The President as Nasreddin Hodja

It’s astonishing, but reasonable people, after signing the agreement with Greece, are still playing on the ground of VMRO-DPMNE. They try to read and interpret the agreement with Greece to the self-proclaimed educators, national ideologists and hygienists an. It’s as if you read the Old Testament to atheists, expecting them to believe in God, or telling believers that there is no God.
In such a mission, the more arguments you offer, the worse those arguments get. The more you prove the craziness and the harmfulness of their actions against their own homeland, the more powerful they get. It’s about time to stop this irregular competition with those who do not defend the name, identity, statehood, nor future, because these things are already protected with this agreement, but are just bargaining for their commanders and virtues to not go to prison for their crimes. There is nothing more to be done here, except to let them play with themselves.

What can and must be done at this historic moment is to direct the argumentation to people who still have dilemmas and ambiguities about what we receive and what we are losing with the Agreement, which has been ratified in the Assembly of Macedonia. Without any framing, without any falsehood and an attempt to manipulate, each article of the agreement should be made clearer with comprehensible language for all citizens of Macedonia. But, the same thing needs to be done for the world, because some terms adopted by the opponents of this agreement travel around the world. Luckily for us, the opponents of the agreement and in Greece deliver party slogans and lies in the battle for power that surround the world, and they are in our favor. So, the Greeks who disagree with the agreement say: Prime Minister Tsipras gave the holy Greek name Macedonia to the barbarians, recognized the Macedonian language and the Macedonian nationality and the Macedonian citizenship, while our great patriots say that the Greek agreement not only changes the constitutional name, but it also destroys everything that is Macedonian. Both sides, both in Macedonia and Greece, who are embroiled in party battles for power, read and interpret this Prespa agreement differently.
Here’s what it looks like through a story about Nasreddin Hodja, paraphrased through Itar Pejo, in which the speaker of Meckin Kamen has disguised, who also has a certificate of being president of the state. They say, when you prove with a medical document that you are normal, not with your actions, then something is definitely wrong with your mental health.

Here’s how the story of Nasreddin Hodja goes, or Itar Pejo, whatever you decide. The day before he left for Krusevo and held his historic speech, a woman came to ask our learned and wise professor to read one letter to her. Of course, Pejo immediately started reading. So says: Dear Madam, after a long time I decided to call you and ask you about your health and about your loved ones… For God’s sake President, the woman screamed, this is not a letter, this is the agreement with Greece. Why didn’t you say so woman, he replied, why didn’t you tell me to read it as an agreement? You told me it was a letter and I read as a letter.

Here I will now read to you what is written in the Greek agreement: It is a lie that only the name of the state is changing. On the contrary, the Macedonian state institutional identity is changing. The 74-year-old won right to self-determination and statehood of the Macedonian people is being destroyed. The state-legal capacity of the ideal of the Macedonian people to have its own state is erased. The 27-year history of the independent Macedonian state is also deleted. It is a lie that this Greek agreement guarantees membership in the EU and NATO. Without real reforms and without fighting against crime and corruption, without fighting party elites and clientelism, there is no membership in the Union and NATO. Even if you accept the Greek agreement and change the Macedonian constitution, membership in the EU and NATO will not happen automatically. By accepting this agreement, we cut the branch on which we sit. We are submissive to Greece. The acquired rights in the UN are degraded. With this agreement Greece acquires the right to interfere with the general good of our Republic. To destroy ourselves, to become a no man’s land. There is talk of the rule of law, while legal violence is carried out. Violence can only be concealed by a lie, said the famous Solzhenitsyn…

Oh my God – the woman yelled and quickly crossed herself three times. What are you saying, Mr. President, are you saying that all this is written in the agreement, just like you read it to me?

They asked Solzhenitsyn and Koneski to confirm and tell them that Macedonia is done. For God’s sake, Mr. President, what would we do if there wasn’t for you? So, you are saying that in they are lying to us about the EU and NATO in the agreement.

…No, woman, says Itar Pejo, I do not read what’s in it, but I read what is not in it, and the things that are not in it will happen, they will happen very soon. I do not read lines and chapters of a Greek agreement, I read between the lines, I know even without reading, do you understand what I’m saying, dear lady?

I understand, I understand, of course I understand, I will immediately contact Paraskeva in Thessaloniki not to worry, because they say that their traitors have sold the name Macedonia, language and script, religion and nation. We’ve bought it all for nothing. I will tell them that you, our dear and esteemed president, have read the agreement differently than it is written, you have found that the agreement is a Greek gift and that we are now under the control of the Greeks, so that they should not worry. We are the ones who should worry, they do not need to worry about us joining the EU and NATO under the name Macedonia and the Macedonian language and the Macedonian citizenship and as Macedonians by nationality. It was all just a big lie. The Europeans from Brussels lied to us, and lied to them as well. I will tell this to Paraskeva so that she and her loved ones can calm down because they were very worried. If weren’t for you, dear and wise Mr. President, to read the Greek agreement as it should be read and clear up things for us, the neighbors would have remained very frightened. Now they will be eased when they learn that the deal is Greek. It’s good to explain things to us that we don’t understand, because if we read it ourselves, or let alone our enemies explain it to us, then we are done, they will destroy us, as you nicely and clearly interpreted it to us.

And this Solzhenitsyn is a very good friend of yours, with whom you discovered that in Macedonia there is legal violence against innocent people, which is concealed by a lie. For months innocent, poor people are on trial, people who have brought you to power without clinetelism, because you would have been selected by the citizens either way, because you were highly valued, well-known and recognized. That’s why they cannot charge those innocent victims, because they have done nothing wrong.

Bravo president, if it weren’t for you, we would not have found out what was written there in the agreement, and everything what is not written in it. So now we know that our neighbors have nothing to worry about, and we have no reason to be concerned. We will annul the agreement and release the people, whom you and Solzhenitsyn have discovered that are victims of the persecution of a non-national regime. Everything will fall into place, as it used to be. We will continue to live happily and joyfully as before. The only thing we need is for Gruevski to return and to pass an amendment to the constitution for you to have two more terms. Well, then we will be accepted wherever, in whichever neighboring country we want. If we want, we could be in Bulgaria, if we want in Serbia, we could also go with Albania, with Kosovo, or Greece. And this is not only by swapping people, but also exchange of people and territories. That’s how we will all join the EU and NATO. Good work, Mr. President. Good night. Sleep peacefully. You can do it.
Erol Rizaov