A tourist poses by a surviving piece of the former Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz on July 7 in Berlin.
(Photo: Sean Gallup-Getty Images)
As the summer ended, the Macedonian lustration commission finally opened its doors for politicians who rushed in to submit their statements swearing they had not collaborated with the communist secret services. The commission, the chief instrument created to implement the law on lustration, has to verify these statements against the old secret police files.
A year and half after the Macedonian lustration law was passed, and 18 years since the beginning of transition, lustration has finally commenced.
Time is still needed to see the actual effect on Macedonian society. Some experts argued that a loud bang is out of the question; perhaps even a hushed whimper would be too much to expect.
Some believe that after all these years the powerful politicians have found ways to get their names out of the dusty files.
Twenty years after the end of communism, lustration is still an issue, and it has not even effectively commenced.
Perhaps countries in the Balkans should really rethink if they want to "forgive and forget."
In 2000, Adam Michnik advocated the abandoning of lustration in Poland and said that states cannot move forward without having reconciled with the past, and that the challenge is how to achieve this and maintain balance between justice and stability. In 2007, Serbian President Boris Tadic said it was too late for lustration in Serbia. He probably (and rightfully) feared it would further antagonize the already polarized country.
This article was originally published by Osservatorio Balcani: http://www.osservatoriobalcani.org/article/articleview/11900/1/404/WP.org.Europe
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