Former Republic of Macedonia

Erol Rizaov

Macedonian thin “patriots” for defending the identity and constitutional name of the state, judging by the attendance, the iconography of the protests and the loudness of hysteria, are losing the battle with the Greek nationalists. Thessaloniki and Athens have become the shame of Europe, portraying again the ugly face of Greek democracy. The Skopje processions in front of the Parliament and the fiery speeches on candles, compared to the Greek rallies, are deaf rows of the closest relatives before the chapel, waiting to pay their last respects to the deceased.

At the primitive populist rallies in Thessaloniki and Athens, organized by the opposition and backed by party leaders, coalition partners of the government, and the church leader, the prospect of finding a viable solution for the future of the Republic of Macedonia, and a stable democratic European state, a member of the world’s largest military and economic alliances NATO and the EU, that is to be a great ally of Greece. The two prime ministers Tsipras and Zaev still give the impression that they really want a solution that will not hurt either side, and will overcome the 25-year blockade of the Europeanization of Macedonia, of which the greatest beneficiary will be Greece, but the last few days seem to be quieter in their determination. After a good and promising start in Davos, with strong resistance first in Thessaloniki, and tomorrow in Athens as well, the question of whether the Greek rallies, organized by political parties and various nationalist associations, supported by state institutions that set fire on fire and brought hundreds of thousands citizens on the streets of the largest cities in Greece will become crucial and after 25 years the blockade of the Republic of Macedonia will continue in the realization of its strategic goals. Will this be another strong slap in the aftermath of Bucharest 2008 and America, the EU, NATO and the United Nations and everything that is meant by international community? Can maddened and frustrated nationalists destroy all that labor and effort? For people with common sense, to say with a clearer distinction, for normal people who are modern and living at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, this is really difficult to understand.
If it comes to Byzantine games and controversy, to set up a ritual humiliating prerequisites for the neighbor to be found guilty of not accepting a solution to the dictates of Greece, then, the only possible positive answer is the question of whether all of the above-mentioned evidently interested parties America, NATO, the UN with the International Court of Justice have no strength and will to find an argument and deliver a just solution that will truly be acceptable and will not harm neither the dignity nor the interests of the two countries. It’s frightening how many banal and worn out of overuse have become these essential preconditions for a just decision.

In the Republic of Macedonia, there is readiness in the government and in good part of the public, but not with the majority of citizens, to accept another determinant in the constitutional name of the state that will make a more precise distinction between the geographical area of ​​Macedonia in order to see better the difference that is Greek Macedonia and the Republic is New, or Northern, or Upper Macedonia. Such an involuntary incentive exists, although it is a derogatory ultimatum and an unwanted idol. The priorities of the state, and the significance of the Euro-Atlantic integrations for the future of the citizens, make Macedonia more cooperative in accepting discrepancies in the delimitation of the geographical area and in a clearly stated readiness to cancel the intervention of politics in science in the part of the ancient past. And that is it. Everything else is above the unwritten red line of the Republic of Macedonia.

The Greeks, NATO, America, and even young children know about Greece’s alleged fear of Macedonian irredentism. This threat with the irredentism of the Republic of Macedonia over Greece, which is a regional powerhouse in relation to Macedonia, is just an excuse to demand constitutional changes for the third time, to get things stuck into the fragile parliament, to postpone the decision for the next 25 years, and blaming Macedonia for it. So, Macedonian patriots also have a great chance to be satisfied because their more numerous counterparts in Greece are on the right track to complete their work, Macedonia not to become a NATO member and not to start EU accession negotiations.

If the unpunished nationalist and chauvinistic currents in the Balkans that win the name of the former Republic of Macedonia continue to win, they do not know that the new borders will be a bone in the throat to most of the Macedonians, but also the Greeks, because they will be the biggest losers of the new Balkan map which they draw themselves.