Prof Gjorge Ivanov, President of the Republic of Macedonia, delivering lecture at the SFS-Q campus.
Doha: Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Q) welcomed Professor Gjorge Ivanov, President of the Republic of Macedonia, who shared his perspectives on “The Balkans and the Gulf: The Crossroads of Civilisations” in a distinguished lecture at the SFS-Q campus on Tuesday.
“It is always a deep honour and unique opportunity to host a world leader at SFS-Q. But in President Ivanov’s visit we have the added privilege of also welcoming him as a thinker, a researcher, and a renowned visiting scholar in his own right.” said Dean Gerd Nonneman.
Long before becoming Macedonia’s fourth elected president on 12 May 2009, Dr Ivanov was actively involved in civil society and youth organisations as a university student. His interest in understanding complexities of multi-ethnic societies culminated in a doctoral thesis “Democracy and Divided Societies:the Case of Macedonia.”
Dr Ivanov examined these complexities in his lecture, and traced the history of the Balkans through the paradigm of an autochthonous understanding of the region, to highlight a long tradition of religious tolerance and inter-ethnic cooperation that he argued remained the key to a future of peaceful coexistence.
Rejecting entrenched definitions of the geopolitical term “Balkanization” as an “oversimplified and shallow interpretation”, Dr Ivanov instead pressed the need for self-reflection in redefining conceptual frameworks about both the Balkans and the Gulf. “With only one book, Orientalism, Edward Said changed the perception about the Orient, about the East.” he said.
Citing examples from history, he painted a picture of a Balkan society that “showed themselves to be unusually open to foreign religious influences”, absorbing political and social traditions from the Romans, the Ottomans, and each successive ruling empire.
The Peninsula
