Macedonians in the minority?
In Macedonia, at least these days it appears, Macedonians are becoming a minority in their own homeland.
The Macedonian parliament has now become an open marketplace. It is no longer a place where laws are made and passed and policy discussed and debated. Instead, it is a buyers and sellers’ market where lucrative ministries, departments and other positions are openly traded. In the latest example of this, the minority ethnic Albanian party Alternative has decided to join the Zaev regime, in order to give Zaev and his government a majority, at least for a few more weeks or months, before the entire house of cards collapses. In agreeing to join, however, Afrim Gashi, the party’s leader, has extracted a high price – one ministry and three departments. Depending on how it ultimately unfolds, ethnic Albanians could have ten ministries and ethnic Macedonians ten. But there could be further negotiations, as it appears that ethnic Albanian leaders in Macedonia would like everyone to forget that there are ethnic Serbs, Turks, Roma and others in government – and they would like their pound of flesh as well. So ultimately, in order to cling to power (whether he is prime minister or not), Zaev might just agree to seeing ethnic Macedonians as a minority in a Macedonian government. Already there are grumblings from some of his other partners in government, including LDP, DOM, and the Democratic Alliance of Pavle Trajanov.
Don’t think this goes unnoticed by the ethnic Albanian leadership in the Zaev government. Their appetites for more will only continue to grow. As the late American historian Barbara Tuchman noted, “The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.” It takes a wise, and humble, individual to wield power correctly and I would wager you that the individuals in this Macedonian government are lacking both.
Moving on to the region, and Macedonia’s neighbors, we know that around the region and the world, Macedonians are in danger of disappearing. We know what Greece has demanded, and received, with the backing of the Zaev regime and his Western handlers in the State Department, EU, and NATO. We know that the good name of Macedonia has been traded for something not just less good, but untrue. We know that this has negatively affected the Macedonian identity and that Macedonian history, culture, language and much more are and will continue to be negatively affected by the agreement with Greece. We see and experience this daily.
Now, Bulgaria takes the place of Greece in, perhaps, finishing off the Macedonians. Recently, journalist Michael Martins writing in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, on December 6, 2021 noted “Some hope the new government in Bulgaria will end the blockage against Macedonian EU talks. But the dispute might take many years to solve. In WWII, Bulgaria occupied Macedonia. More than 7,000 Jews were deported to Treblinka. Today, Bulgaria demands Macedonia may not refer to this time as ‘Bulgarian fascist occupation.’ If the active participation of a state in the Holocaust may not be called fascist, then what can? What Sofia demands from Macedonia is basically falsifying history. A demand that Macedonia cannot accept – for the sake of the very European values it claims to aspire to.”
Even though Bulgaria has this new government, as noted above, it will not back away from its demands that Macedonians, essentially, extinguish themselves, that they commit, to use a word I wrote about many years ago, identicide. Beyond that, a new Gallup poll out among Bulgarians finds the following:
-Over 70% of Bulgarians consider settling Skopje’s relations with Sofia a priority, rather than Skopje’s path to the European Union.
-There is virtually unanimity among the party's electorate - more than 80% of the We Continue the Change’s supporters, GERB’s opinion is that settling relations is a priority, and Skopje’s path to the EU comes after that.
-70% of the respondents in an express telephone survey in June answered that in the dispute with our western neighbor it is best for Bulgaria not to lift the veto, 19.3% think the opposite, and one tenth express hesitation.
In other words, public opinion in Bulgaria is against Macedonia. And that is nearly impossible to change in the short term or in the long term. It just will not happen. And even though the new prime minister and his party may be saying nice words and sounding more conciliatory, they will not be changing their position toward Macedonia – it will be vetoes all day long. And if the Zaev regime does give in and give Bulgaria everything it demands, then we merely need to look to the example of what happened in Greece when the agreement was signed – Macedonian identity, and all that goes with it, has suffered and will continue to suffer.
And I will also predict the following: whereas a vote by NATO member countries for membership was straight up – one time, one vote – the process of becoming an EU member gives Bulgaria a continuing opportunity to raise new objections to Macedonia – and demand concessions – throughout each of the 30 plus chapters of the acquis communautaire – and I promise you, Bulgaria will object throughout.
Of course none of this is foreordained. It does not have to happen. But it is up to Macedonians who believe in a difference between right and wrong, who hold on to virtues, and not just so-called “values,” and who believe in the promise of Macedonia not just for this current generation, and future generations, but for past generations of Macedonians as well. You, the current generation, owe it to past and future generations, the protection of Macedonia and all that makes Macedonia unique.
Now go do it.