Macedonia: Bloggers Emphasize Need for Open Communication with Greece
Amid the internal turmoil caused by Greek actions to block Macedonia's accession to NATO and the EU, and due to an increasing number of reports of attacks over Macedonian truck drivers by nationalist mobs in Greece (official reaction), many Macedonian bloggers are attempting to bridge the gap of ignorance existing between the two nations. On the one hand, they've identified the need to pass information about Macedonians to Greeks, and, on the other hand, some have taken to the task to share information from Greek media with fellow Macedonians.
Many bloggers reacted to a statement by Greek Foreign Minister that even mentioning the existence of Macedonian language and ethnicity is “not helpful” to solving the name issue, perceiving it as continuation of the policy of ethnocide. Zharko Trajanovski, referred to the related U.S. Dept. of State Briefing, extracting the most interesting parts (MKD).
In the same vein, dozens of bloggers promoted the video of the song “Postojam” (“I Exist”), by embedding it in their own posts and even reposting copies of it on YouTube. The video features scenes from documentary films about the ethnic cleansing of Macedonians during the Greek Civil War of 1946-49, accompanied with humanistic lyrics: “I exist… All is forgiven: even your wish for me to be no more.”
The author of the blog Agnes wrote (MKD):
Since its official release, the video of the single “Postojam” by the pop rock singer Miyatta received wide media coverage and it is a topic of discussion among the Macedonian population all around the world. Interest for the English translation of the lyrics and releasing it abroad has also been shown. Regardless of the context, the video has become something worth a comment. Those who were familiar with that part of Macedonia's history congratulated Miyatta for delivering this audio-visual expression. Those who see such pictures for the first time, think that it is too painful to be true. Some believe that this is just an attempt at attention-seeking. All kinds of positive and negative comments are yet to be heard. I am happy that the number of people who were indifferent towards “Postojam” is rather small.
Images of sorrow and exile on the one hand, and images of unity and pride on the other make for a rather authentic representation of Macedonia.
The past is not to be revived, but to be outgrown.
Let us outgrow it, but first,
Let us know it!
Macedonia exists.
In the other direction, the blog Drugarche posted translations of articles from the Greek press, including cartoons [MKD]. A number of bloggers also praised the interview of the Macedonian director Milcho Manchevski [GRE], given to the Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia, and posted links to its English translations. Some offered more historical information from ancient books [MKD] and Western newspaper archives [MKD], as well as about the possible origins of the Greek flag.
But, most importantly, blogs have proved to be the primary vehicle for distributing information on grassroots peace-building. The news about the upcoming visit of about 50 Greek peace activists to Macedonian capital Skopje scheduled for May 17, 2008, appeared [MKD] on the influential Vuna blog first:
This is not an attempt to stoke fires of the Macedonian nationalist sentiments. This is not a call to stone embassies, supermarkets or whatever.
On the contrary, this is a call to participate in an event intended as opposition to all the madness. Greek citizens are first and foremost human beings, and most of them have nothing to do with their retrograde and fascizoid state policy, nor with the hordes of morons who harass people on the highways. At the same time, not all Macedonian citizens are hotheads who “hate every Greek thing” and can't wait to throw stones on the Liaison office.
[…]
Peace, love, empathy!
38 comments
How did Alexander get into this? FYROM lost all credibility when it named its airport to Alexander the Great airport, now they’re still trying to claim Hellenic heroes. Does it make you feel good to bask in the glory of Greece? Everyone wants a piece of Greece, our statues are testament to that. Now, going back to the _Greek civil war, a civil was is exactly that, within a country. Do you recall the Communists tried to overrun Greece and backed by the USA and Britain the Communists were repelled? Do you recall the communists were Bulgarian and that communists were booted out of Greece? Do you recall that then Yugoslavia and Bulgaria closed their borders with Greece not allowing anyone to return? Now they’re claiming genocide. What a load of hogwash. If Greece applied the same logic as FYROM most of the Mediterranean should be renamed Greater Greece, Sicily, Western Turkey, Alexandria, Southern France, Epirus in Albania, only thing is, Greeks can prove they were actually there in BC.
Sunk Cost Fallacy, does FYROM know what this means? It means you’ve gone this far and you can’t stop now and when you fall into this trap the losses pile up. Of course FYROM will be embarassed if they find out they have no connection to Aegean Macedonia so they try and up the ante, new claims of genocide. First they kept telling themselves they’re decendents from the Ancient Hellenic State of Macedon (90% of which is inside Greece). Then the vicious cycle began, more wave of claims, a history factory. The FYROM stance is keep this up long enough and something will hopefully come up and go their way. Fortunately Greece is taking a tougher stance instead of being the usual nice to neighbors and getting nowhere. I wonder if there will be a video on the Greeks who were exiled from FYROM? Or let me guess, there weren’t any there? And I don’t recall seeing a “FYROMian” army in either World Wars? So being decendents of Bulgarians were part of the Axis powers, friends of Hitler in other words. Greece, with the help of the USA and Britain triumphed and was never brainwashed Communist.
Nobody can claim exclusive rights on the ancient heritage. Moreover, nobody can use such rights to forbid anyone else proclaiming his ethnic identity. Macedonia is recognized by almost two-thirds of the world countries, our nation, language, culture and tradition is recognized and verified by many scientific sources. In fact, it is only the fading Balkan nationalistic “scientific” institutes in our closest surrounding that have a “problem” with our existence.
There are thousands of sites which present facts like these above, or the oppression of the Macedonian minority in Greece, or the ethnic cleansing of the Macedonians after the Greek Civil War, or the general hostility of Greece towards Macedonia. What is common for all Greek commentators on these sites is that not one, not a single one of them, CONDEMNED any of these acts. Not only that they don’t do anything, even verbally, to correct the racist laws that their country imposes (e.g. the famous “Greek by genus” discrimination), but they go a step further, and JUSTIFY each and every flaw of their OWN country. For example, Greece is the only EU-member country which claims that 100% of its population are Greek.
I haven’t seen such a dense pack of nationalists in my life, as this “Greek by genus” ethnic group. What is even funnier, they are “related” to the ancient Hellenes as much as a donkey is related to a mule.
To Christos Moisidis;Have you not heard of your DNA? If you go to Crete the people of Crete look totaly diferent than the Athinians, dont you think that you are who you are,just accepted and dont play dum.Present day Macedonians and 2300 years ago are the same. Here is why;In pakistan these people use very similar words that I today do understand,you can not.The lanquage they speak is Brusheski, it has SKI at the end, does the anciant Greek or present day Greek has one word ending with SKI.We havefor example;Makedonski,Selski,Rekarski,Zelevski,Serbski, Romanski,Lerinski etc.Most of our words do end with SKI, even the Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia ends with a SKI,Gruevski.The Macedonian people of Pakistan say ‘DA RECHAM’Means ;to say’ ‘ to tell you’ It is my friends pure Macedonian and NOT Greek.When you make comments , make sure you are right and not just to shoot your mouth. Thank you for reading it.
The ridiculus accusation, about the flag simularity of the Modern Greek flag and the East India company, is just so typical for you Slavic people. There are over 30 countrys in the world, with “canton” flags (USA’s flafg too). besides that, that was a COMPANY, not a Nation!!!
As for the totally stupid “protoslav” theory:The original homeland of the speakers of Proto-Slavic remains controversial. The most ancient recognisably Slavic hydronyms (river names) are to be found in northern and western Ukraine and southern Belarus . It has also been noted that Proto-Slavic seemingly lacked a maritime vocabulary.
The Proto-Slavic language existed approximately to the middle of the first millennium AD. By the 7th century, it had broken apart into large dialectal zones.
As for the so called “minority” in Greece: The Rainbow party in GR, who represents the “slavic” speaking population in Greece got in the 2007 Elections…
2100 VOTES!!! What a great “minority”!
You schould make better your homework, before making such a propaganda against EDUCATED GREEK PEOPLE!!!
Dear Givens, since you talk with “facts”, check what Luigi Cavalli Sforza (by thwe way, he is not Greek) says about this issue of yours and then you may tell me whether i should keep my mouth closed or not! In the mean time, I advise you to practice some good reading
To Peter Givens, it is the right to choose a name as long as no one is offended or provocated by it. That is in the UN charter! It was a poor choice of a name, but it didn’t stop there, more provocations, naming of the airport, distributing maps of “greater fyrom”, claims of genocide now, laying wreaths at monuments where there’s a map of “greater fyrom”. What did you expect to happen? Greece made no provocations whatsoever, so getting rejected from NATO and soon to be the EU is only bound to happen and deserved. Back down and there can be a settlement. Greece is the biggest investor in FYROM and your president even stated not to mix business with politics, probably because he knows we’re the hand that feeds you.
Pseudo Makedonas,The proto Slaves were same as the iv and v and 6 century,We have a comonality in lanquage,customs, dress etc.Just go and see it for yourself.What you will find there you will find it in the Republic of Macedonia like the clothes, the collors of their clothes are exacly as in Macedonia.Your dress is totaly diferent,same at the Unzi province in Pakistan.These people have been interviewed on camera, ques what they said.The Queen of the Unzi said “We are Macedonian, not Greek, the young man of the Kalash people said,we are Macedonian.They also spoke how they ended in these areas,declairing that they are Macedonians,NOT Greek.Are you still trying to elude the people who dont have a clue about these issues? No matter how much you lie or being lied to by your Greek government that you are decendents of the proto-slaves,you are NOT protoslaves at all.I feel sorry for you that you dont even know who you are let alone telling me who I am .Remember one thing, Macedonia is occupied since 1913 by Greece,Bulgaria, Albania and Serbia until 1944.Before then it was under the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, yet we did not loose our identity which Greece is trying to eliminate.Well they wont succeed.
Dear Mr. Alexandros, I am from the Greek part of Macedonia. I, also am one of the children refugee of 1948.I have lived in Romania for short time, also in Poland, thats where I met my Greek teacher Papathanasiu, a great men.He never once refered to me as being Greek, he always refered to me as Makedonas.About the revolution;Durring the Nazi occupatio the Greek government cpitulated.EAM was fighting the Italians and the Nazis, not the Greek government.In 1946 the Greek government instead of implementing the agreemet with EAM,the government started to imprison the leaders of EAM, then the ELAS was formed to fight the government that did colaborate with the enemy of Greece.Did you know Friderica wore a swastica on her arm?Manolis Glezos imprisoned because he an his friend lowered the swastica and raised the Greek flag at Acropoli?Greek governments never changed. Do you know a Macedonian solgier in the Greek army durring the Hunta government shot his commanding officer for calling him VULGAROS? Yes he was court marshialed and released ,durring the tensions between Greece and Turkey.Dont call me by any other name but Macedonian.
I think some of us may have missed the point of the article. I think the POINT is that concentrating on history is counterproductive? As you’ve clearly demonstrated.