Vankovska’s lies in her open letter

Gjorgji Spasov

In her open letter, published in „Nova Makedonija“ newspaper , Biljana Vankovska cites a dozen scholars and authors that signed great lies regarding the agreement between Macedonia and Greece.

It is unclear if the undersigned really read and understood the contents of that short scripture, which looks like some kind of “salvation for Macedonia” or is something else in question.

Lie number one: They say – the agreement tries to define political, historical and cultural borders between “ancient Macedonia” and what should be “Northern Macedonia”. The construction of identities is the work of governments.

They obviously consider that there are no borders – political, historical and cultural – between ancient Macedonia and today’s Republic of Macedonia, and that perhaps that is why, for 11 years, Gruevski made a political construction of the contemporary Macedonian national identity, dressing it in an antique costume. And it is precisely that governmental political construction of the Macedonian national identity that led to Greece fearing possible territorial pretensions, as well as from the appropriation and monopolization of ancient history by the Republic of Macedonia. This attempt by the previous government to construct the artificial identity of the nation has led to the exaggeration of the Republic of Macedonia in the scientific and international public and to the intensification of the relations between Macedonia and Greece. It led to the renaming of the streets and public buildings in order to emphasize the ancient character of the contemporary Macedonian nation, to the construction of monumental art pieces, to making a series of documentary films in order to politically instrumentalize the history in which the Macedonians defeated the Greeks and folk bursts that ” We are not Serbs, Bulgarians or Greeks – but we are children of Alexander, the Macedonian Emperor “and sports chants such as „Hands up, we shall even get the Thessaloniki Field.”

That policy of the previous government in Macedonia imposed the need in the agreement to clearly distinguish between the word Macedonians and the adjective Macedonian, when we use and will use them, as well as when the Greeks use them. It is not the construction of new identities by a government, but the necessary clarifications to avoid misunderstandings and to live in peace and with mutual respect.

Lie number two: It is claimed that – Macedonia is subjected to arbitrary international engineering against the will of its people. It is forced to compromise, to force Macedonia into NATO.

This stupidity can be said by Vankovska, who regards NATO as a criminal association that should not join Macedonia. But it is strange for all the others undersigned up to now to accept the letter that Macedonia is forced to compromise in order to be forced to become a NATO member. NATO membership is the free choice of all political parties in Macedonia since its independence to date. All parliamentary parties have recorded this in their programs as a strategic goal of Macedonia. And a number of resolutions have been passed on by all casts of the Assembly of Macedonia so far. Hence, the claim that someone is forcing Macedonia to become a NATO member, does not differ from the conspiracy theories according to which “some dark forces and foreign services with yellow vans work against the interests of Macedonia”.

On the other hand, claiming that under the pressure of international forces, Macedonia signed an agreement with Greece and that it will come to power against the will of the Macedonian people, is also a big lie. The agreement was signed by the legally elected governments of Macedonia and Greece. The Macedonian Assembly ratified it. Now a referendum is in preparation on which every citizen and the Macedonian people as a whole have the opportunity to say whether they accept that agreement. And if the majority pleaded to support the agreement, then the Assembly, in accordance with the will of the citizens and the Macedonian people, will proceed to change the constitution. If this is a process against the will of the Macedonian people, that nation has the opportunity to reject the contract and it does not need Vankovska or others like her to explain to them that this is part of an international conspiracy against the people’s will.

Lie number three. The scripture claims that: “The treaty is a negation of the constitutional sovereignty of the Republic of Macedonia. And with that, the deputies of a foreign state (Greece) have the last word “.

The Constitution of Macedonia can be replaced only by the Parliament of Macedonia, with a two-thirds majority, according to a clearly defined procedure. This is clear even to the most illiterate. Hence, if we do not want to change the constitution or we have no political will or interest in it, nobody else can force us to do such a thing. We should only say – we are not interested in EU and NATO membership. We are not interested in changing the provisional reference “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, under which we are admitted as a UN member and we should not change anything. Greece may not be interested in resolving this problem. It discussed and formulated a proposal with the mediation of the United Nations on how to get out of the crisis in their mutual relations. It is a lie that Greece has the last word. We are inquiring about everything and we decide on the direction in which we want to develop our country.

Lie number four. This is the biggest and most shameful lie. The scripture claims that the attribute Macedonian will be erased from all official documents and from public use under the threat of sanctions.

In the text of the publicly announced agreement, for which a public debate is already being held, it is clear that the language is “Macedonian”, the nationality “Macedonian”, and both parties will have the right to use the adjective “Macedonian” to indicate what they consider Macedonian in an ethnic, cultural, historical sense or as a trademark. On our passports will be citizenship, nationality, Macedonian.

The key opposition to the agreement by the Greek opposition is precisely in the fact that Kiryakos Mitsotakis claims that “with the agreement, we gave the language to be Macedonian and nationality Macedonian”.

In an open letter, signed by over 70 domestic and foreign scholars and authors, there are certainly other nonsense and nebulas such as that “NATO is going through an identity crisis,” that the agreement does not guarantee lasting peace and the like. Its authors are likely to have the opportunity to get to know NATO personally with its identity crisis and explain that it is an “arbitrary construct” of some governments from the countries that formed that organization and that without them they will personally support the treaty, there will be no lasting peace in Macedonia.

What’s really surprising is that this semi-literate appeal is signed by respected people from other countries. It’s no surprise it was signed by Solza Grcheva, Dimitar Apasiev and others who have recently signed everything that is against the government in power in Macedonia. But I am surprised that this opposition to the agreement backed with a bunch of lies has the support of figures like Venko Andonovski, Darko Mitrevski, Gordana Siljanovska, Mitko Madzhunkov, Jordan Plevnes, Jovan Donev, Katica Kulavkova, Rade Siljan, and Blaze Ristevski. I had a higher opinion of them and I considered that their name would not have been put on such a text without their knowledge, that they know how to read what they signing. I expect, of course, the letter to be signed by scientists such as Dr. Janko Bacev, Dr. Dragan Pavlovic-Latas, Dr. Nikola Gruevski and many other coryphaeuses of the Macedonian Academy and Science. And I hope that Milan Kundera will be informed what company he was put in.