Everything is not the same

Erol Rizaov

It is an extremely false image that all media had the same attitude and understanding of what was happening in the past year since the general election, especially in these past six months since the shift of power. The first impression you get when you observe the media is that the criticism directed to the new government from VMRO-DPMNE’s propagandists and the professional journalists and public figures, who fought for years and dismantled Gruevski’s regime, is equally harsh.
The remaining abusive party propagandists, and their justifiable criticism, use these easily recognizable slogans: ‘They are all the same’, ‘Everything is the same’, ‘Nothing has changed’, ‘They all steal, they all lie’, “Is this the change we were looking for’, ‘This is a huge disappointment’ etc. These recognizable slogans are very dangerous smoke grenades that prevent people from seeing the really significant changes that are happening, and the ones that are about to happen, according to the direction Macedonia is headed.

The difference between these past six months and 11 years of tyranny is undeniable and incomparable. Everything is not the same, everything is extremely different, as the motive for criticism and the abuse of authorization are very different. The government reacts differently, as well as the public that started practicing their right to freedom and democracy.

First, and most important, the criticism the government faced for its mistakes and abuse has been productive. No one has been labeled a traitor, an enemy, or a foreign mercenary… There are no penalties, punishments and lawsuits for public appearances and speeches, but admittance of mistakes and resignations. The public pressure for moral norms has never been stronger. It needs to be even stronger, it needs to be frightening, the worst nightmare for all those who have sticky fingers.

The court started working according to the law. There are no more orders or favors, the first verdicts are here. There will be more. The work of the Special Prosecutor’s Office is no longer obstructed by the government. Now is the time for Katica Janeva to scream from the top of her lungs. The regular Public Prosecutor’s Office has started working too, but not in favor of the criminals. On the contrary. Zvrlevski has left the building. Any abuse of the judiciary system and the slightest pressure in court will be a new explosion in the public. The justified criticism for respecting the presumption of innocence and the cuffed hands in the arrest of suspects from the events on April 27 is really a horrible mistake, but it doesn’t mean that the ones who broke the law shouldn’t be held responsible. On the contrary. Such violence in the Assembly cannot go unpunished, and the perpetrators need to be identified. The ones that were supposed to stop the attempt to lynch and disable the majority to take over power of the country have to be punished as well. No one justifies the threatening of the Constitution of State, except the party propagandists.
Telling Prime Minister Zoran Zaev to come back home and pay more attention to what is happening in his own house is a well-meant message. It surely doesn’t mean that Zaev should willingly accept Gruevski’s isolation that was forced upon him by the whole world, and not go anywhere. It doesn’t mean Zaev shouldn’t go to the neighboring countries and make Agreements for good-neighborliness, that he shouldn’t go to Bulgaria, or Pristina, or Belgrade, not to mention Athens. God forbid Washington or Moscow. The warning from the bureaucrats in Brussels while they pat his shoulder and praise him, means something completely else. As experienced diplomats already know, there is some difficult demand behind all this.
Warning Zaev to see behind the hidden demand while praising him is good prevention, a prevention that will make him knock on doors that are already open.
Of course, this is just a small part of the changes that the free-spirited public asked for, and it is not insignificant. The big changes and expectations for them to happen fast are something completely different. This only shows how high the hopes are for this new government to succeed, which, unfortunately, don’t always go along with the capacity of the ones in charge and their capability to deliver fast changes.
To those that are constantly repeating that everything is the same, that the one who came to power and the one that was replaced are identical – here are some evident occurrences that are hard to ignore. Have you heard any criticism directed to Gruevski and VMRO-DPMNE from their own propagandists in the past 11 years? They fear his shadow even when he is politically dead. He is absent from their news, even when he himself admits his mistakes. Have you heard or read just one statement in these media from members of VMRO-DPMNE, who disagreed with Gruevski’s policies? There are totally censored and excluded from VMRO’s media.
If Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his team, after all this criticism, straighten their confidence and take it as support and positive impact for realization of the public’s great expectations and lead Macedonia to its complete freedom and the European Union, then really everything will not be the same.
And one other thing – the sense of responsibility in the free-minded critics of the new government and its success is very visible and understandable because they are accomplices in the overthrow of Gruevski’s regime.