and not the reresentation6 of that which 1e*el
na!es &olitische Besinnun*, \olitical disosition\, which consists of \a confidence 5das Nutrauen6,
i)e), consciousness that !y substantive and articular interest is contained and reserved in the
interest and end of another\) But consciousness as a confidence is a consciousness that uts the very
!o!ent of the self within the other 5)))6) /uch consciousness contains a !o!ent of unconsciousness7
certitude in the other, that is, outside of all certitude) Is this not the occasion to recall that, if the
eole e.ist so!ewhere in Freud9between the !asses, authority and identification9they do so not
si!ly \within the unconscious\, but as the latter- +e should say7 \the unconscious is structured like
a eole9as a eolin*, oulation and oulace\)
This e.cert is also taken fro! the sa!e article by %ancy, which, as already !entioned,
bears the very atly chosen9and very ertinent to our discussion here9title The so7calledFself7
sa%ing &eo&le.
2D

IO.P. / Tribe of Ps%chotics
As we saw, Freud$s ro!ise in analysin* na!e trouble was to !ove fro! the 2incorrect
substitute4 and to accede to the 2correct ori*inal4 of the na!e)
This brin*s us before a rather unusual 8uestion7 how can we tell a correct na!e- 3nder
which conditions9if any at all9can a na!e be called true or false-
In a short, e.tre!ely dense9and interestin*9chater of his 3ublime ob-ect of ideolog%
@=
2
/lavo> WiXek raises recisely the 8uestion of ho. names refer to ob-ects. Then, he outlines the
answers *iven resectively by two oosin* doctrines7
2D
Uean Tuc %ancy, \The so&called:self&sayin* eole\, in %aoki /akai&Uon /olo!on 5eds)6, Translation2
Eio&olitics2 4olonial Difference 5Traces ?6, 1on* Lon*7 1on* Lon* 3niversity <ress, 200K, ) 2DD)
2K
/lavo> WiXek, 3ublime ob-ect of ideolog%, Tondon F %ew 0ork7 Ierso, 2002 P1ACAQ, ) CA ff)
1D
The stake of the disute between descritivis! and antidescritivis! is the !ost ele!entary one7
how do na!es refer to the ob>ects they denote- +hy does the word Htable$ refer to a table- The
descritivist answer is the obvious one7 because of its !eanin*G every word is in the first lace the
bearer of a certain !eanin*9that is, !eans a cluster of descritive features 5Htable$ !eans an ob>ect
of a certain shae, servin* certain uroses6 and subse8uently refers to ob>ects in reality in so far as
they ossess roerties desi*nated by the cluster of descritions) 5^6 The antidescritivist answer, in
contrast, is that a word is connected to an ob>ect or a set of ob>ects throu*h an act of Hri!al
batis!$, and this link !aintains itself even if the cluster of descritive features which initially
deter!ined the !eanin* of the word chan*es co!letely 5) CA6)
WiXek ali*ns with neither of the!, re!arkin* that 2to defend their solution, both ositions
have to resort to a !yth, to invent a !yth7 a !yth of the ri!itive tribe in /earle, a !yth of PanQ
Ho!niscient observer of history$ in Jonellan)4
/oon, we will discuss in !ore detail /earle$s !yth9and WiXek$s criticis!, even irony,
a*ainst it) For the ti!e bein*, we have to notice that the discursive for!ation of the Greek refusal,
in a stran*e way, !ana*es to co!bine both !yths, the ne*ative asects of both aroaches7 as is
clear, in the clai! that HMacedonia is Greek and has always been$, the !eanin* of HMacedonia$ is
construed as, recisely, a er!anent and re&*iven Hcluster of descritive features$G if a eole, a
lan*ua*e, a *eo*rahical area, and a state corresond to this, then that na!e is worth bein*
ad>udicated to the! as such) The co!etence of >ud*in* whether or not these conditions are !et is
assi*ned to Hscience$, that is, recisely to the fiction of an Ho!niscient observer of history$, a
Hsub>ect suosed to know$)
Jurin* the A0s, in the course of the !assive ca!ai*n a*ainst the Husuration of Greece$s
historical herita*e$, stickers were roduced and ut all over the lace, !ainly in airorts and railway
stations where forei*n tourists were likely to see the!, with the slo*an HMA=(J#%IA I/
G"((=() "(AJ 1I/T#"0M$
This na;ve and rather authoritarian i!erative to the reader 5of the sticker, and the
rosective reader of H1istory$6 relies, of course, on the essentialist belief that there is a hi*her
instance, a Hhistorical truth$, to which eole have recourse in order to resolve olitical roble!s
without any residue9as thou*h the sole act of readin* 5and readin* histor%, of all thin*s6 is
so!ethin* univocal, undisuted, and self&evident, which will Hteach$ everybody and ut an end to
anta*onis!s)
In order to entertain such a belief, you have a!on* other thin*s to for*et that, if anybody is
able to read history, this is because so!ebody else has .ritten it beforeM 3nless, of course, this self&
evidently true 1istory was not written by any hu!an, but by the ulti!ate *uarantor of !eanin*7
God hi!self)
1K
This brin*s us to the affinities of the Greek refusal with the second !yth)
The H!yth of the ri!itive tribe$, resuosed by the descritivist osition in /earle$s own
account, *oes as follows7
I!a*ine that everybody in the tribe knows everybody else and that newborn !e!bers of the tribe are
bati'ed at cere!onies attended by the entire tribe) I!a*ine, further!ore, that as the children *row
u they learn the na!es of eole as well as the local na!es of !ountains, lakes, streets, houses,
etc), by ostension) /uose also that there is a strict taboo in this tribe a*ainst seakin* of the dead,
so that no one$s na!e is ever !entioned after his death) %ow the oint of the fantasy is si!ly this7
As I have described it, this tribe has an institution of roer na!es used for reference in e.actly the
sa!e way that our na!es are used for reference, but there is not a single use of a name in the tribe
that satisfies the causal chain of communication theor%.
@Q
(verybody who has followed the account of the Greek Hna!e trouble$ with Macedonia
cannot fail to be i!ressed by this need felt by /earle, in a totally different conte.t of abstract
se!iotic analysis, to resu!e the e.istence of a taboo in order to e.lain the function of na!es)
WiXek, too, stos before this reference and e.loits it for his own uroses when he *oes on
to refute the descritivist !yth by uttin* forward the 2Tacanian aroach4 which 2would
e!hasi'e another feature47
there is si!ly so!ethin* !issin* in /earle$s descrition of his tribe) If we are really concerned with
lan*ua*e in a strict sense, with lan*ua*e as a social network in which !eanin* e.ists only in so far
as it is intersub>ectively reco*ni'ed9with lan*ua*e which, by definition cannot be Hrivate$9then it
!ust be art of the !eanin* of each na!e that it refers to a certain ob>ect because this is its name,
because others use this na!e to desi*nate the ob>ect in 8uestion7 every na!e, in so far as it is art of
co!!on lan*ua*e, i!lies this self&referential, circular !o!ent) H#thers$, of course, cannot be
reduced to e!irical othersG they rather oint to the Tacanian Hbi* #ther$, to the sy!bolic order itself
5) A@6)
=onse8uently, WiXek ascribes to this !yth a !isreco*nition of the constitutive lack, which is
not a 2arasitic4 function, but 2a necessary constituent of every Hnor!al$ use of na!es in lan*ua*e
as a social bond4G this 2tautolo*ical constituent is the Tacanian !aster&si*nifier, the Hsi*nifier
without si*nified$4) %ow, what is interestin* in this refutation is the 2ironic art of it4 5) A?6, where
the author, based on this !isreco*nition of the lack, concludes that 2/earle$s !ythical tribe is thus a
tribe of sychotics which9because of the taboo concernin* na!es of dead ersons9forecloses the
2E
Uohn /earle, Intentionalit%, =a!brid*e, 1AC?, ) 2?0, 8uoted in WiXek, ibid), ) A2)
1E
function of the %a!e&of&the&Father9that is to say, revents the transfor!ation of the dead father
into the rule of his %a!e4)
WiXek$s insi*ht can take us a bit further in the analysis of the discursive for!ation we are
concerned with) Accordin* to what recedes, an a!bition such as the one for!ulated by Freud
about findin* 2aths which can be redicted and which confor! to laws4 and definitely resolvin*
the roble! would hardly !ake sense in this caseG so erhas we should deconstruct or, at least,
dislace this ro!ise itself) +e could for!ulate the arado. and the inco!rehension of the Greek
sy!to! as follows7 it is a denial 5or !aybe, !ore accurately, a Ierleugnung9disavowal
2C
6 of a
secific si*nifier, but at the sa!e ti!e it is a disavo.al of the linguistic Rand the trans7
linguisticFtranslational character of this demand2 in so far as the suosed Hroof$ for the
wellfoundedness of this refusal, its >ustification, is assu!ed to be so!ewhere outside lan*ua*e, in a
non7linguistic realit% of Hhard facts$ free of articular interests and desires, which will *uarantee the
truth of a na!e and the ri*hts of each side to clai! it) The totality of the Greek refusal discourse
consists e.clusively in this, na!ely, in searchin* incessantly for an HArchi!edean oint$, for
evidence that the use of the ter! HMacedonia$ is inaccurate, does not corresond to so&called
historical reality 5conceived of as so!ethin* unroble!atic, irrelevant to any activity of writin*9
and:or translation6)
I !aintain that Greek society, to this e.tent9that is, in so far as it was 5is6 catured by the
obsession of the refusal:disavowal of the na!e HMacedonia$9constitutes the erfect e.a!le, the
incarnation of this 2m%thical tribe of &s%chotics4) Their na!e trouble concerns nothin* else but a
non7acce&tance of the s%mbolic order. It is a clai! for a na!e of the fathers, or of the forefathers,
but these fathers are conceived of as totally reduced to, and identical with, em&irical fathers, with
historical &ersons that have actuall% e1isted 5<hili, Ale.ander, and so on6) In another for!ulation,
this discursive for!ation cannot accet the He!tiness$ of the !aster&si*nifier, it e.ects it to be
Hfull$, and seeks constantly to establish for itself this fullness by throwin* volu!es of si*nified
!aterial into the *a of the si*nifier) This clai! is the tool for a revolt recisely against the %a!e
of the Father and its valence, which is unbearable for the sub>ectG it is the self&rocla!ation of a
rivile*e, of an e1ce&tionalism7 H.e are not the sa!e as everybody else$) The oint that !akes Hus$
different fro! Heverybody else$ is very fa!iliarG it is the constitutive sychosis of ractically every
nation for!ation7 the !e*alo!aniac fantasy of the $lect Peo&leF6ation)
A 2ri*id desi*nator4 5WiXek, ) AD6, which has been very crucial for the self&ercetion of the
!odern Greek nation, is the belief that it is the continuation of ancient Greek civilisationG hence,
Greeks are those who have *iven the li*hts of civilisation to all of hu!anity) This rovides the!
with an alle*edly @000 year&old stable identity)
2C
Uean Talanche&U)B) <ontalis, The )anguage of Ps%choanal%sis2 Tondon7 Larnac Books, 200?, entry
2disavowal4)
1C
I believe that the reaction to the for!ation of a Macedonian nation shows that Greek nationalis!
was 5is6 not based on 2the transfor!ation of the dead father into the rule of his %a!e4, to ut it in
WiXek$s ter!sG na!ely, that what !attered for those reactin* was not the i!!aterial&siritual
content of ancient Greek civilisation 5in which case they should be *lad that so!ebody else is
insired by it, or a art of it, and also conceive the!selves as offsrin* of the sa!e forefathers6G
besides, !y *uess is that !ost eole who react a*ainst the Husuration of Greek national herita*e$
for the !ost art robably ignore its content) +hat they care about is an e.clusive ri*ht of
ownershi over it, the ossibility to affir! that Hthis e!irical erson has been our father, not
yours$G this is why they focus on biolo*ical kinshi) This e.clusive ri*ht is e.ected to rovide
the! with the necessary titles of sueriority over other nations and assure the! the reservation of a
secific kind of Hnational en>oy!ent$, or -ouissance.
III. The Threat for 6ational Souissance
This last re!ark brin*s to the fore yet another discreancy within the discursive for!ation
of the refusal) (ven if we take for *ranted that the ascendance fro! ancient Greeks and the link to
their civilisation is i!ortant for !odern ones, whatever the reason and the !odalities, ho. is it that
the use of the na!e HMacedonia$ for another !odern nation is erceived as a threat to this
relationshi- Macedonia was only a !ar*inal art of ancient Greek historyG for several Greek
authors, includin* !odern ones, it was not really a art at all) (ven if they were Hwron*$, it does not
necessarily follow that Greek national en>oy!ent will be stolen by thatG in rincile, !odern
Macedonia !ay be called HMacedonia$, and Greeks !ay still believe they are the source of
(uroean or universal civilisation)
To be*in with, here we find once !ore the structure of synecdoche 5the art for the whole6)
But, the e.lanation for the e!er*ence of this fear cannot be drawn fro! an analysis li!ited to the
sy!bolic orderG associations and interretations can be rolon*ed ad infinitum, and it is always
ossible to find new dislace!ents and new aths followed by the chain of si*nifiers) But, the
ener*y that sets this rocess in !otion and fi.es the I!a*inary to this rather than that ath does not
co!e fro! the si*nifiers the!selves)
2A
The 8uestion of the Hob>ect choice$ of this9and any other9sychotic sy!to! is a very co!le.
and difficult one) 1ere, I will only ut forward two hyotheses that can shed so!e li*ht on this
8uestion, without e.haustin* it)
III.1. Ahose "atherC Ahose 6ameC
2A
#n these issues, see in articular7 0annis /tavrakakis&%ikos =hrysoloras, 25I can$t *et no6 en>oy!ent7
lacanian theory and the analysis of nationalis!4, Ps%choanal%sis2 4ulture > 3ociet%2 5200K6, 11, ) 1??]1K@)
1A
ne very clear di!ension of the channellin* of sychical ener*y towards the Macedonian
8uestion is a heno!enon the!atised fro! very early on by Freudian theory as &ro-ection)
Accordin* to a useful definition, ro>ection in 2the roerly sychoanalytic sense4 is an
2oeration whereby 8ualities, feelin*s, wishes or even Hob>ects$, which the sub>ect refuses to
reco*ni'e or re>ects in hi!self, are e.elled fro! the self and located in another erson or thin*)
<ro>ection so understood is a defence of a very ri!itive ori*in which !ay be seen at work
esecially in aranoia, but also in Hnor!al$ !odes of thou*ht such as suerstition4)
@0
I !aintain that the accusations of Greek nationalists a*ainst the Macedonian nation
construction are very clearly a ro>ection of their own activity, the activity which led to the
for!ation of Greek nationhood in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and which they are
still buildin* on, but would rather for*et)
It should be recalled here that the oulations that later for!ed the Greek nation state were
not called HGreeks$ until the ei*hteenth centuryG they called the!selves HTomioi*2 Tum in Turkish,
!eanin* "o!ans 5for!er sub>ects of the (astern "o!an (!ire, which we now inaccurately call
HBy'antine$6) The shift towards the na!e HGreeks$ 5$llines6 was a deliberate choice by the Tum
elites durin* the last decades of the #tto!an rule over what is today Greece,
@1
in order to obtain the
sy!athy of +estern (uroean owers, who *reatly ad!ired ancient Greece) Moreover, the reason
they needed this sy!athy was in order to ensure the owers$ hel in the effort to secede fro! a
!ultiethnic state for!ation, create an indeendent state, and then e.and its boundaries at the
e.ense of the nei*hbourin* (!ire, usin* as a rete.t the e.istence in it of a !inority seakin* a
lan*ua*e9or several lan*ua*es:dialects9si!ilar to theirs)
As re*ards the criticis! about the Hartificial lan*ua*e$ in articular, it is also useful to recall
that, for !ore than a century, the official lan*ua*e of the Greek state was a lan*ua*e no !other ever
used to seak to her child, but an archaic version invented by intellectuals and learned with *reat
effort9if at all9at school by the rest of the eoleG in the be*innin* of the twentieth century, the
glossi#o ;itima 5lan*ua*e 8uestion6 was often a cause for assionate discussions, ublic events, and
even de!onstrations with eole wounded and killedM (ven today, the 8uestion of .hich is the
(right* Bree# language and the &ro&er .a% to use it is the source of !any debates in the !edia, and
the sa!e *oes for the rest of the clai!s listed above 5in 1)16)
In other words, the discursive for!ation is a way for !odern Greeks to attribute to the Hso&
called:self&sayin*$ Macedonians the intention to do to the! what the Hso&called:self&sayin*$
@0
Uean Talanche] U)B) <ontalis, The )anguage of Ps%choanal%sis2 Tondon7 Larnac Books, 200?, 5o) cit)6,
entry 2ro>ection4)
@1
/ee on this oint, %) /i*alas, 2I dia!orfosi tis neo&ellinikis ennoias tou ellinis!ou4 PThe for!ation of the
neo&hellenic concet of 1ellenis!Q, Ta Istori#a2 2001, @?7 @]E0G and 21ell`nistes, hell`nis!e et id`olo*ie
nationale4, in =hryssanti Avla!i 5ed)6, )*anti,uitM grec,ue au 1UMme siKcle5 un e.e!lu! contestMC, <aris 7
T$1ar!attan, 2000, 2@A&2A1)
20
Greeks:$llines did a*ainst the #tto!ans:Turks one century a*o) Their reeatin* that the H/ko>an$
identity is arbitrary and artificial is a erlocutory !eans for the! to affir! Hours is authentic and
natural$)
In the 2010 fil! 0%nodontas 5=anine6, Greek director 0or*os Tanthi!os sta*es a fa!ily
livin* so!ewhere outside Athens, where the arents have ersuaded their @ children9by the ti!e
of the fil! already in their adolescence9that kids should not leave ho!e until they lose their canine
tooth, because the outside world is inco!rehensible and dan*erous for the!) In what could be read
as a satirical arable of !odern Greek society as a whole, this fa!ily ends u usin* lan*ua*e not as
2a social network in which !eanin* e.ists only in so far as it is intersub>ectively reco*ni'ed4, to
reeat WiXek$s ter!s, but recisely as &rivate) #nce in a while, the kids ask the !eanin* of a
secific word, and the arents, very !uch like the 2tribe of sychotics4 in /earle$s hyothetic
e.a!le, define so!e of the! at their own arbitrary will, and so they trans!it to the ne.t *eneration
a distorted !eanin* of the words both by ostension and:or by an 2act of ri!al 5re6batis!4) For
e.a!le, the son hears the word H'o!bie$ and asks his !other, 2what is a 'o!bie-4) The !other
answers that 2a 'o!bie is a little yellow flower4) Towards the end of the fil!, he sees so!e yellow
flowers in the *arden, cuts one, and offers it to his sister, sayin* 2I brou*ht a nice little 'o!bie for
you4)
This fil! illustrates the 2desire for walls4
@2
5besides, the villa where the fa!ily lives is
actually surrounded by tall !aterial and:or sy!bolic walls6G also, i!ortantly, it shows how
lan*ua*e can substitute or sule!ent the function of walls in this effort for a withdrawal to a
reassurin* interiority, to 2fantasies of innocence, rotection, ho!o*eneity, and self&sufficiency4
5Brown, ) 10E&10C6 when no such rotection is ossible)
/o does the discursive for!ation of Greek nationalis!) In !uch the sa!e way as the
sychotic fa!ily in the fil!, Greek society has develoed a kind of &rivate language in order to
correct the Hin>ustice$ of the Bi* #ther and to defend itself fro! its unbearable rule, as e.ressed
!ost of all in the destabilisin* idea that na!es are radicall% contingent) This is a rivate lan*ua*e
for a rivate father, a lan*ua*e that is centred around our %a!e, not his 5Hour na!e is our soul$ was
one of the slo*ans of the PantiQMacedonian ca!ai*n in the A0s9!eanin*, of course, that this link
between na!e and soul is valid only for Hus$G their na!e is insi*nificant, instru!entalised, and can
be chan*ed at will6)
By so doin*, it is interestin* that Greek nationalists ascribe a &erformative function 5or intention6 to
the use of the na!e by Macedonians, but only in order to ne*ate it for the!selves, to naturalise their
own na!e and identity choice) #ne could say that they act very si!ilarly to the 2econo!ists4 as
described by Mar. in one of his early writin*s7
@2
/ee7 +endy Brown, Aalled 3tates2 Aaning 3overeignt%, %ew 0ork7 done Books, 2010, es) ch) ? 5entitled
2Jesirin* +alls46)
21
(cono!ists have a sin*ular !ethod of rocedure) There are only two kinds of institutions for the!,
artificial and natural) The institutions of feudalis! are artificial institutions, PsicQ those of the
bour*eoisie are natural institutions) In this, they rese!ble the theolo*ians, who likewise establish
two kinds of reli*ion) (very reli*ion which is not theirs is an invention of !en, while their own is an
e!anation fro! God) +hen the econo!ists say that resent&day relations9the relations of bour*eois
roduction9are natural, they i!ly that these are the relations in which wealth is created and
roductive forces develoed in confor!ity with the laws of nature) These relations therefore are
the!selves natural laws indeendent of the influence of ti!e) They are eternal laws which !ust
always *overn society) Thus, there has been history, but there is no lon*er any) There has been
history, since there were the institutions of feudalis!, and in these institutions of feudalis! we find
8uite different relations of roduction fro! those of bour*eois society, which the econo!ists try to
ass off as natural and as such, eternal)
@@
+hat is also interestin* and ertinent in this e.cert is the reference to the erasing of histor%
through its naturalisation and:or throu*h a hierarchisation and rivile*in* of certain facts as
Hhistory$ over others) The Greek ca!ai*n de!anded fro! forei*ners to Hread history$, but it was
itself very selective as to what Hhistory$ consists ofG !ost i!ortantly, it refused to see that, if what
haened in the third century B)=) is Hhistory$, the e.istence of the 0u*oslav "eublic of
Macedonia for about half a century is no less Hhistory$, and a history that !ost eole tended to
consider as !ore crucial for deter!inin* their stance as re*ards the current disute)
/o, the oint of all these erfor!ances was to *uarantee a stable identit% against this
contingenc%) But, as we know, to 8uote WiXek once !ore,
this *uaranteein* the identity of an ob>ect in all counterfactual situations9throu*h a chan*e of all its
descritive features9is the retroactive effect of naming itself7 it is the na!e itself, the si*nifier,
which suorts the identity of the ob>ect) That Hsurlus$ in the ob>ect which stays the sa!e in all
ossible worlds is Hso!ethin* in it !ore than itself$, that is to say the Tacanian ob-et &etit a7 we
search in vain for it in ositive reality because it has no ositive consistency9because it is >ust an
ob>ectification of a void, of a discontinuity oened in reality by the e!er*ence of the si*nifier) It is
the sa!e with *old7 we search in vain in its ositive, hysical features for that b which !akes of it
the e!bodi!ent of richnessG or, to use an e.a!le fro! Mar., it is the sa!e with a co!!odity7 we
search in vain a!on* its ositive roerties for the feature which constitutes its value 5and not only
its use&value6) +hat is !issed by the antidescritivist idea of an e.ternal causal chain of
co!!unication throu*h which reference is trans!itted is therefore the radical contingenc% of
@@
Larl Mar., 2The Metahysics of <olitical (cono!y4, The Povert% of Philoso&h%)
htt7::www)!ar.ists)or*:archive:!ar.:works:sub>ect:hist&!at:ov&hil:ch02)ht!
22
naming, the fact that na!in* itself retroactively constitutes its reference) %a!in* is necessary but it
is, so to seak, necessary afterwards, retroactively, once we are already Hin it$)
5ibid), ) ADG second e!hasis !ine6)
III.@. 4hosen Traumas
The structure of ro>ection is e8ually resent in another rocess that I consider as a
deter!inant for the develo!ent of the sy!to!)
As e.osed, the affective di!ension of the discursive for!ation can be classified !ainly as
a fear8!aybe several fears) Irane Jia!antis, in her analysis of hobias, uses a owerful i!a*e to
describe the! in the ter! 2he!orrha*e of the I!a*inary4
@?
) This is a ter! that can very well
describe the flow of a &erceived threat, a ersecution idea, unleashed within Greek society by the
declaration of Macedonian indeendence, a flow one would be te!ted to classify under a secific
ter! such as onomato&hobia) +e also saw that the !echanis! of dis&lacement was called for to
dischar*e this tension, which led to the for!ation of the synecdochal state of /ko>e 5the art for
the whole6) But, indeed, there is a recedent for this substitution in the Greek lan*ua*e and society)
It will take a lon* introduction to be able to e.lain which recedentG this is a 8uestion that could
>ustify a whole book) In the li!its of this article, I will try to !ention very briefly so!e ele!ents
that are ertinent to our toic, with the dan*er of oversi!lifyin*)
The art of *eo*rahical Macedonia that now belon*s to Greece was anne.ed to it in 1A12,
when ethnic Greeks were only one of several oulation *rous livin* there9at laces, not even
the lar*est *rou 5in Thessaloniki, they were the third lar*est, after the Uews and the Turks6)
Accordin* to a well&known ractice of nation states in the Balkans and elsewhere, this situation
started to chan*e, *radually in the be*innin* and then abrutly in two cases7 the 1A22 oulation
e.chan*e between Greece and Turkey, after which !ost of the 1)2 !illion Tums sent to Greece
were Hencoura*ed$ to install the!selves in northern Greece, and the e.ter!ination of al!ost all
Greek Uews by the %a'is durin* the 1A?0s)
These 1)2 !illion refu*ees included a very articular ethnic *rou, the <ontians 5efghiji in
Greek6, who used to live at the southern coast of the Black /ea) These eole had a very articular
dialect 5lan*ua*e-6, inco!rehensible to standard !odern Greek seakers, as well as a articular
culture 5!usic, dances, custo!s, cuisine, and so on6) Further!ore, i!!ediately before their co!in*
to Greece, durin* the invasion of the Greek ar!y in Asia Minor, these eole had asired to create
an indeendent state of <ontosG this ro>ect was defeated)
@?
Irane Jia!antis,21`!orra*ie de l$i!a*inaire4, )es Phobies ou lJim&ossible sM&aration, <aris7
Fla!!arion& =ha!s, 200A P200@Q, ) EC and assi!)
2@
All of these events created a *reat deal of resent!ent within the settlers in Greek Macedonia
a*ainst the Greek state, which, as they considered, had betrayed the! and then !ade of the!
second&class citi'ens in a forei*n land where they had to start over fro! s8uare one) This
resent!ent was often crystalli'ed in the e.ression Hthe /thenian state$ or Hthe state of Athens$,
used 8uite often by Thessalonians even today)
Jurin* the A0s, it .as largel% the descendants of these &eo&le .ho .ere &articularl% active
in denouncing the threat &osed b% the (state of 3#o&-e*) I think it is not un>ustified to suose that,
in doin* so, they took advanta*e of their accu!ulated Hknow&how$)
It is also i!ortant to note that, about the sa!e ti!e and in the sa!e area, eole of <ontian
ori*in devised and started roa*atin* a new discourse about the events of the 1A10s and 20s,
consistin* of the denunciation of the H<ontian *enocide$ alle*edly co!!itted by Le!al Atatkrk)
This is no coincidenceG I consider these two heno!ena related, as they constitute two ways of
dealin* with the sa!e !aterial, of handlin* the sa!e transgenerationall% transmitted trauma and its
!e!ories)
Accordin* to Turkish&=yriot theorist Ia!lk Iolkan,
PwQithin virtually every lar*e *rou there e.ists a shared !ental reresentation of a trau!atic ast
event durin* which the lar*e *rou suffered loss and:or e.erienced hellessness, sha!e and
hu!iliation in a conflict with another lar*e *rou) The trans*enerational trans!ission of such a
shared trau!atic event is linked to the ast *eneration$s inability to !ourn losses of eole, land or
resti*e, and indicates the lar*e *rou$s failure to reverse narcissistic in>ury and hu!iliation inflicted
by another lar*e *rou, usually a nei*hbor, but in so!e cases, bet.een ethnic or religious grou&s
.ithin the same countr%.
@D
It aears that, around 1AA0, several te!oralities coincided, different circles were co!in*
to an end, and new asse!bla*es were bein* confi*uredG !y hyothesis is that the ca!ai*n a*ainst
the Hstate of /ko>e$ was also an i!licit:erlocutionary revolt a*ainst the state of /thens, a way to
draw its attention to its resonsibilities and its ast ill doin*s a*ainst the Greek district of
Macedonia and:or the eole who settled there, a way to tacitly black!ail it in suortin* the cause
of the i!a*inary state of Thessaloni#i, itself a substitute for another !uch desired state that never
ca!e to bein*, the state of <ontos)
This !odifies the icture, as it shifts attention towards 2hu!iliation inflicted by another
lar*e *rou within the sa!e country47 seen fro! outside, the discursive for!ation of the anti&
Macedonian ca!ai*n aears as an archetyal e.ression of Greek nationalis!) But, if we take
@D
Ia!lk Iolkan, 2Trans*enerational Trans!issions and =hosen Trau!as7 An Asect of Tar*e&Grou
Identity4, Brou& /nal%sis2 @?, no)1, ) CE) (!hasis !ine)
2?
into account this di!ension, it !ay be that this for!ation constitutes a social &oetics.
@K
In other
words, it is a strate*y that only adots rhetorically and tactically the vocabulary of nationalis!, in
order to e.ress throu*h its for! a desire of a different content, to ursue an a*enda that resists the
Greek national ideolo*y, and that insists on !aintainin* an ethnic articularity in site of national
ho!o*enisation)
@E

This is a lar*e toic, which cannot be fully dealt with here)
@C
+hat is i!ortant to kee fro!
what recedes is that it introduces the roble! of the divided VnationalW sub-ect) 3 to now, our
discussion was !ore or less followin* the way the roble! was osed in ter!s of international
relations7 Hwhy should Greece want Macedonia to chan*e its na!e-$ %ow, the 8uestion HAhat is
'BreeceC* e!er*es)
+ith it e!er*es a relativisation of dilo!atic lan*ua*e, accordin* to which every country is
construed as a soverei*n individual and as a sub>ect of international law for!ally e8ual to other
state&sub>ects) 1ere, the sub>ect of this utterance itself aears roble!aticG it is not so self&
evidently a unified entity always identical with itself)
II. Problematising hegemon% and sovereignt%5
The communism of language
If the above considerations stand, what would this !ean for the future of the disute in
ractical ter!s-
#f course, I a! not a rohet to redict how thin*s will develo) But, I think that this
aroach can !ean both *ood and bad news as re*ards the 8uestion of where we *o fro! here)
The *ood news is that the 8uestion of the na!e of the "eublic of Macedonia, its
inhabitants, and their lan*ua*e is ractically alread% resolved, as !uch as it can be and as !uch as
it ever will be)
This very sentence, and in articular its last art, is si!ultaneously the bad news7 the
Hinco!rehensible refusal$ necessarily failed, but this does not 5necessarily6 !ean it will sto,
because ossibly 2its failure is its very function4
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) #n the level of the I!a*inary2 this
defeat:frustration of desire is a condition for the erseverance of the sub>ect as a sub>ect of a
@K
For this notion see also Michael 1er'feld, 4ultural Intimac%5 3ocial Poetics in the 6ation7state, %ew 0ork
F Tondon7 "outled*e, 200? P1AAEQ, ) 1C@ ff)
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As is underlined by the uttin* forward of a secifically Pontian 5not 2Greek46 *enocide)
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I have tried to do that in so!e !ore detail in !y article 2(!eis oi eoikoi4 P+e settlersQ, $ne#en, 1D 5Uan)
20106)
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To arahrase what Michel Foucault has said about the rison 5see Disci&line and Punish5 The birth of the
&rison2 Trans) A) /heridan, 1AEE, %ew 0ork7 Iinta*e Books, ) 2E16)
2D
secific national -ouissance, searate fro!9and suerior to9other soverei*n sub>ects, who are
hostile to hi!:her) But, on the level of the /y!bolic, everybody knows that this na!e is, and can be,
no other than Macedonia5n6)
+hy is that so- Because of what I will call Hthe communism of language*)
1ere, of course, Hcommunism* is used in a new sense, not the one that divided oulations
alon* each side of the border since the ?0s7 in the sense of lan*ua*e as a common &roduction, or as
a &roduction of the common.
This idea of co!!unis!9althou*h not the ter! itself, of course9can be found in an
i!ressive assa*e fro! /ino'a$s Theologico7Political Treatise7
%o one has ever been able to chan*e the !eanin* of a word in ordinary use, thou*h !any have
chan*ed the !eanin* of a articular sentence) /uch a roceedin* would be !ost difficultG for
whoever atte!ted to chan*e the !eanin* of a word, would be co!elled, at the sa!e ti!e, to
e.lain all the authors who e!loyed it, each accordin* to his te!era!ent and intention, or else,
with consu!!ate cunnin*, to falsify the!)
Further, the !asses and the learned alike reserve lan*ua*e, but it is only the learned who reserve
the !eanin* of articular sentences and books7 thus, we !ay easily i!a*ine that the learned havin* a
very rare book in their ower, !i*ht chan*e or corrut the !eanin* of a sentence in it, but they could
not alter the si*nification of the wordsG !oreover, if anyone wanted to chan*e the !eanin* of a
co!!on word he would not be able to kee u the chan*e a!on* osterity, or in co!!on arlance
or writin*)
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The 2!asses4 5vulgus6 !ust not be construed here as a articular set of e!irical ersons as
oosed to others, but rather as a trans7individual bond)
The fact that lan*ua*e is reserved by this bond9in other words, the fact that words and
their !eanin* is not rivate but the result of networkin* and co&oeration9!eans that it is not u
to any articular individual, be it a soverei*n sub>ect:state, to i!ose, arove or block any
articular !eanin* or use of words or na!es) In order to do so, it would have to *et into the !inds
of seven billion eole and olice constantly their everyday lan*ua*e ractice) %ot even God could
do that)
Another way to e.licate this concetion of Hco!!on$ would be to co!are it to the ancient
Greek notion of mXtis, as it is used by the A!erican anthroolo*ist Ua!es =) /cott 5who is
followin* the analyses of Uean&<ierre Iernant and Marcel Jetienne on this !atter6, and notably the
followin* assa*e7
?0
Benedict de /ino'a, / Theologico7Political Treatise2 5no translator credited6, eBooksmAdelaide, 200E,
htt7::ebooks)adelaide)edu)au:s:sino'a:benedict:treatise:chaterE)ht!l
2K
unless there is a central co!!ittee of *ra!!arians with draconian olice owers, the lan*ua*e is
always bein* added to as new e.ressions and novel co!binations are invented and uns and irony
under!ine old for!ulas) 5^6 Influence over the direction of a lan*ua*e is never e8ually distributed,
but innovation co!es fro! far and wide, and if others find a articular innovation useful or aosite,
they will adot it as art of their lan*ua*e) In lan*ua*e as in !ntis, seldo! is the na!e of an
innovator re!e!bered, and this, too, hels to !ake the result a >oint, !utual roduct)
?1
The re>ection of rivate roerty as re*ards lan*ua*e was already resent in /lavo> WiXek$s
analysis) But, I !aintain that the Hlan*ua*e co!!unis!$ aroach rovides us a better fra!ework
for understandin* the necessary failure of the Hna!e trouble$ discursive for!ation)
Indeed, after ri*htfully re>ectin* the two theories, WiXek *oes on to advance another factor
that for hi! deter!ines the !eanin* of si*nifiersG this factor is hegemon%) (.a!inin* a concrete
historical e.a!le, France durin* the /econd +orld +ar, WiXek concludes that
never do we reach the oint at which Hthe circu!stances the!selves be*in to seak$, the oint at
which lan*ua*e starts to function i!!ediately as Hlan*ua*e of the "eal$7 the redo!inance of
<`tain$s sy!boli'ation was a result of a stru**le for ideolo*ical he*e!ony 5WiXek, ) AE6)
I a! not a secialist in twentieth&century French history, but this articular case study on the
Macedonian disute does not see! to confir! this interretation7 here, the !eanin* of si*nifiers
was not a result of 2a stru**le for ideolo*ical he*e!ony4) And a reason why I consider this findin*
interestin* and of a !ore *eneral alicability is that, in this case, a stru**le for ideolo*ical
he*e!ony did take lace9an e.tre!ely intense and arduous oneG however, the outco!e of the
disute was not deter!ined on the field of this stru**le, but on another scene7 the stru**le was
irrelevant)
In fact, the notion of 2stru**le for ideolo*ical he*e!ony4, borrowed fro! (rnesto Taclau,
althou*h he is not cited here, sounds like an unsatisfactory substitute for antagonism)
WiXek see!s to feel at a certain oint that he has erfor!ed his Tacanian duty by
hi*hli*htin* the aleatory&but&necessary nature of the si*nifier, and that now he is free to *o on and
introduce theoretical tools and a concetion for the social, ste!!in* !ore fro! =arl /ch!itt or
Tenin, or even 1obbes, and not so !uch fro! Tacan) Indeed, the use of Hstru**le$ can itself
function in an essentialist way as an alternative ultimate source of meaning, as an invariant factor of
transitive causality) =onsider, for e.a!le, the followin* hrase7
?1
Ua!es =) /cott, 3eeing )i#e a 3tate5 ?o. 4ertain 3chemes to Im&rove the ?uman 4ondition ?ave "ailed,
%ew 1aven7 0ale 3niversity <ress, 1AAC, ) @@?)
2E
the key to <`tain$s success was that his sy!boli'ation of the trau!a of defeat 5^6 revailed) In this
way, what had been e.erienced a !o!ent a*o as trau!atic, inco!rehensible loss beca!e readable,
obtained !eanin* 5ibid)6)
It see!s, ironically, to be itself a circular ar*u!ent, a tautolo*y after which there is nothin*
!ore to be said7 <`tain won because he was stron*er9because his ideas revailed) But, in our case,
Macedonia did not win because it was stron*erG in fact, it did not win at all) +hat Hwon$9if we
absolutely insist on usin* this ter!9.as the ver% nature of language as a net.or#2 as
collaboration2 as a trans7individual bond, which would be !uch !ore useful to aroach throu*h
notions co!in* fro! 1annah Arendt or, even better, <aolo Iirno)
?2

Indeed, in this disute between two soverei*n states, both sides !obilised acade!icians,
dilo!ats, athletes, and artistsG they did not sare efforts or resources for lobbyin* and
roa*anda^in order to ersuade others that the% are the ri*htful owners of the na!e) But, the
reason why the na!e HMacedonia$ was ractically acceted by everybody was not because the
"eublic of Macedonia succeeded in ersuadin* the! that it was Hri*ht$ or because the international
co!!unity e.a!ined and acceted the Hhistorical truth$ of its clai!s, but on &rinci&le) %ot a
rincile of international law, but an i!licit rincile of absolute e*alitarianis! and non&
e.cetionalis! that renders ossible any lan*ua*e and any e.chan*e within, and between, hu!an
co!!unities7 the rincile that if a sub>ect reco*nises herself, and everybody else also reco*nises
her, with a certain si*nifier for several decades, without any confusion, then this is her onl% &ossible
name) It is ointless to 8ualify a eole as Hso&called$, because ever% eole is so&called:self&sayin*G
there is no need, nor ossibility, for a further endorse!ent by Hhistory$ or any other science)
?@
+e
cannot chan*e that by any voluntarist decision because only one !e!ber of the co!!unity declares
he is not hay with this si*nifier9without even bein* able to say which other he would refer in
its lace)
The inability of the one !e!ber of the co!!unity to coe with the radical contin*ency of
5its6 na!in* and of 5its6 identity is not enou*h reason for the other !e!bers to accet a Hsolution$
that, on the one hand, would not really be a solution for this secific roble! and, on the other hand
?2
For e.a!le, 2the conte!orary workin* class, the current subordinate labor&ower and its cognitive7
linguistic collaboration, bear the traits of the !ultitude, rather than of the eole) 1owever, this !ultitude no
lon*er assu!es the Hoular$ vocation to stateness PstatualitYQ4 5/ Brammar of the Multitude. "or an
/nal%sis of 4ontem&orar% "orms of )ife2 by <aulo PsicQ Iirno, htt7::www)*eneration&
online)or*:c:fc!ultitude@)ht!oGra!!ar#fTheMultitude&div2&id2CKC?KK, =oyri*ht p 200? /e!iote.t5e6 ]
!y e!hasis6)
?@
+e can also e.ress that in ter!s of another essential thesis e.osed in =hater E of the Theologico7
Political Treatise7 the distinction between meaning and truth) For /ino'a, the !eanin* of a ter! is roduced
by its use, and is irrelevant to its truth)
2C
5!ost i!ortantly6, would !ake contin*ent every other na!e, would lead to a generalisation of
doubt, where si*nifiers would >ust be floatin*, oen to contestation by anybody, where nothin*
would be stable)
This is why the Greek osition is an i!ossible de!and, and this is what everybody has Ha
*reat difficulty to understand$9let alone accet7 it is a de!and for an infinite susension, for a hole
in language. Tan*ua*e !ay have a Hconstituent lack$ at its centre, but this is no >ustification for
anybody to de!and the creation of new holes at a defined oint of their likin*)
#f course, as we all know, the two arties have been havin*9or have been retendin* to
have9ne*otiations for all these years in view of a co!!only a*reed uon solution, occasionally
with the !ediation of forei*n dilo!ats) 5This !ediation effort was the fra!ework for the
for!ulation of the hrase that served as the startin* oint for this article6) But, as everybody
understands, this rocedure is absolutely ointlessG it is a kind of a farce, whose only ai! is to hel
Greece find a way for a resectable retreat and hase out, drawin* back fro! the untenable osition
and savin* its honour 5for which they have already done the first ste, by withdrawin* the veto as
re*ards an ad>ective or a co!osite na!e6) In any case, this ne*otiation erfor!ance has no
influence at all as far as its declared ob>ect9that is, lin*uistic ractice9is concerned) If the
i!otence of soverei*nty and of the voluntarist illusion *oes for one articiant, it is also true for
t.o of the!7 it is not u to two eole to !odify the Bi* #ther by >ust si*nin* an a*ree!ent) (ven
if we suose that the two arties conclude these ne*otiations to!orrow9which is hardly robable
anyway9and a treaty is si*ned where a na!e such as H%orthern Macedonia$ or H%ew Macedonia$ is
ratified, this will affect only the boards ut outside the doors of e!bassies all over the world and on
tables before the dele*ations in international !eetin*s) The discursive ractice of seven billion
eole will not chan*e7 when describin* a basketball !atch, nobody will say Hthe %orthern:%ew
Macedonian layer !ade a three&oint shot$G everybody will say Hthe Macedonian layer !ade a
three&oint shot$, as they already did before, e.cet robably for Greek seakers who will say Hthe
/koian layer$, as they already did before) +hat deter!ines this ractice is a !ntis7 states have a
ri*ht to veto decisions in international or*anisations, but they don$t have any ri*hts over the infinite
!icro&lin*uistic acts that roduce lan*ua*e)
If the above analysis is correct, I consider this as an e.tre!ely interestin* and oti!istic
conclusion with a !ore *eneral bearin* and scoe than this secific case study) It is correct to
ascertain, with Uean Tuc %ancy, that
PtQhe o.y!orons of the concet5s6 of the eole reresent the concreteness of their reality 5contact
and contract are the for!s of this concreteness6) The eole cannot be founded or rovedG they e.ist,
2A
the factuality of contact attests to this while the ideality of the contract constitutes its truth, which is
*iven recisely in the non&resolution of contact in interiority, naturality or fi*urality, as well as the
non&resolution of the contract in any foundin* ori*in)
??
But, takin* into account the secific co!!ensurability of the notion of the &eo&le to that of the
state, we could conclude that the Macedonian case testifies to both states$ lost sense of &o.er2 to the
erosion of soverei*nty before the 2lin*uistification of the olitical4 5Butler6, or to the erosion of
2stateness:statualitO4 before the force of the 2*ra!!ar of the !ultitude4 5Iirno6) This way, it !ay
*ive us so!e ideas as to how social and olitical stru**les are or can be best carried out,
irresective of the articular state interests invested in this secific disute)
??
2The so&called:self&sayin* eole4, ibid.2 ) 2D2)
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