WHO MACEDONIAN AUSTRALIANS
SHOULD NOT VOTE FOR

Speech by Igor AVRAMOVSKI ALEKSANDROV, President of the Association of Macedonian Communities of Australia, held at the Macedonian rally in Canberra, on 28 October 2007

It’s been almost fourteen years since the Federal Government’s decision to deny the democratically determined identity of the Macedonian Republic, by referring to it as a ‘Former Yugoslav Republic’. Since that time, Macedonian Australians have been unanimous in rejecting that policy, as a violation of the fundamental human right to self-determination and ethnic self-identification.
In March 1994, the Labor Government’s excuse for suppressing the Macedonian identity was that the UN, and most countries, referred to the Macedonian Republic as ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’. Today, an overwhelming majority of the UN’s members have recognized the Republic of Macedonia under its proper name. Among them are the UK and the USA, whose foreign policies Australian Governments almost always follow. So what is our Government’s justification for CONTINUING to refer to the Macedonian Republic as a ‘Former Yugoslav Republic’? The answer is that they’ve NEVER HAD a real justification.
The real reason for this policy was, and still is, that both the Labor Party and the Coalition are captives to the racist lobby of the Greek Government. A lobby whose aim is to suppress the ethnic Macedonian identity, in the hope of covering up the forceful assimilation of indigenous Macedonians under Greek rule, to create an ethnically homogenous Greek nation. That is much too reminiscent of the racist White Australia policy, which Australia denounced over three decades ago.
By fostering the Greek Government’s policy of violating the human rights of ethnic Macedonians, the Australian Government is not only violating international human rights standards, but the fundamentals of Australian multiculturalism. There is no other ethnic community in Australia, whose right to self-identification is denied by the Government.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Religious and Linguistic Minorities requires that:
… States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, … and linguistic identity of minorities … and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity. (Article 1 (1))
Under international law, ethnic identity is a matter to be determined by the individual, and not by the state. Macedonians in Australia and Macedonia have clearly determined that their ethnic identity is Macedonian, without any prefixes or suffixes. That is something that the Greek, Macedonian, Australian or any other Government has no right to suppress.
By denying our right to ethnic self-identification, Labor and Coalition governments have treated us as something less than ordinary human beings. Yet Macedonian Australians have largely continued to vote for Labor and the Coalition, in the fourteen years that these major parties have persistently treated us as second class citizens.
It is time that we stopped behaving like slaves who are satisfied with the crumbs they receive at the expense of their human dignity. If we behave as if we are content with being treated as second class citizens, those who deny our human dignity will continue to do so with impunity.
Our hypocritical government sends our defense forces to die in the Middle East in the name of human rights and freedoms, yet it violates the human rights and freedoms of its own citizens, and the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, for petty political opportunism. The least we can do is stand up for our own human rights at the ballot box, in the November Federal Election.
If we do not wish to be treated as second class citizens, we must not give our votes to those who treat us as second class citizens. At the upcoming Federal election, vote Green, Democrat or independent, but do not step on your own human dignity, by voting for Labor or the Coalition, unless one or both of these parties decide to grant us the most basic respect that all human beings are entitled to.
Do not vote for anybody who says that you are no more than a Former Yugoslav!