ENGLISH

Pressing Urgency for consistent state strategy

By Risto Nakovski
Translated and edited by Risto Stefov
Dnevnik, Saturday, October 25th, 2008

In spite of the great desire out there to remold us, "virtual North Macedonians" we are not and we cannot be. Our dignity is not for sale.

Nimets’s latest new package is not only a disgrace it’s a tremendous blow to our identity. "North Macedonia" is unfit, unthinkable, offensive and unacceptable even for international use. We are not "virtual North Macedonians" and we can’t be "citizens" of a hate motivated and politically concocted "North Macedonia". Where does Nimets get his mandate from and what gives him the right to take away our fundamental human rights – to self express our ethnic and national identity? Doesn’t Nimets know that one cannot create an ethnic entity out of a concocted name?
What is more hurtful than Nimets’s new proposal is the United Nation’s deferral of recognizing our state by the rightful name. There needs to be no dispute here only an examination of the facts which prove that the Republic of Macedonia is NOT a "concocted" state and the Macedonian people do NOT belong to a "conceived" ethnicity.
Naming a country by using the prefix "north" naturally implies that there is a "south". (Is there a "South Macedonia" of which we are not aware? Or is it that by renaming the Republic of Macedonia to "North Macedonia" Greece aims to rename its occupied part of Macedonia to "South Macedonia" and later claim "North Macedonia" as its own and demand it be re-unified under Greek control? Is this how Greece plans to annex the Republic of Macedonia in the future and assimilate the Macedonian people like it did the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia? Is this why the Greek army chanted "Macedonia is Greek" in Solun?) (Translator’s note)
There was NEVER a "North Macedonia", not in ancient times, not in the middle ages and not in modern times! Use of this term only makes sense if used internally to represent a region as a way of differentiating it from another region.
In today’s world where there exists a "north" also exists a "south" and a country that has "north" and "south" prefixing in its name is a "divided" country. The only divided country that remains "divided" today is Korea. There was a North Vietnam and a South Vietnam but that country is no longer divided. It is now reunified under the name Vietnam. There are other examples of independent countries that use prefixes like East Timor (which also has a north-western part), South Africa and the Central African Republic. Both of the latter countries are located in the African continent and appropriately chose those names to correctly place them in that continent. And if I may add, the people of those states willingly chose those names.
There is also the Irish state which makes an interesting example. There is a Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom which is a result of colonialism. This part of Ireland is detached from the main part of the Irish state which exists as a sovereign and independent state called Ireland. The name this state uses unfortunately is contested by London which insists that because there is a Northern Ireland, Ireland can not use this name because it represents ALL of Ireland.
From the examples shown above it makes no sense to have a "north" without the existence of a "south". This kind of thinking is illogical and unprecedented!
Since 1995 Nimets and three of his predecessors pushed the idea that Macedonia needs to change its name as they all kept closing in on our maneuvering space with their mandates and proposals. The UN mandate "to gap the difference around the name" has been politicized and slowly expanded to include the destruction of the Macedonian national and ethnic identity, language, culture, history, etc., etc. These were Greece’s hidden aims all along which we unfortunately did not understand and did nothing to stop.
When we begin to examine what our political leaders, analysts, journalists, etc., said and did begin to understand that we brought ourselves to this situation. This is the truth and no one should be surprised.
Our inability to unite ourselves under a common strategy is a known handicap and has been exploited by those who want to destroy us. Even though we realized this late in the game it is never too late to plan a proper national strategy for solving these problems. The first step in this is to define our national strategy by breaking down what has happened to date into a series of steps. The first step is to reach an agreement between the two large parties then extend that to the smaller parties. This needs to be done immediately in a quarrel free and peaceful environment. All arguments need to be put on the table and examined by both internal and foreign experts. This needed to have been done in Bucharest but it is not too late. Let’s figure out what is really happening and where we are going with this.
After so many years of being lead all over the place, this is not going to be an easy task but let our first task be to review the entire process. While doing it we need to pay attention and devote some effort in examining the breaking of the temporary agreement on the part of Greece. We need to firmly stick to the dual formula for the name because this will bring us to the beginning of the process and render Nimets’s newest proposals irrelevant. Because we agreed to examine them in the past, these proposals cannot be completely ignored therefore we need to demonstrate constructive cooperation.
Another thing we need to do is condemn Nimets’s attempts to sway countries from calling us by our historical and constitutional name. It is not Nimets’s business to interfere in issues that transpire outside his mandate. This only proves that Nimets has expanded his role beyond his mandate and has assumed a biased and untrustworthy role. This means that we can no longer rely on him to be neutral and properly represent us. We need to find a new mediator and begin mediations anew. We can resume negotiations only after we have a full grasp of the situation and that can only happen if we thoroughly analyze and fully understand the situation with a new mediator.
In my opinion, as a last resort, it is better to be settled with "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" that to accept a virtual name like "North Macedonia" and a hypothetical identity like "North Macedonians". Unjust, unfair and as degrading as it may be at least "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" is closest to what we were than "North Macedonia" would ever be!
Another way of looking at this is the number of countries and entities which call our country "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" is rapidly shrinking and soon Greece will remain the only one calling us that. As of now it is a damn shame that both NATO and the EU fall into the same category as Greece.
One more thing we need to do is take extensive measures to stop Greece and others from calling us the clumsy and hurtful abbreviation "FYROM".
Forcing us to capitulate will not bring desired results, we are not Virtual Macedonians and that which we are not we cannot be. Leave us in peace; our dignity is not for sale!
(As a Macedonian people we recognize only one Macedonia and that is the entire geographical and historic region of Macedonia which has existed since biblical times. It high time Nimets and any future mediators begin to deal with real issues like recognizing the Macedonian ethnic minorities in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania rather than focusing on virtual issues like changing Macedonia’s name. Macedonia was, is and will remain Macedonia! - Translator’s note)

Macedonia hands "name" reply to UN envoy

Macedonia’s negotiators in the UN-sponsored "name" talks with Greece are to hand Skopje’s remarks regarding the latest proposal for settling the row to the chief mediator.
Nikola Dimitrov and Martin Protogjer will meet United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz to brief him on Macedonia’s objections to his latest set of ideas, MIA news agency reported.
The negotiators will present to Nimetz the "line of Macedonian national interests," Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki told local media on October 28, stopping short of revealing details about the remarks.
According to media in both Athens and Skopje, the fresh proposal envisaged Skopje’s wider use of the name Republic of Northern Macedonia and several possible ways to address the issue of Macedonian language and national identity.
The national identity must remain Macedonian, experts in Skopje have publicly argued during last week. "The name row should be solved with a "reasonable compromise" between Skopje and Athens", Macedonia’s president Branko Crvenkovski stated on October 28 at a local round table.