Ex-communist Europe

Eastern approaches

Macedonia's ethnic disharmony

How many building booms can one city take?

Mar 1st 2011, 16:20 by T.J. | SKOPJE

OBELIX, the fat Gaulish friend of cartoon character Asterix, has a catchphrase: "These Romans are crazy!" Walk around Skopje, the Macedonian capital, and you find yourself thinking the same about Macedonians. I don’t mean this to be snide. But the pace of building in and around the city does bring to mind the Mansions of the Gods.

Skopje has long needed sprucing up. But opponents of Nikola Gruevski, who have long accused the prime minister of populist nationalism, will hardly be dissauded by the nature of the construction boom (which the government has christened Skopje 2014). With an election in the offing, Mr Gruevski will no doubt enjoy taking credit for the new structures mushrooming throughout the city centre.

In Skopje’s central square a massive plinth is being built. It will soon be topped with a huge statue of Alexander the Great. Many Macedonians could not give a fig for Alexander. But they will be delighted to see the Greeks, who have been blocking Macedonia's EU and NATO integration over an objection to the country's name, turn apoplectic with rage when it is unveiled. The Greeks accuse the Macedonians of appropriating Alexander and trying to steal their Hellenic culture.

But that is just one element. Museums, domes, a new foreign ministry, a bridge bedecked with statues of lions and, as in the Asterix book, a triumphal arch are all springing up, transforming the centre of town. Some of the buildings suit the landscape, but the new constitutional court (pictured), with its massive Corinthian columns, seems a trifle overpowering.

Skopje 2014, which we first wrote about last year, has accentuated bitter disputes between the majority Orthodox Macedonians and Muslim Albanians, who make up a quarter of Macedonia's population. Whenever someone suggests building or rebuilding a church in Skopje, the Albanians demand the same for a mosque. Tensions invariably mount.

The most vivid example brought small groups of Macedonians and Albanians to fisticuffs. Recently, a church-like steel skeleton appeared on the site of an old church inside Skopje's fortress (pictured). The authorities claimed they were merely building a museum in the shape of a church. But Albanians reply that under the original church is an older Illyrian structure; as, they say, they are descended from Illyrians, the site should be theirs. Construction has now stopped, but the issue reveals the delicate balance between Macedonia's two communities, in which religion, identity, land and power are all deeply entwined.

The erection of statues of historical figures and grandiose public buildings looks like an expression of ethnic Macedonian identity. But they are not the only ones; their structures are merely the most visible to outsiders visiting Skopje's centre. Visit Albanian districts in and around the capital and you come across hundreds of new mosques.

Macedonia’s Albanians have a reputation of being much more religious than their brethren from Albania or Kosovo. Their mosque-building has even begun to alarm Albanians from Albania, where they have been labelled as "Talibans" in television chat shows.

Yet the Democratic Union for Integration, a Macedonian Albanian party, which is in coalition with Mr Gruevski, has strictly secular roots. So one wonders whether there is a sub-plot to the mosque-building frenzy. In most cases, a new mosque declares not only the glory of Islam, but that the land on which is stands is Albanian. The paradox is that you can find Albanian-controlled town halls flying American flags a stone’s throw from new mosques sporting Saudi Arabian ones from their minarets.

This is one reason why the church-museum affair is so touchy. Many Macedonians say they keep quiet about the often illegally-built mosques for the sake of social harmony. That is why it irks them that an attempt to build something that merely resembles a church becomes a huge incident. Albanians, by contrast, see Skopje 2014 and related projects like the church-museum as a project designed to shove “Macedonian-ness” down their throats. To be continued.

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1-20 of 79
Likethestate wrote:
Mar 1st 2011 5:38 GMT

"But they will be delighted to see the Greeks, who have been blocking Macedonia's EU and NATO integration over an objection to the country's name, turn apoplectic with rage when it is unveiled"

Sure sounds mature and rational. Doing the very thing Greeks having objected to from very start is perfect evidence Greeks were right all along.

So... wrote:
Mar 1st 2011 5:40 GMT

There is a good dog.

Likethestate wrote:
Mar 1st 2011 5:55 GMT

"To everyone of us it is clear that this entire thesis, this entire thesis for ethnogenesis from Macedonians, it isn't so. Ancient Macedonians until today is founded on a series of mystifications and semi-historical truths which are emitted from Republic of Macedonia and that is using and abusing the media..."

"Why do Skopjans not ask how much Dardanian blood there is in them[..] how much Thracian blood there is in them[...] how much Illyrian blood there is in them[...]how much Paeonian blood there is in them.[...]I do not see anyone of us get into a fight over the amount of Paeonian blood in us, or God forbid, Dardinian one?"

"Ancient Macedonia does not match with today's Macedonia at all.[...]Ancient Macedonia, we must clarify it once, is literally in entirety in today's Greece."

"If we are looking at ethnogenesis then we should open at another place. Therefore we should discuss how much we are Paeoneans. "

Ljubco Georgievski, former Prime Minister of FYROM, FYROM A1 TV June 2009

Lily-White wrote:
Mar 1st 2011 8:32 GMT

First off...none of you here are Macedonians, and if so by birth, then definitely not by belief! It is obnoxious to even dare to say that the Macedonian people "Don't give a FIG" about any part of their history, secondly the issue here is so much deeper than the subjective quotations of mislead politicians, on the origins of the Macedonian people...How dare you comment on the effort of a small and suppressed nation, to affirm itself to it's own people (and hopefully to the rest of the world). How dare you "forget" to mention the primary PHYSICAL reason behind SKOPJE 2014? How dare you "forget" the complete devastation of Macedonia's capital in 1963? How dare you attribute an individuals manic behavior to a whole nation?! There are two million of us who are not willing to give up our identity regardless of how much the Greek government is willing to pay CORRUPT politicians and JOURNALISTS to spread their degenerate message throughout the world. Yes it is quite a disgrace to see the two major ethnic groups in Macedonia fight over a simple building but it is also vital to keep the conflicts and problems of this country compartmentalized, especially when looking INTO the situation. The ethnic minorities are a genuine predicament in Macedonia, but even though this problem overlaps the problem of the MACEDONIAN identity, it is NOT the same thing...

I tire of explaining and even though I have skipped a lot of vital facts...I will wrap this comment up here...

Macedonia is real and so are it's people, it is unmoral to try and convince people otherwise...

Likethestate wrote:
Mar 1st 2011 9:51 GMT

@lily-white

We are unimpressed by your crocodile tears of persecution for as long as the communist era revisionist "Macedonia" historical propaganda continues.

The people that used to live in what you call "Macedonia" today (which is actually primarily located in what was once ancient Paeonia)... used to freely SELF-IDENTIFY as ethnic Bulgarians. The fact ultra nationalists like Gruvski need to hide this from the world (as well your apologists who pretend they don't notice your sudden change into "ancient Macedonians") attests to the very real prejudice Greeks are facing.

It is not a human right to attempt to usurp the identity, history, and territory of another nation.

Likethestate wrote:
Mar 1st 2011 10:05 GMT

@Lily-White

"We are not stating by accident that Josip Broz Tito is Jesus Christ for Macedonia, a father and a mother for Macedonia. Because we have, in that time, after NOB, for the first time created a Macedonian alphabet, a Macedonian television, a Macedonian state, a language, a passport, an identity card, a university for the first time, a Macedonian academy for the first time. We, communists, have created the Macedonian Orthodox church." - Slobodan Ugrinovski - "Tito is Jesus Christ for Macedonia" - A1 TV, FYROM May 04 2009
http://www.youtube.com/user/Srbolog#p/u/42/YZRCMBzkV88

"Why are we ashamed and flee from the truth that whole positive Macedonian revolutionary tradition comes exactly from exarchist part of Macedonian people? We shall not say a new truth if we mention the fact that everyone, Gotse Delchev, Dame Gruev, Gjorche Petrov, Pere Toshev - must I list and count all of them - were teachers of the Bulgarian Exarchate in Macedonia." - former Prime Minister of FYROM, Ljubco Georgievski from his book 2007 'Facing the truth')

Here is a video of the former elected foreign minister of FYROM (Denko Maleski) openly admitting that the FYROM government has been consciously fabricated history. (and even calling the "ancient Macedonians" nationalists in his own country extremists)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC-ujM8OXPk

Curiously, both Gruevski and some of the long time supporters of FYROM have developed a case of selective amnesia lately as FYROM's ethnic identity has now become "ancient Macedonians".

Then those same people claim to stand for human rights? By hypocritically supporting extreme nationalists using state force to oppress evidence of FYROM's own ethnic Bulgarian heritage? That sounds more like the behavior of communist ethnic engineers rather than those that support actual human rights.

"The creation of the Macedonian nation, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the “Macedonian” historiography, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the “Macedonian” identity was created. There is nothing atypical here for the process of the creation of any modern nation, except when falsification from the type of substitution of the word “Bulgarian” with the word “Macedonian” were made." (Denko Maleski, former Minister of foreign affairs of FYROM from 1991 to 1993 in an interview to FYROM newspaper Utrinski Vesnik)
http://www.utrinski.com.mk/?ItemID=C7A7DD4ECD45C946BF6573284EC01164

"This (US) Government considers talk of Macedonian "nation", Macedonian "Fatherland", or Macedonia "national consciousness" to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece." - U.S State Department Foreign Relations Vol. VIII Washington D.C. Circular Airgram - 868.014/26 Dec. 1944

"And whether Bulgarian consciousness exists in Macedonia, this is a historical legacy. We’re now writing our history. We can’t write that until 1940 we were Bulgarians and after 1940 Macedonians.” - Krste Crvenkovski (President of the Central Committee of the Union of Communists in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia) to Todor Zhivkov (First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bulgaria) – May 19, 1967.
http://modern-macedonian-history.blogspot.com/2009/12/krste-crvenkovski-...

ApolloTech wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 2:41 GMT

The truth is Greece and Bulgaria illegally annexed Macedonian lands that were forcibly taken away from the Macedonian people. Greece, Bulgaria and some Western European countries don’t want the world to know this! And that is the entire crux of the problem between Greece, Bulgaria and Europe on one side and the Macedonian people on the other. It is time for the truth to be revealed!

ApolloTech wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 2:45 GMT

In 1912 and 1913 when Macedonia was invaded, occupied and brutally partitioned by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, these countries and the Great Powers of Europe knew very well that Macedonia was populated with Macedonians. They very well knew that only a decade earlier the Macedonian people rose up and fought in a Macedonian National Uprising in an attempt to create their own free, democratic and independent Macedonian state. In spite of all that Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria, along with the Great Powers of Europe, decided to ignore the Macedonians and partition their country anyway. And if that was not enough, they also took the extra step to permanently extinguish the Macedonian existence.

Guilty for what they have done, Greece, Bulgaria and the Great Powers of Europe now do not want to face the consequences of their actions and are still insisting that “Macedonians don’t exist”.

Greece, Bulgaria and some countries in Western Europe will continue to give Macedonia and the Macedonian people a hard time as long as the Macedonian people keep quiet about what has been done to them. But once the truth is out then there will be no reason for them to harass the Macedonians.

Likethestate wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 4:44 GMT

@aPolloTech

blah blah blah. Don't you ever get tired of repeating the same communist era persecution propaganda?

In 1912 the majority of people in your region still SELF-IDENTIFIED as ethnic BULGARIANS (i.e. you manipulate the term "Macedonian" as back then it was still only in the sense they lived in the region like Greeks, Serbs. Albanians, Turks, etc...). Repeatedly lying over and over about your own history only proves to Greeks we have every reason to object to you using the Macedonia name. (using it as a tool to insinuate Macedonia Greece is "occupied")

Here are some of the statutes of word of BMARC (forerunner of your revolutionary organzation IMRO).... penned by your own "Macedonian" national heroes Gotse Delchev, Dame Gruev, et al.

Art. 2. To achieve this goal they [the committees] shall raise the awareness of self-defense in the BULGARIAN population in the regions mentioned in Art. 1., disseminate revolutionary ideas - printed or verbal, and prepare and carry on a general uprising.

Art. 3. A member of BMARC can be any BULGARIAN, independent of gender

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Internal_Macedonian_Revolutionary_Organization

Or how about the words of your own "Macedonian" national hero Krste Misirkov? Does Gruevski teach FYROM school children these words... or does he hide them and teach them to hate Greeks with fake cries of persecution?

Krste Misirkov: "We are Bulgarians, more Bulgarians than the Bulgarians in Bulgaria themselves."[...]'And, anyway, what sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?
http://www.misirkov.org/kpm_zmr_eng.htm

"Macedonians means only Macedonian Bulgarians"
http://mak-truth.com/k_conf.htm

“The only Macedonian Slavs who played a leading part in the Uprising were those who called themselves Bulgarians.”
http://misirkov.org/what_have_we_done.htm

“We did indeed call ourselves “Bulgarians” and “Christians” in the national sense”
http://misirkov.org/nacional_separatism.htm

“The first objection — that a Macedonian Slav nationality has never existed — may be very simply answered as follows: what has not existed in the past may still be brought into existence later, provided that the appropriate historical circumstances arise.”
http://misirkov.org/can_macedonia.htm

“No matter whether we call ourselves Bulgarians or Macedonians we shall always feel as a nationality with a Bulgarian national consciousness,”
http://www.mak-truth.com/k_pap1.htm

“We are Bulgarian more than the Bulgarians in Bulgaria. The population of Skopje is PURE BULGARIAN. The Serbian not only want to colonize Macedonia with Serbs from other part of Yugoslavia, but they wish to kill our Bulgarian consciousness.
http://www.macedoniainfo.com/Krste_Misirkov.htm

“But now cries from the Macedonians can be heard: we are Bulgarians, we are more Bulgarians than the Bulgarians themselves. …….. You could be victors over Bulgaria and impose on it all sorts of treaties but this cannot change our conviction, our consciousness that we are not Serbians, that up till now we have called ourselves Bulgarians and this is what we are today and this is what we want to be called in the future.”
http://www.mak-truth.com/k_pap1.htm

“The Ilinden Uprising of 1903 had a pronounced effect on me and caused me to make some mistakes which completely isolated me from the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia. With great respect I was forced to temporarily renounce completely working for the realization of the Bulgarian national ideals[...] “The same Mr Zanetov gave me the idea to appeal to you and ask for a lecturing position at the Bulgarian Male Gymnasium in Salonika. I agreed with satisfaction to Mr Zanetov’s proposal, since in this way I would receive the opportunity, anew, and according to my ability to serve the Bulgarian national interest and ideals”

http://www.mak-truth.com/k_re2.htm

“If the question of racial similarity and difference between Bulgarians and Macedonians comes to be resolved on the basis of the national name, language and history, there is no doubt that we should resolve it as a Greek priest did in 1804; author of a four-language dictionary Greek, Bulgarian, Rumanian and Albanian and who regarded as Bulgarian the Western Macedonian dialect. Therefore when in Macedonia and Bulgaria there was no mention of the Bulgarian Exarchate, the Greeks, obviously well acquainted with the Balkan nationalities, do not make any distinction between a Bulgarian, a Macedonian and a Macedonian Slav. We the Macedonians, cannot, and have no reason to ignore this and similar facts, which can be quoted by the hundreds. We cannot ignore them because to do so means to distort our history, to hide the truth and to deceive ourselves.”
http://www.mak-truth.com/k_pap2.htm

etc.. etc..

ApolloTech wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 12:03 GMT

Why has Greece done all these things you say?

First, let me say that this is only a mild and small fraction of the “evil acts” Greece has committed against the Macedonian people. I have not mentioned what they did during the various wars, the various dictatorships and in their prisons and concentration camps over the years.

Greece has done this for two reasons;

1. To build the so-called “Greek nation”. Since there are no “real Greeks” the kind of Greeks that are descended of the ancient Greeks, Greece had to create “Greeks” by assimilation from its indigenous ethnicities or from the colonists Greece imported from Albania, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and other places. To enforce this, the Greek state had to use harsh measures and strict laws.

2. The “newly fabricated Greek nation” had no history, country or lands of its own so it had to occupy and annex “other peoples’ lands” and hide this fact. The Greek state needed to eliminate all traces of the previous owners. So to make a long story short, Greece has made every effort to extinguish the presence and erase the past of everything Macedonian in order to expropriate Macedonian history and the Macedonian land it occupied and annexed in 1912, 1913.

makedonproud wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 12:19 GMT

@Likethestate
Please for god's sake read Krste Misirkov's book from an unaltered translation and then comment on it! http://www.gbiblsk.edu.mk/adm/images/za-makedonckite-raboti.pdf
This is a link to the original version of the book. If you reside in the Thessaloniki area I'm sure you can find someone to translate it for you.
I am not stating that the Macedonians originate from Alexander the Great (maybe they do maybe they don't), but to state that there was no Macedonian nation prior to 1944 is simply madness.
Fun Fact: Krste Petkov Misirkov was born in Pela, a couple kilometers off the royal palace of Filip the second

ApolloTech wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 12:23 GMT

Bulgarian political aims in Macedonia

Immediately after the 1903 Ilinden Uprising was suppressed, Bulgaria officially refused to bear responsibility for the dire events created in Macedonia. But the Macedonian Question remained a part of Bulgarian foreign policy. Besides being supported by pro-Bulgarian factions within the Macedonian Liberation Movement, at the beginning of 1905, the Bulgarian government created a second political department within its own Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a single objective; to deal with the Macedonian Question. The long term goal of this department was to overcome all factors that hindered Bulgarian influence in Macedonia and work towards giving Macedonia autonomy as a Bulgarian protectorate. Other goals included waging war against all who got in the way including those promoting foreign propaganda in Macedonia. Bulgaria’s first priority was to infiltrate the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (an organization which cared for the Macedonian population and fought to correct the injustices perpetrated against the Macedonians), kill off its leaders, insurgents and supporters and replace them with Bulgarian agents. This was to be accomplished through the assistance of the Bulgarian Exarchate churches and schools in Macedonia, which were financed and politically supported by the Bulgarian state and its various governments of that time.

ApolloTech wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 12:31 GMT

Serbian political aims in Macedonia

Serbian propaganda activities in Macedonia began before the 1903 Ilinden Uprising. In fact the foundations for Serbia’s Macedonian campaigns were laid in 1902 when a dedicated Committee for carrying out propaganda activities in Macedonia was established in Belgrade. Illegal Serbian armed bands began to infiltrate Macedonia while the Ilinden Uprising was still going on. In 1904 the number of Serbian armed bands operating in Macedonia increased significantly, especially in Ovche Pole, Azot and Poreche.

The Serbian sponsored armed bands in Macedonia also operated according to a Rulebook which listed the Serbian goals and objectives in Macedonia. According to the Rulebook Serbia’s main goal in its campaigns in Macedonia was to minimize the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization's influence on the Macedonian population by eliminating its leaders and insurgents. While doing this the Serbian armed bands were to avoid contact and conflict with the Ottoman authorities, including the army and police. These goals and objectives were regulated by Articles 17, 18 and 32 of the Rulebook.

In order to achieve their goals the Serbian armed bands, like the Greek and Bulgarian ones, used terror tactics including robbing and torturing the Macedonian population. Almost every village had agents and collaborators who supported the illegal armed bands by offering them intelligence information, food and sanctuary.

Many Macedonian intellectuals tried to persuade the Macedonians, who were recruited by these bands in various functions, not to offer the foreigners assistance and to stop fighting amongst themselves, but without much success. There were many letters written to that effect which clearly demonstrated that Macedonia’s neighbors deliberately intensified fratricidal fighting and self-extermination in Macedonia. Their goal was to create conflict among the Macedonian people, invade and partition their country and destroy the essence of the Macedonian nation, as events proved true over time.

ApolloTech wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 12:40 GMT

Greek political aims in Macedonia

Greek propaganda in Macedonia began in June 1903 when Greek military officers, Pavlos Melas and Georgios Tzontas, began to hire illegal armed bands and dispatch them in Macedonia to create havoc and spread “Greater” Greek propaganda. Immediately after the August 1903 Ilinden Uprising, the secretary of the Greek consulate in Bitola, Ion Dragoumis, established a secret Greek committee to work towards the assimilation of the Macedonian people and the annexation of Macedonia to Greece. Around about the same time the Greek bishop of Kostur, Germanos Karavangelis, created an illegal armed band. In the beginning of March 1904 two Greek armed bands were created in Thessaly. Six new illegal armed Greek bands in total were created and dispatched to operate in Macedonia.

Then in the fall of 1904 the Hellenic - Macedonian committee was formed in Athens whose job was to finance the Macedonian campaign and spread Greek propaganda in Macedonia. Most of the manpower for these illegal armed bands was hired from newly annexed Crete and manned by Greek officers.

Of all the illegal armed bands that operated in Macedonia, the Greek bands most closely cooperated with the Ottoman army and in many instances carried out missions for the Ottomans.

The goals and objectives of the Greek armed bands operating in Macedonia were regulated by a Rulebook entitled “General Instructions for the Macedonian Bands”, especially created for this purpose by the Hellenic-Macedonian Committee. The Rulebook contained three main points: 1. destroy the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (MRO) insurgency and replace it with a Greek one; 2. eliminate all those who worked against the Greek cause; 3. convince the entire Macedonian population to join the Greek Patriarchate.

Macedonian intellectuals and leaders responded to the “Greater” Greek propaganda with appeals to the Greek population not to support the illegal armed bands in Macedonia and to oppose Hellenism, their mutual usurper.

Supported by the Sultan himself, the illegal armed Greek bands escalated their persecution of the Macedonian insurgency and of prominent intellectuals. In the eyes of the Macedonian population the entire MRO was labeled “Bulgarophile”, a false claim which is spread to this day.

According to Richard Oppenheimer, an Austrian civilian agent sent to Macedonia on April 18, 1908 who dispatched information to Aloys Aehrenthal of the Austrian-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Greek bands in Macedonia killed 531 and wounded 175 people in the period from March 14, 1906 to March 14, 1908. According to the same information, MRO insurgents fought 12 battles with the Greek bands in the period from October 26, 1904 to June 27, 1905 in Voden Region alone. From January to October 1905, MRO insurgents fought 22 battles with the illegal Greek armed bands that had infiltrated Macedonia and 3 battles with locally hired Greek bands. Most battles took place in the Kostur, Kajlari, Drama, Lerin, Bitola and other Regions of southern Macedonia.

Greek-Ottoman cooperation contributed immensely to the Greek campaign in Macedonia and as the Greek armed bands kept growing the number of Macedonian insurgents kept dwindling.

ApolloTech wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 12:49 GMT

Macedonians were never Greeks, Serbians, Bulgarians, Romanians, or Albanians. They were simply made to look like that for “political” reasons which became obvious after Macedonia was illegally invaded, occupied, partitioned and annexed by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria in 1912 and 1913.

Looking at this another way, there are many Greeks, Serbians, Bulgarians, Romanians and Albanians today who not too long ago had Macedonian ancestors!

In all this there was one organization which cared for the Macedonian population and fought to correct the injustices perpetrated and that was the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (MRO). Unfortunately because the MRO was a great threat to Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and Romanian ambitions in Macedonia its members were hunted down and killed. In addition to killing off its members, the various factions, particularly the Bulgarians, made attempts to infiltrate the MRO and pose as patriotic Macedonians. This caused much internal strife and mistrust, which is felt to this day in modern Macedonian organizations. I must also add that even though the 19th and 20th centuries are now in the past, Macedonia’s enemies have not ceased their attempts to infiltrate Macedonian organizations. So who can blame the Macedonians for being overly suspicious?

JunoYouKnow wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 1:33 GMT

Not another BIG Greek Lie?

Despite what some may think, there will never be a solution to the problems with Modern Greece because the mere existence of Macedonians and an independent Macedonian state negate and contradict the very foundations on which the Modern Greek state and Modern 'Greek' ethnicity were built. Modern Greece was created from an ethnically diverse population assimilated either willingly or by force under 'Neo-Hellenism', or the false belief that they are all 'directly' descended from the ancient Hellenes.

Any recognition of a Macedonian ethnicity by Modern Greece would be de facto recognition of the Macedonians within the borders of the modern Greece state. This poses a threat to the Modern 'Greek' identity as established under 'Neo-Hellenism', as the Moderns 'Greeks' are ALL supposed to be 'directly descended' from the ancient Hellenes. If the Macedonians in Modern Greece aren't 'Greek' or 'directly' descended from the ancient Hellenes...then what other groups within Modern Greek society happen to be Non-Greek as well. These kinds of uncomfortable questions threaten to expose the policy of 'Neo-Hellenism' to be nothing more then a lie, to which Modern 'Greeks' fear would ultimately lead to the unraveling of the Modern Greek state. The Modern 'Greeks' therefore have two choices;

1 - Abandon the policy of 'Neo-Hellenism' and rediscover their true ethnic origins, or...

2 - Do everything in their power to erase the existence of a Macedonian ethnicity.

It is therefore clear what choice the Modern 'Greeks' have made. Modern 'Greeks' will NEVER recognize the existence of a Macedonian ethnicity and will do everything in their power to negate and erase the existence of Macedonia and Macedonians.

For this reason all diplomatic discussions with Modern Greece are pointless and must end NOW!!!

Mar 2nd 2011 2:01 GMT

Hey Likethestate, you've been spamming with the same garbage for quite some time. I remember reading your rubbish last year. Do you have a day job? Or is you pan-"macedonian" organization paying you to do this day and night?

JunoYouKnow wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 2:30 GMT

To ApolloTech: Your PenName contains the name of a Greek God. The expectations would be that your comments would spew the pro-Greek propaganda. If you're Greek, your honesty is very refreshing and reinforces my belief in the goodness of the Greek people and has nothing to do with corruption LikeTheState.

edennasvet wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 4:11 GMT

again "fruitfull" disscusion!!!

edennasvet wrote:
Mar 2nd 2011 4:11 GMT

again "fruitfull" disscusion!!!

1-20 of 79

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Eastern approaches deals with the economic, political, security and cultural aspects of the eastern half of the European continent. It incorporates the long-running "Europe.view" weekly column. The blog is named after the wartime memoirs of the British soldier Sir Fitzroy Maclean.

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