One of the article’s seven “things” is, I believe, essentially incorrect. Number six says “It’s peaceful.” In the Balkans, that’s always a relative matter rather than an absolute.
Macedonia, or its new name Northern Macedonia, has a large and restive Albanian Muslim minority. Some 33% of their population is Muslim, most of those are Albanian. The other 2/3 is mostly Orthodox Christian Macedonians. This means the age-old conflict between Muslim Turks and Orthodox Greeks is replicated in miniature in Macedonia.
The history of the world, and especially of the Balkans, suggests a part-Muslim mix is volatile, and unlikely to be stable or “peaceful.” The CIA Factbook says this of Macedonia:
Ethnic Albanian grievances over perceived political and economic inequities escalated into a conflict in 2001 that eventually led to the internationally brokered Ohrid Framework Agreement, which ended the fighting and established guidelines for constitutional amendments and the creation of new laws that enhanced the rights of minorities. Relations between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians remain complicated, however.Southern parts of Thailand and the Philippines are also “complicated” (aka “violent”) and parts of Europe are becoming similarly problematic.
