Faith in yourself and in your donkey

I do not think there is a citizen of Macedonia in these past 25 years, who at least once did not want to thank the EU and NATO, the United States… and all our dear and good neighbors, especially Greece, for the “concern” they express for our future, and for the help they give us. I wanted to say it at least a hundred times. Let’s tell them in our own way, with a smile and a good cynicism, that we do not want to change anything that is ours, nor do we want something that is theirs. Let’s say it clearly and loudly – mind your own troubles and problems, leave us alone, and we will mind our own issues. When you need us, or when you want us to be in your club as equal allies and partners, invite us politely according to the bon-ton. You know our name, you know the address, call us and we will consider whether we want to join you, and we will notify you in due time.

What kind of a remedy of the soul this would be, think of the pride and dignity that would flourish through the cities of Macedonia. It would be a great NO, NON, NYET … a bigger NO than the one Tito said to Stalin in 1948. We will not say NO to Greece, because it means YES to them. Perhaps this is why we cannot understand each other for centuries on what is YES, and what is NO.

Yes, in Macedonian, this short pleasure in saying NO is primarily due to injustice, protectionism, selfishness, arrogance, disrespect of international law and the civilization values ​​of self-determination, all from the position of strength and the eternal interests of the powerful. Immediately after this daydream, which usually lasts a few minutes for common-minded people, confronts reality with both politics and the relations of forces. Then things become much more delicate, and you cannot bluff that you are a nuclear super-power, or that you have great natural resources, or that you have a decent, independent, well-crafted democratic and successful state, where the people live well, where citizens are satisfied and happy. If you do not have any of this, if in 27 years you have not succeeded in upgrading the country over what the ancestors left you as an inheritance, for which they gave 20,000 victims, you basically are the gambler, who, after destroying his family, still gambles with borrowed and someone else’s money in order to get back to himself. Therefore, the calls these days for us to stand up with our own strengths and finish the things that we never finished, and many of these things have not even begun, they resemble the saying that we have faith in ourselves and in our donkey standing in the middle of a bridge, and does not move, not a step forward, nor backward. It’s called donkey stubbornness.
Advices that are 25 years late look like road signs in a desert for a path that does not exist.

Not because these commitments are not correct, on the contrary, they are extraordinary, but because they are commonly known in the party and government programs of all those who governed this poor state, all who decided on projects, on investments, on borrowings, promising faster development, better quality of life, better education, democracy, rule of law, cleaner and healthier environment, who promised us good infrastructure, European administration, Euro-Atlantic integrations, good relations with all neighbors and with all the powers, with the whole world, promised us jobs and everything that this country needs to become a garden of Eden, which can be passed by with a car with half a tank of fuel, or in the time you smoke two or three cigarettes. So far, there is nothing of that bright future.

Billions of euros belonging to citizens were spent, future generations are also in debt to their noses, and yet there is still no strategic goal that is promised by those who promise that if they come to power they will save Macedonia. The donkey that stood in the middle of the bridge had long since died, part out of stubbornness, part from hunger. For the first time in 27 years, a new donkey appeared who wants to push forward, and does not want to stand on the bridge. Well, it’s already a big problem, it’s not donkey-like to not be stubborn at all. Crossing the other side of the bridge becomes treason, unseen embarrassment and shame, terrible humiliation, great danger of losing our majestic position and tradition. Why hurry to the other side, when you can stay in the middle of a bridge, neither there nor here. There are many strangers on the other side of the river, which is unacceptable and very dangerously contagious. It may mean a new beginning, and the discovery of many misconceptions and lies.

I have not yet read, nor heard, any rational explanation of what a person with a lost identity in the 21st century looks like, in time of peace and in a democratic society. What name will the man respond to, what language he will speak, whether it will be the same person, or someone else. Can a doctor, or an expert on lost identities, explain what is happening to people who have deprived of their identity, and whether it can be taken away at all. For instance, what happens to people who have taken other citizenships.

A well-known psychiatrist says that identity issues have become a group narcissism, which creates a very dangerous phenomenon of solidarity and cohesion of a particular population. In this way, the “mature group” to which is being injected with a great dose of identity three times a day, becomes very easy to manipulate and abuse. This crowd cannot be stopped by anything, especially when the gradation of fanaticism appears, as one of the most characteristic symptoms of collective narcissism. It is created very easily. It is only necessary to find a suitable ideologue that will form the slogans caused by group narcissism. The most common motive is national independence, national identity, nation and its existence as idol and holiness. Unfortunately, says the doctor, everyone knew for a long time that the absurd will destroy both of them, but they are starting the path of irrationality. Reason simply disappears. Thus, the protectors of the national identity cause a mass hysteria which can no longer be controlled, which was tragically seen on April 27 of last year in the Parliament of Macedonia.
Is there a cure? The answer is YES. It is in the recipes written in the EU chapters. Hard work is the best medicine against hysteria and cerebral ataxia of national identity. There is no problem with the language whatsoever, we will speak the same language as before.

Erol Rizaov