"Macedonia", a graphic novel by Harvey Pekar and Heather Roberson has just been published and is now available.
It mainly deals with the conflict between Macedonians and Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia, focusing on the changes to the Macedonian legal system , including police training and court reform which affect both Macedonians and Albanians. The implementation of the Ohrid agreement is also discussed.
When I first heard about the comic novel, I thought to myself, here we go again. Another piece of BS propaganda of how the US/EU is solving all the problems of the Balkans. To her credit, Heather Roberson briefly mentions broader context the struggle for human rights in the Balkans and the dubious role of the US/EU. See the excerpt below.
Heather, your next comic, The Greek Issues Caucus!
Excerpt From the book:
The US and EU have had great success leveraging Macedonian desire for membership in Euro-Atlantic structures into meaningful reform. However, they have hardly proven their own commitment to democracy and rule of law. The EU was founded as an economic entity and, though it has poured millions in to rule of law and democratization in Macedonia, it appears to be doing so mainly as a means to a profitable future for Europe. It has not, for instance, brought real pressure to bear on affluent, militarily robust Greece to extend equal rights to its Macedonian minorities.
The international community's largest player—the US—preaches democracy and rule of law, but in practice, it has, since the end of the Cold War, worked to create an international system based on its own unquestionable dominance. The US seems to want the kind of justice it alone can enforce, and to which it and its allies are not accountable. In the wake of September 11 th, this attitude of exceptional ism hardened. Where there might have been talk of investigation and prosecution, the only words acceptable for use among US leaders seemed to be "Hunt down and kill the terrorists."
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