Lost time is our biggest defeat

Erol Rizaov

There is no victory in the negotiations with Greece. Neither could there ever be any triumphant outcome against the Hellenes who have been in alliance with the world and their surroundings for five centuries. Unfortunately, we never understood that the victory is not in defense of the name and identity, as the defeat is not in the geographical additions, adjectives, nouns … but in the time consumed, more precisely in our lives spent in misery. The defense of the name and identity was in the construction of a modern and democratic prosperous state of satisfied and happy citizens. We should clearly and loudly admit that we failed. There is no prospect that we could succeed by ourselves in the future.

During this time of decades-long transition and lawlessness, at the time of chaos, defending the identity of misery and underdevelopment, some have built a new identity of prominent citizens of the world that are full of money as oil tanks. They can dock at each marina with which the flag wants and be erga omnes clean Macedonians, Americans, Chinese, Russians, Greeks, Jews, Aborigines…. or any identity that they choose on that day. We have been constantly defending one identity, and they have built another identity on our account. Now those same people tell us to defend our dignity, pride, language … Go to hell, since you are not in Idrizovo. The poor and robbed people have pride and dignity only in fairytales.

Why is time so precious? It’s simple, because what we accept today or tomorrow, we could have accepted ten or twenty years ago, and today’s modest celebration of the tenth anniversary of the membership of “New”, “Northern”, or “Upper Macedonia” as members of NATO and five years since the  EU membership to express hypocritical dissatisfaction, as everyone in the EU does, because the average salary of 1000 euros is still the lowest in the Union, and because the migration of young educated people in the Western European countries has not yet been stopped, we could not keep the Macedonian Messi in Skendija and protect Einstein from Debar Maalo from being replaced in the boss’ position in Tinex, so he left to work in the Silicon Valley.

Oh, if I almost forgot, we would criticize the EU harshly because Vardar is still not navigable to Thessaloniki and the Danube, and that the complete gasification of the country is still not over, and there are five unfinished wastewater treatment plants and collectors, three under-constructed landfills, set up two dams and power plants, 10 villages without water supply and sewerage, and the trains in Macedonia do not go faster than 140 kilometers per hour.
So, there is nothing of that for 27 years of independence .Neither this, nor that. That was all we could build and steal of ours and foreign money in the past three decades. The average salary is less than 400 Euros, and after three decades, we still polemicize if 500 Euros are possible, in order to end poverty. The youth are still leaving as a river with no return. Three quarters of Macedonia is without a sewage system, we are buried in garbage, we are drowning in floods whenever it rains, then the big drought comes after three days of sun, there are no channels for irrigation and drainage, and the ones that we got are clogged by our sensitivity of hygiene, by throwing away unnecessary things from our homes into the nearest river, or canal.

Our rivers continue to flow everywhere because no one has cleaned the riverbed since the independence to this day, because nobody interferes with the independence of the flooded waters and the entire basin of Vardar and Crni Drim, which have been flowing into two seas for millennia. After so many centuries, since Ancient Macedonia to this day, one politician for the first time has come as Axios in the spring, the ambitious river-leader can flood everything, if he’s is not regulated.

Of course, corruption continues to flourish very successfully, because fewer and fewer cases are being discovered and prosecuted. We are better here than in Scandinavia, they have detected more cases of corruption than us, and Scandinavian countries are the least corrupt in the world. These European countries have such a strange standard. We only detect two cases of corruption annually, and no one has been convicted, while they have ten or more, and still they are champions of honesty. Idiots, they cannot distinguish between a bribe and a tip. A tip, as a token of attention, is not something to be held accountable for, while Scandinavian countries send people in prison for similar work. Organized crime in our country is legalized completely, and it is strictly done according to the law, and therefore there is no crime anymore since there is no mafia. Those are honest people now, who have been redeemed by the church. The once-great criminals, now are the loudest in the fight for the rule of law, they pay regular taxes, and dislike unfair competition in their legal business.

The ones with a new civic identity recognized worldwide are saying that we should immediately stop negotiations with Greece, because we will not join the EU and NATO anyway. The French and the Dutch will not allow it. The teach us to be patient. Why are we so suddenly in a hurry? Time is time and let it flow, no one can stop it anyway. So, let’s wait another 25 to 30 years, and then accept one of the two offered names presented by Nimetz’s successor. Upper, North or New Macedonia. No one will even mention identity. The language will stay the same, with the novel as Trajce Karagjoz turning into Alexander of Macedon, written in pure Macedonian, and it will be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2055, exactly on my 105th birthday and the 152th anniversary of the Ilinden Uprising.

Therefore, my dearest, lost time is our biggest defeat. We remained orphans in the Balkans. If we have to wait and argue until 2056, 65 years after proclaiming the independence of Macedonia, in order to choose the same name and surname, then let us call our country Republic of New Macedonia, the name that contains all our “Ilindens”, all of our defeats and victories. “New Macedonia”, a new state, are the most commonly used words at the ASNOM session and after it. It is not a coincidence that “Nova Makedonija”, the first daily newspaper in Macedonian language in the first parliamentary state, was established after ASNOM decided on it.