Ignorance and primitivism will be the end of us


Erol Rizaov

Whenever Macedonia arrives at some historic crossroads, the Balkan primitivism and ignorance resurface, fueled by the constant ‘fire-starters’ well distributed in the capital and along the Bregalnica and Vardar rivers to the estuary, and further to the middle of the sea. The guards of national identity and the dignity of the Shopsko that screams hung in the shackles of ignorance, misery, and poverty, are blowing on the never-frozen heat and burning bonfires. They are opening old wounds. And when the fires start to flare up, they are in the forefront to extinguish them and organize a chase against the enemies and traitors of the people who barely survive with three teaspoons of poison in the morning, anger at noon and tar in the evening.

We regularly suffer from the bullies and thieves who have sold their brothers for money, who are masked as patriots, fighters and national heroes. We see this and scream for years as if we discover pests. You would say “don’t bother, there’s no use”. Well, it was not really for nothing. The Macedonian conditions began to get better. “Mazedonische Zustände” is on a good way to stay as a black spot in history.
It should be said loudly and clearly “Just go straight towards the West, towards Europe and look at the rearview mirror to maintain a decent distance from those who draw you back. There is not much time for empty and frustrating debates. It is necessary to boldly take the responsibility at the cost of self-sacrifice, to get as fast as possible to the goal. If in 1993, President Kiro Gligorov returned from New York, the United Nations, as a national hero who bravely said “no” to our enemies from the international community gathered in the UN, to preserve national identity and pride, to reject FYROM fiercely from his desk at the General Assembly Hall and rode off on a white horse in Skopje would have danced the ‘oro’ on the square for three days, and on the fourth day we would have opened the expert debate of the analphabets and the fake patriots whether we can enter the UN with the shameful name FYR Macedonia.

The debate on the territory, which is no one’s country, if you are not a member of the UN, would have lasted to this day, counting traitors and patriots by opting for and against the question of whether the identity of the Macedonian people with the name FYROM is not lost, that no one has the right to do so without a referendum, no one has the right to sign capitulation, change of the constitution, etc., etc.

Instead, old wise Kiro Gligorov, may he rest in peace, held a historic speech for the first time in Macedonian language at the UN General Assembly, the Macedonian flag fluttered in front of the East River building. Macedonia has become a member of the UN, a historic date that in Macedonia is neither celebrated nor marked as it should. Not one the strong defenders of national identity and territorial integrity and national dignity in Macedonia has ever tried to clarify what would have happened if the UN admission procedure with the provisional name FYR Macedonia was terminated at the time, as some people who are the biggest argument for that nonsense they conspire are the titles they have put as a more important addition than their name and surname.

Although membership in the UN and the interim agreement with Greece, the very name of FYR Macedonia are the biggest bargains for both national identity and language, because it is recognized by the UN itself by the UN and confirmed by the International Court of Justice and 137 countries that have recognized Macedonia, under the constitutional name, is still a sensitive topic today that it was a big mistake, although in the past 25 years since Macedonia’s accession to the UN, the country neither lost its identity nor its language.

The next example we live and suffer is in the opposite direction. The dispute over the constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia has become a good strategy for pre-election activities in Macedonia and Greece and an excellent batter for kneeling the peoples as the best justification that has remained the last and poorest in the Balkans with an uncertain future. From year to year, the whole criminal and the capture of the state were conveniently hiding behind the defense of the constitutional name. The ruling elites suffocated us with the patriotic ascension to defend the name, language and national identity. We have lost 25 whole years in defending the name and filling the pockets of the criminals so that we finally arrive for the first time in front of the doors of the world’s largest political, economic and military alliances, the EU and NATO, which together with the UN are a guarantee for a better future and a more stable state than being outside them.

The painful compromise will be just as painful as the name FYR Macedonia, and we will lose the language and identity the same as we lost out with the name FYROM. No one will become “Upper Macedonian” nor “North Macedonian”, nor will anyone speak in any other language, nor will anyone call our state “Makedonidja”, or something inarticulate as some concerned of the nation’s hygiene speculate in the past few days. On the contrary, not more than a decade after Macedonia’s accession to NATO and EU, this historic era of more than 30 years will be marked as a lost time to the detriment of the citizens of Macedonia, which counted from 2009 onwards when it was realistic to become members of NATO and 2013, when together with Croatia, we were to become members of the EU, will be irreplaceable for many years.

Why is it so important that the membership of the Republic of Macedonia in the EU and NATO is most often asked by those who do not want to see Macedonia in that society. The answer is very simple, not because there is no other alternative, it can always be found, especially worse, not because no one offers it, but because Yugoslavia accepted the conditions for NATO and EU accession that were expressly offered by Brussels and all the statesmen of Western Europe and America would not have come to an unintelligible disintegration. A member of the EU and NATO has not yet been disintegrated. That was what those who prevented EU and NATO membership of Yugoslavia knew. They know that today and those who want to prevent Macedonia’s membership in the EU and NATO, and others who do not know this, and work to avoid occurring are useful fools embroiled in the break-up of Macedonia. Of course, less bloody than Yugoslavia, because here there are no heroes ready to sacrifice their lives, but only for posing on photographs, for debates and rallies.