[dalbasal]

Disney hasn't had a "regime change", and the regime question was quite clear at the time Mickey was invented.

Macedonia (Kingdom? Empire? Ancient ethnicity?/dialect?/polity?) had lots of regime changes. We can't even be sure that the Greeks, at the time of Philip & Alexander considered Macedonia to be "Greece." You could argue either way. You could also argue that half the world is the "real" Macedonia. Bagdad has a decent claim.

I can see how Greece sees it, that naming may lead to territorial claims. That aside, Names are just names. I don't think this name is a crime against logic/history.

This is like insisting that what gay "really" means is happy. It's neither true or false statement. It's nonsensical.

[eftychis]

The consensus of historians is pretty clear on the subject though. However, if now a layman considers "We can't even be sure that the Greeks, at the time of Philip & Alexander" shows the extent of the damage this light "stupid" naming situation has caused. Would you consider Spartans or Athenians or people of Thebes not to be Greeks?

>>This is like insisting that what gay "really" means is happy. It's neither true or false statement. It's nonsensical.

Yes, that word has been overloaded with multiple meanings. Yet your example is perfect as it shows that people care how you call them and how you refer to them. If I go and define gay as something else, people referring themselves as gay probably will not appreciate my renaming. If I change the meaning of the terms U.S. citizen, British etc people would not take it lightly either.

Now consider you do that for a race, that is proud for its past for at least the last circa 2000 years. And it is done in a form of bullying. Recall this whole naming situation started during the Cold War and Greece was blackmailed to "keep in line" for the greater good. Recall USSR and the rest of the allies were both imagining their world. USSR's gift to Tito to side with them encompassed all of Northern Greece and Bulgaria, and that was his aspiration.

Consider a Greek, especially one in Macedonia; they are proud of their ancestors and have seen a lot of bullying from a financial and political perspective being applied on them the last few years. Now the same outsiders come in and say that while we settled on a U.N. name originally, we did not really used it and you have to find a compromise and make it work, whatever the cost for Greece. I am sorry, but historically silly issues like this have backfired for the area and Greece. Let us hope there is no war over this (if you think people would not fight over this area see WWI, Balkan Wars, and WWII atrocities; Cold War was not that cold in that area; the Yugoslavia war (90s) was over identity).

[trab]

>> We can't even be sure that the Greeks, at the time of Philip & Alexander considered Macedonia to be "Greece."

This is plain wrong. There is absolutely no dispute what so ever among historians about the Greek origin of Macedonia. The new country of Northern Macedonia in no way disputes this either. Comments like yours are the prime proof that what happened is very very wrong.

This is a quote from Wikipedia about Alexander the great.

>> Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this >> authority to launch his father's pan-Hellenic project to lead >> the Greeks in the conquest of Persia.

[dalbasal]

If the wars had gone differently, Greek historians would have recorded a glorious defeat of the northern barbarians by the Greeks. Alexander won, and so the story features "awarding a generalship."

I'm not making the case for either narratives. I'm making the case that both narratives are fictions, a symbolic language narrating a one-damned-thing-after-another truth. I don't think Alexander/Macedonia was "really" Greek or not Greek. I also think this meant different things at different times. Modern nationalism is a very dominant paradigm in our times. It is new though. Even though it's hard to imagine it, "nationality" was not a dominant paradigm either for personal identity or politics throughout most of history. Alexander didn't seem to give much of a damn about nationality.

[fibbra]

Ancient Macedonia was part of Ancient Greece.

Yes, the city-states have been fighting all the time, just like Athens and Sparta. But they have been part of Ancient Greece.

In the case of FYROM (still the official name until the agreement gets implemented soonish), they have been appropriating the Greek identity. That was not just some individuals at FYROM, it was the whole political apparatus of FYROM since the 90s.

[dalbasal]

Again, these are narratives.

Was ancient Libya/Carthage or even Spain a part of ancient Lebanon/Israel? They were certainly a part of the same culture, in the same way "Hellenic Culture" was a thing. They spoke the same Language, shared customs and myths and such.

I understand that if Jordan remained themselves "Canaan" or "Phoenicia" then Israel, Palestine, & Lebanon might object. Territorial implications, etc. It's not made up though. Jordan has a "right" to that legacy too. That language and culture were spoken and practiced in Amman as well as Tyre even if Tyre is what we think of as the original "hub."