"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..."
This article has also been published at the American Chronicle:
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..."
This article has also been published at the American Chronicle:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/244578
Miltiades Elia Bolaris
July24, 2011
My hometown Serres is built at the foothills of Menoikio mountain, in central-eastern Macedonia. A Paeonian foundation, as Herodotus tells us, which the Macedonians made their own. When we were children, my father would take me and my brother, we would go mountain hiking from dawn to eve, and he would talk to us. He was an inspiring gentleman, to us children, well-traveled and well-read; full of wisdom. Both I and my brother owe a lot to him. Something that stuck in my mind from those childhood conversations with my father was the following saying by Confucius:
"If in your path you come across someone with whom you can carry an intelligent conversation, stay and discuss in earnest with him.
If in your path you come across someone with whom you cannot carry an intelligent conversation, do not waste your time in idle talk. Keep walking!"
I thought of my father a few days ago, on July 20th, prophet Elias's day in the Orthodox calendar, his name day. Here I stand now, wondering: why don't I simply follow my father's advise and Confucius' wisdom?
Does someone have to answer any and every scatological byproduct of lower intelligence floating out there? Here is an example:
"Macedonians, Philhellenes and Greeks", by Christos Stephou, a Canadian autodidact who habitually misspells his own (appropriately Boulgarized to Risto Stefov) Greek name.
A "Rebuttal", supposedly, of an article written three years ago:
"The arrest, disappearance and possible murder of a critic of PM Nicola Gruevski in FYROM", published on July 28. 2009 in the American Chronicle". I am saying "supposedly" because the article is rambling about anything but what it is supposed to be rebutting.
There is a wonderful American expression: "You cannot win an argument against an idiot as he is not bound by the rules of logic". Basic self respect demands that I should avoid it:
εἰ δυνατόν ἐστιν, παρελθάτω ἀπ' ἐμοῦ τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο
if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me
At the same token, try as I may, and we all have our weaknesses, I simply cannot
bear to hear the truth I've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.
So, then, here we are, forced by necessity to make a few points of clarification. Our task is not to convince any propagandists of pseudo-Makedonism out there. They know they are dealing in a fake product, whether historical, political or linguistic. They are in the business of fraud and falsification. What makes it easy for us is that they are not even good at it. What we need to do is to clear out the cloudy haziness with which they always cover up their fuzzy tracks. We need to make the intellectual field crystal clear using crisp, logical argumentswhich are solidly based on research and factual documentation. We simply need to do our homework. We need to expose each and every pseudo-Makedonist hoax, for what it is: a fraud against history and science and a crime against the true identity of the Slavomacedonian nation and the future of the youth of FYROM.
POINT A: "When the Western-philhellenes came to Greece to begin their
project, they found this mass of befuddled individuals completely
immersed in their struggle for survival and oblivious to the
significance of their immediate surroundings."
When someone tries to belittle one of the greatest revolutions of the 19th century, the Greek revolution of 1821-1829, a revolution which paved through its heroic example the way to freedom for all other Christians of Ottoman occupied Europe, a revolution that inspired the greatest minds of its time, from Byron and Goethe to Delacroix, by calling it a mere "project" of "Western-Philhellenes", that someone is not only failing in his purpose. He is also betraying his abysmal hatred, personal baseness, mean spirit and, most of all, unfulfilled envy for what he never had. Nobody can accuse the Slavomacedonians for waiting to be be liberated by the Serbian army in 1912 or for gaining a statehood after the Yugoslav army decided to retreat in 1992. Things happen. But to start from this lack of an ethnogenetic Big Bang to go and start mumbling nonsense of Western Philhellenes' "project" is ludicrous.
A house pussycat has no moral right to accuse a lion of being docile, if you asked me. If you have not produced a Kolokotronis, a Karaiskakis a Makrygiannis or a Kanaris, and the only heroes you have to show are some Bugari Komitadjis, in the service of Bulgarian Exarchy, then the least you can do is hush the whole issue and lie low. Do not provoke comparisons that will slap you right back on your face.
Calling the Greek revolutionaries, those barefooted men and women that broke the back of the Ottoman empire after a tooth and nail nine year old bloody struggle for freedom, a revolution during which no stone was left upon a stone, fighting against the most tyrannical empire of their time, and won, to call these men and women
"this mass of befuddled individuals completely immersed in their
struggle for survival"
is not at all demeaning the memory of those heroes. Pass du tous! It is simply indicative of how a slimy creature experiences its own insignificance looking up -in owe- to soaring eagles from down below, plodding along in its miserable muddy hole.
So, then, here we are, forced by necessity to make a few points of clarification. Our task is not to convince any propagandists of pseudo-Makedonism out there. They know they are dealing in a fake product, whether historical, political or linguistic. They are in the business of fraud and falsification. What makes it easy for us is that they are not even good at it. What we need to do is to clear out the cloudy haziness with which they always cover up their fuzzy tracks. We need to make the intellectual field crystal clear using crisp, logical argumentswhich are solidly based on research and factual documentation. We simply need to do our homework. We need to expose each and every pseudo-Makedonist hoax, for what it is: a fraud against history and science and a crime against the true identity of the Slavomacedonian nation and the future of the youth of FYROM.
POINT A: "When the Western-philhellenes came to Greece to begin their
project, they found this mass of befuddled individuals completely
immersed in their struggle for survival and oblivious to the
significance of their immediate surroundings."
When someone tries to belittle one of the greatest revolutions of the 19th century, the Greek revolution of 1821-1829, a revolution which paved through its heroic example the way to freedom for all other Christians of Ottoman occupied Europe, a revolution that inspired the greatest minds of its time, from Byron and Goethe to Delacroix, by calling it a mere "project" of "Western-Philhellenes", that someone is not only failing in his purpose. He is also betraying his abysmal hatred, personal baseness, mean spirit and, most of all, unfulfilled envy for what he never had. Nobody can accuse the Slavomacedonians for waiting to be be liberated by the Serbian army in 1912 or for gaining a statehood after the Yugoslav army decided to retreat in 1992. Things happen. But to start from this lack of an ethnogenetic Big Bang to go and start mumbling nonsense of Western Philhellenes' "project" is ludicrous.
A house pussycat has no moral right to accuse a lion of being docile, if you asked me. If you have not produced a Kolokotronis, a Karaiskakis a Makrygiannis or a Kanaris, and the only heroes you have to show are some Bugari Komitadjis, in the service of Bulgarian Exarchy, then the least you can do is hush the whole issue and lie low. Do not provoke comparisons that will slap you right back on your face.
 |
| "...mass of befuddled individuals...oblivious to the significance of their immediate surroundings" doing what they had to do. Greeks gained their freedom after a 9-year revolutionary struggle, 160 years before the peaceful retreat of the Yugoslav army gave independence (like a ripe fruit that fell on Skopje's lap) to FYROM. |
Calling the Greek revolutionaries, those barefooted men and women that broke the back of the Ottoman empire after a tooth and nail nine year old bloody struggle for freedom, a revolution during which no stone was left upon a stone, fighting against the most tyrannical empire of their time, and won, to call these men and women
"this mass of befuddled individuals completely immersed in their
struggle for survival"
is not at all demeaning the memory of those heroes. Pass du tous! It is simply indicative of how a slimy creature experiences its own insignificance looking up -in owe- to soaring eagles from down below, plodding along in its miserable muddy hole.
Since the population of FYROM has never achieved national liberation on its own, and there are historic reasons for this, the lack of homogeneity in the population being the most important, the closest thing they can look back towards is the two month long Ilinden uprising and the famous Krushevo government did not lasdt for more than ten days. This was an uprising that was thought of, organized and carried by Bulgarian Komitadjis. The liberation of the land during the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 was carried by the Serbian army. During WWII the local population embrashed the Nazi led Royal Bulgarian troups as liberators and the communist party leadership was the first to leave the Yugoslav Communist Party to join the Communist Party of Bulgaria. When the Serb army left southern Yugoslavia in the early 1990's, as the Yugoslav state was collapsing and Serbian army was needed to fight Croatian independentists, FYROM was finally established. FYROM, therefore, like Albania, which was liberated from the Ottomans by the Greek and Serbian army, or Bulgaria, which was liberated by the Russian army, for that matter, have no great national liberating revolution to look back to. This is not a crime nor a handicap. Crime against history and basic intelligence are the moronic attempts of the Skopian history falsifiers who try to try to appear greater by belittling the achievements of others. The fact that the Greek revolution roused the sympathy of freedom loving intellectuals from around the world who came to help the Greeks does not take anything out that great revolution. As for the Treaty of Bucharest which the Skopjan mouthpieces love to quote all the time, it did not give Macedonia to Greece. The Greek army in a succession of ferocious battles first in Sarantaporo and then in Yanista, defeated the Ottoman army forcing Hasan Tahsin Pasha to surrender central and western Macedonia to the Greeks.Te Greek army entered Thessaloniki on October 26, 1912. The Treaty of London treaty recognizing Greek sovereignty over these lands was signed on May 30, 1913. All the Treaty of Bucharest did was to divide between Romania, Greece and Serbia the lands lost by Bulgaria during the second Balkan War. And this was in August 1913, almost a year after Greeks had already won Thessaloniki. So, why are they not crying about the Treaty of London then, which determined the fate of their land, and only make noises about the Treaty of Buccarest that only determined the fate of a small part in the SE part of FYROM? The fact that the Skopje ultra-nationalist are whining and crying about the Treaty of Bucharest, is only reminiscing of the bitter tears their Bugari grandparents shed for having seen majka Balgarija lose to the hated Srbi and Grci. If it was not for the Treaty of Bucharest, FYROM would be part of Bulgaria...and as fate had it, with the intervention of Tito, they became Makedonci, not Makedonci Bugari. Is this the real reason why some of them are crying?
 |
| The ottoman army's Hasan Tahsin pasha capitulating to Constantinos. King George I entering Thessaloniki on Oct. 26, 1912, ten months before the signing of the Treaty of Buccharest. |
POINT B: "In haste to build and instill into this bewildered hodgepodge of
leftover Balkanites - Slavs, Albanians, Gypsies and Vlachs - a new
Greek identity, these idealistic westerners forgot to install a safety
valve for the inflated Greek ego."
 |
| Greeks: "...bewildered hodgepodge of leftover Balkanites..." but damn proud of their heritage! |
comprehend:
"In haste to build and instill into this bewildered hodgepodge of
leftover Europenites and Africanites – Slavs, Mexicans, Nigers,
Gypsies and Jews - a new Yankee identity, these idealistic westerners
forgot to install a safety valve for the inflated American ego."
How does that sound? Can the author of such a hideously racist excrement of a twisted humanoid brain have the moral footings to accuse anyone else of "promoting KKK ideology"?
 |
| Americans, Canadians, Australians: "...bewildered hodgepodge of leftover Europenites, Asiatics, Africanites..." if we are to follow Stefov's twisted Nazi logic |
PS: We don't live in Skopje here. While it is easy to accuse someone publicly of "promoting KKK ideology", when slapped with a libel suit for defamation, the irresponsible party will need to bring along to the court of law some solid proof of that "promotion", or they will have to eat their words like Charlie Chaplin ate his shoes, and we will make sure we are there to watch it.
POINT C: " If the ancient boundaries of Greece do not coincide with the modern-day Greece's location and size, then the answer should be found in the "unredeemed" Greek territories."
Unlike Bulgaria, Turkey or Yugoslavia, and unlike Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Japan or the USA, not to speak of Canada and Australia, Greece has not taken part in any offensive war ever since 1922. It has in fact lost lands won post WWI and the Treaty of Sevres.The Dodecanese islands, are greek inhabited islands which Italy had won from the Ottomans and were given to Greece as compensation from Italy for all the destruction that Greece suffered during the triple occupation of Italy, Germany and Bulgaria during WWII. Greece has not made any implicit or explicit demands on the lands of any of its neighbors ever since 1922, and if anything, both Yugoslavia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Makedonija have made numerous land grab claims against Greece. Yugoslavia in the 1940's and '50's, backed up by Yugoslav partisans and armed intervention and mingling in the Greek civil war, and FYROM through its constitution, its irredentist maps, school books, state sponsored publications and constant propaganda pounding of the Slavomacedonian population about Obedineta Makredonija "United Macedonia", the enslaved motherland of the "ethnic Macedonians" currently "occupied" but the un-Macedonian "Grci".
POINT D: Again on "promoting KKK ideology":
"Your virulent attack on Macedonia, its leadership and people ("The arrest, disappearance and possible murder of a critic of PM Nicola Gruevski in FYROM",
published on July 28. 2009 in the American Chronicle), is nothing less
than an expression of your deep-seated bigotry and hate for the ethnic
Macedonians."
The aforementioned article exposed the Gruevski administration of Stalinist style imprisonment of a vocal opponent of its pseudo-Makedonist campaign, and all of a sudden I stand accused of "promoting KKK ideology"? Very interesting train of thought indeed. I forgot that in Gruevski's VMRO regime there is only:
One people, One nation, One leader: Gruevski! An attack on one, is taken as an attack on all.
What is the German slogan, again?
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!"
An attack on the Führer, is an attack on the Nation! It is obvious that the ones who attack the Führer must be shut into concentration camps and be gased!...Oh, wait, maybe not practical an idea, when your country is a candidate member begging entry into the EU. Change of plans: just lock' em up in the Bardovci psychiatric clinic and drug 'em up with expired psycho drugs. That will do the trick! Send some money to Toronto too, to oil the diaspora propaganda section. We need to have more ideology goons writing this kind of crap. It's crap, alright, but its VMRO-DPMNE supporting, "good" crap:
"Laden with racism and hate, your portrayal of Macedonia and its leadership bristles with heavy inaccuracies."
God forbid if FYROM's "leadership" is portrayed like the cosa nostra Balkanika that it is! One opposition TV channel closed and two opposition newspapers shut down by Gruevski's mafiosi, I mean, police, have not been enough to hush up the growing internal uproar! Who needs external lights on VMRO-DPMNE's heavy handed political control of FYROM's polity!
On another point, speaking of KKK ideology, maybe the Slavomacedonian ultra-nationalist propagandists should look a bit closer to home. In what other country in the world would such a no hands down deleteriously racist and Nazi propaganda would be not only permitted but paid for and promoted by state TV? What would the (non-"Makedonoide-White race" nor even "Negroide race" but a mere "Mulato") current president of the USA think if he was to watch this hemetic product of Skopje state TV?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBRoocbMSEE
The translation is included, below the video, but here is a good excerpt, where none other than God himself is speaking on Skopje's national TV, promoting pseudo-Makedonism:
"Divine blessing for you, my Macedonians. I have waited for thousands of years to be called by you. From always with you, from eternity I am coming, I am already among you because here neither time nor space exists. Here, at my place, the time is still. But at your place, the time is now, for me to explain. Your mother Earth I have inhabited with three races: the White-Macedonoids, the Yellow-Mongoloids and the Black-Negroids. The rest-all are mulattoes. From you, Macedonians, the descendants of Macedon, I have impregnated the White race and everything began from you, to the Sea of Japan. All White people are your brothers because they carry Macedonian gene. And all the migrations started from your place towards the north. Kokino, Porodin, Radobor, Angelci, Barutnica, Govrlevo, wherever you dig you shall find the truth who you are, why you are and from where are you. Evil diabolic souls obscured the truth for thousands of years and lied to the world."
POINT C: " If the ancient boundaries of Greece do not coincide with the modern-day Greece's location and size, then the answer should be found in the "unredeemed" Greek territories."
Unlike Bulgaria, Turkey or Yugoslavia, and unlike Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Japan or the USA, not to speak of Canada and Australia, Greece has not taken part in any offensive war ever since 1922. It has in fact lost lands won post WWI and the Treaty of Sevres.The Dodecanese islands, are greek inhabited islands which Italy had won from the Ottomans and were given to Greece as compensation from Italy for all the destruction that Greece suffered during the triple occupation of Italy, Germany and Bulgaria during WWII. Greece has not made any implicit or explicit demands on the lands of any of its neighbors ever since 1922, and if anything, both Yugoslavia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Makedonija have made numerous land grab claims against Greece. Yugoslavia in the 1940's and '50's, backed up by Yugoslav partisans and armed intervention and mingling in the Greek civil war, and FYROM through its constitution, its irredentist maps, school books, state sponsored publications and constant propaganda pounding of the Slavomacedonian population about Obedineta Makredonija "United Macedonia", the enslaved motherland of the "ethnic Macedonians" currently "occupied" but the un-Macedonian "Grci".
POINT D: Again on "promoting KKK ideology":
"Your virulent attack on Macedonia, its leadership and people ("The arrest, disappearance and possible murder of a critic of PM Nicola Gruevski in FYROM",
published on July 28. 2009 in the American Chronicle), is nothing less
than an expression of your deep-seated bigotry and hate for the ethnic
Macedonians."
The aforementioned article exposed the Gruevski administration of Stalinist style imprisonment of a vocal opponent of its pseudo-Makedonist campaign, and all of a sudden I stand accused of "promoting KKK ideology"? Very interesting train of thought indeed. I forgot that in Gruevski's VMRO regime there is only:
One people, One nation, One leader: Gruevski! An attack on one, is taken as an attack on all.
What is the German slogan, again?
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!"
An attack on the Führer, is an attack on the Nation! It is obvious that the ones who attack the Führer must be shut into concentration camps and be gased!...Oh, wait, maybe not practical an idea, when your country is a candidate member begging entry into the EU. Change of plans: just lock' em up in the Bardovci psychiatric clinic and drug 'em up with expired psycho drugs. That will do the trick! Send some money to Toronto too, to oil the diaspora propaganda section. We need to have more ideology goons writing this kind of crap. It's crap, alright, but its VMRO-DPMNE supporting, "good" crap:
"Laden with racism and hate, your portrayal of Macedonia and its leadership bristles with heavy inaccuracies."
God forbid if FYROM's "leadership" is portrayed like the cosa nostra Balkanika that it is! One opposition TV channel closed and two opposition newspapers shut down by Gruevski's mafiosi, I mean, police, have not been enough to hush up the growing internal uproar! Who needs external lights on VMRO-DPMNE's heavy handed political control of FYROM's polity!
On another point, speaking of KKK ideology, maybe the Slavomacedonian ultra-nationalist propagandists should look a bit closer to home. In what other country in the world would such a no hands down deleteriously racist and Nazi propaganda would be not only permitted but paid for and promoted by state TV? What would the (non-"Makedonoide-White race" nor even "Negroide race" but a mere "Mulato") current president of the USA think if he was to watch this hemetic product of Skopje state TV?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBRoocbMSEE
The translation is included, below the video, but here is a good excerpt, where none other than God himself is speaking on Skopje's national TV, promoting pseudo-Makedonism:
"Divine blessing for you, my Macedonians. I have waited for thousands of years to be called by you. From always with you, from eternity I am coming, I am already among you because here neither time nor space exists. Here, at my place, the time is still. But at your place, the time is now, for me to explain. Your mother Earth I have inhabited with three races: the White-Macedonoids, the Yellow-Mongoloids and the Black-Negroids. The rest-all are mulattoes. From you, Macedonians, the descendants of Macedon, I have impregnated the White race and everything began from you, to the Sea of Japan. All White people are your brothers because they carry Macedonian gene. And all the migrations started from your place towards the north. Kokino, Porodin, Radobor, Angelci, Barutnica, Govrlevo, wherever you dig you shall find the truth who you are, why you are and from where are you. Evil diabolic souls obscured the truth for thousands of years and lied to the world."
Let me repeat the charge: Your virulent attack on Macedonia, its leadership and people... is nothing less than an expression of your deep-seated bigotry and hate for the ethnic Macedonians.
First of all, there are no ethnic Macedonians. Being a Macedonian myself I am not going to stay idle by while Stefov & Co. refuse me my Makedonism, claiming Macedonia as his exclusive tribal turf, disenfranchising me of my identity and cultural roots. There are not now and there never were an ethnic Macedonian, and the ancient Macedonians sure as hell did not speak Slavic but Greek. Secondly, for someone to accuse me of "...deep-seated bigotry and hate for the.." Slavo-Macedonians, they should produce such manifestation. Our attacks have been merciless but fully justified and they were NEVER AGAINST THE PEOPLE but against the pseudo-Makedonist leadership and propagandists. We respect and love the Slavomacedonians with whom we have never had anything to divide. We throw to the dogs of derision the ultra-nationalist Skopjan pseudo-Makedonists who have brought only hatred, division, political and economic poverty and isolation. As for the "our virulent attack on...(Skopje's pseudo-Makedonist leadership" and to the paid parade of ludicrous apologists, we happily plead guilty as charged: It is our firm belief and conviction that if you love the people you must attack the VMRO-DPMNE party, its central Asian style Makedonbashi Führer and all that the third world misery that they represent!
 | |
| An attack on the Führer and his Central Asian type heavy handed leadership style and abysmal civil rights record is branded an attack on the Slavomacedonian people! |
A question is now being raised. Is our attack on Gruevski's Stalinist methods of locking up its political opponents in psychiatric clinics (our article: "The arrest, disappearance and possible murder of a critic of PM Nicola Gruevski in FYROM"), in the interests of the Slavomacedonian people, or not? If the struggle to free the political future of FYROM and its multi-ethnic society from the cancer that Bukefalist pseudo-Makredonism represents is in the best long term interests of the Slavomacedonian people, which we fervently believe that it is, then by default, the cheerleaders and paid apologists of this fraudulent cult, a cult that has poisoned the political life and ethnic-minority relations as well as the international relations with ALL of Slavomacedonia's neighbors for years to come, these then are the most deleterious enemies of their people, these fanatical, color-blind knaves who treat the Slavomacedonian people as simple blind fools, are the worst enemies of their kin and, and the grave-diggers of the future for the youth of their country.
POINT E: "The linguistic criteria are not only insufficient to denote ethnic
nuances in the Balkans; they can also be misleading."
"In other words, language does not denote or equate with ethnicity...
To sum it up: "it is identity that counts, not language not blood, not anything else."
As you can see Mr. Boralis, your feet are not resting on a firm ground. In other words, you are walking on thin ice. That usually happens to people who, as you so loudly put it in your article, use lies and distortions. So, it is not the language people speak or write that identifies the person's ethnicity? What about the inscriptions written in Greek that "prove" Alexander's Greek-ness? Which is it?"
It might come as a surprise to some, but the world is not as black and white as their color blind narrow vision and handicapped intellectual capacity might allow. The world is colorful and not everything fits the narrow cookie cutter standards of the less bright.
I know that it sounds like divine wonder to some, but the fact that South Africans and Australians speak the same language does not signify the same ethnicity. Likewise, speaking the same language, Spanish, does not make an Argentinian proud of his Mexicanidad. Are we clear on this?
We move to the next point. A Russian Jew and an Israeli Jew feel as belonging to the same ethnicity despite their ability to converse in the same language, one speaking Russian, or even Yiddish, and the other in Hebrew. A Jew in America may only feel culturally and or religiously Jewish, while the Russian Jew is Jewish in an ethnic sense, and he is legally considered to be a member of an "ethnic minority" by Russian law. He may or may not be religious. An Israeli Jew is ethnically Israeli and he feels Jewish whether he is religious or secular. The same can be said of an Armenian of Greece, of France, of Turkey and of Armenia, Iran, the USA or Russia. He may or may not be religious, he may or may not be speaking Armenian, but if he has an Armenian identity, then he is an Armenian. The ethnic and religious can over the years recede into cultural only and vice versa. A Muslim Slav from Bosnia had never acquired an ethnic identity and many had lost their religious identity that had receded into a cultural identity: Their grandparents were Muslim, so, if asked they would identify themselves as Muslims, and could easily intermarry with Catholic Croats or Orthodox Serbs. After the civil war, most Bosnian Muslims elevated their cultural and religious identity into an ethnic identity and now they even have their own language: Bosnian! You can also call it Serbocroatobosnian, but you may be run over by a nationalist truck or two...or three! Before the Balkan wars and WWI, someone could be a Turkophone Greek in central Anatolia, in Turkey that had lost his Greek language over the years but not his Greek Orthodox religious and cultural and ethnic identity. You could also be a Greek Muslim who spoke perfect Greek, in Macedonia or Thessaly or Crete, but lost your religious and ethnic identity, since being Muslim made someone identify themselves as Turkish. During the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, there were Greeks who came to Greece who spoke not a word of Greek and Greek Muslims who left because they identify themselves as Turkish. In Macedonia, and Albania there were bilingual people who could and did switch from one identity to another. I had dinner with a n army friend and his wife in Edessa a few years ago, and my friend's wife told me that her cousin's were coming from Bulgaria to work on the fruit orchards on picking season. Your cousins from Bulgaria? I asked? Were they children of civil war partisans from the 1940's? No...they had left earlier, in the Greek-Bulgarian voluntary population exchange of the 1920's. Momentary puzzlement on my part. That was normal back then, she explained. My grandfather was Greek, but his brother decided that he was a Bulgarian, so he left. Being brothers, they kept in contact. Now the grandchildren have different ethnic identities, this side Greek, that side Bulgarian, and they communicate in English! This was the time when the Exarchists were still calling themselves Bugari, the call for united Makedonija was only being promoted by Bulgarian fascists and the Bulgarian Communist Party and Kriste Misirkov was still debating in front of the mirror as to what to call himself, a simple Bulgarian, or a truest kind of Bulgarian, i.e. a Makedonetch.
POINT F. Did I ever say or write that Philip and Alexander were Greek just because all the ancient inscriptions found in Macedonia written by and intended to be read by the ancient Macedonians were Greek? I am sure I did not. Let me see what I wrote:
"Finally, we have the strongest indication on the ethnicity of the Ancient Macedonians, is their Greek language." Yes, indeed this is correct. The "strongest indication" on what? "...on the ethnicity of the Ancient Macedonians". No Alexander, no Philip involved in this. And I did not say proof either, I said "indication": one indication. You add several indications and then you have the proof!
For example, you put also the fact that Macedonia and all the countries that Alexander conquered are full of Greek theaters and this is another indication that the people who went into these Greek theaters were able to understand Aeschylus and Euripides because that is what they would hear in those theaters, not Chinese opera.
Add to this that the inscriptions to the men of Macedonia for conscription into the army was all written in Coene Greek and then you can see that by the fourth century BC the local Macedonian dialect had recessed to the point that everyone could understand standard Coene Greek. Should we also add that in the Christian bible when we hear of St. Paul visiting Philippoi and Thessaloniki, Apollonia and Berroia he meets Jews and Greeks and never mentions any "ethnic" Makedonci? I suppose this is another indication of the ethnic character of the ancient Macedonians. Should we also add the fact that wherever the Macedonians went, starting from Paeonia and Thrace to Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Bactria and India, we see the Greek language to be propagating and we see these Macedonians call themselves Macedonians only as a geographic determinant but Greeks in ethnicity? Is the
spread of the Greek language another indication of the language that the ancient Macedonians spoke? Is the fact that Jewish and Sanskrit and Iranian texts mention Greeks when they speak of Alexander's Macedonians? I suppose this is another indication. How about the fact that when Alexander asked that his Persian recruits be taught to fight in the way of the Macedonians and asked to have them learn Greek so that they can join his army...is that possibly an indication too of what language the Macedonian army was using for its commands? After all, the first thing you learn once you decide to join the Foreign Legion, is the French language, n'est-ce pas? Now, when someone lives in France, he speaks French, if he travels the world and he only reads French poetry and asks his friends to send him more French books, his father has been known to be a Frenchman, his mama is a French lady and his great great grandpa was proclaiming to the world that he was French...there is no way that I am going to call this man a Ukrainian. I am sorry, I cannot. I'd say that the better guess is that he is a Frenchman.
Now, we know Alexander had his Homer's Iliad and Odyssey with him all the time, he even had a Persian golden box to keep them in, he orderedGreek poetry and philosophy to be sent to him from Macedonia whilesightseeing and touring in Afghanistan. His father was called the only statement among all the Greeks who has worked for the good of Greece, against the barbarians ("When, therefore, you see the renown which even in a single city is bestowed on men who possess these gifts, what manner of eulogies must you expect to hear spoken of you, when among all the Hellenes you shall stand forth as a statesman who has worked for the good of Hellas, and as a general who has overthrown the barbarians?"Isoc. 5 140), He was also called a no good for nothing barbarian, but also "more Greek than all Greeks", by the same self proclaimed "queer, ill-conditioned fellow", Demosthenes:
308] And as for Philip, why, by Heracles, he was more Greek than all
Greeks, the finest orator and inspeech friendliest than everyone
towards Athens you could find in the whole world. And yet there were
some queer, ill-conditioned fellows in this city who did not blush to
abuse him, and even to call him a barbarian!"
Alexander's mother was Myrtele, a Greek princess from the royal house of Molossoi in Epeirus, who had to change her Greek name Myrtale to the even more Greek Olympias when she married into the Macedonian Royal household. His great great grandfather was Alexandros I, the benefactor of all Greeks, who, through Herodotus relayed to us that:
"Had I not greatly at heart the common welfare of Greece, I should not have come to tell you; but I am myself a Greek by descent, and I would not willingly see Greece exchange freedom for slavery...consider the risk I have run, out of zeal for the Greek cause, to acquaint you with what Mardonius intends, and to save you from being surprised by the barbarians. I am Alexander of Macedon."
"He goes to great pains to convince the reader that Alexander the Great was Greek because the writings on the found artifacts were in the ancient Greek language." I suppose we covered this.
Now:
"The fact that neither Philip nor Alexander the Great ever claimed to
be Greek or to have Greek consciousness is simply immaterial to him."
Let's read:
"While Alexander was in the region, a prophecy is said to have
occurred. A fountain near Xanthos suddenly welled up of its own accord
and threw out a bronze tablet inscribed with archaic letters
announcing the overthrow of the Persian Empire by the Greeks."
I read this in a Turkish web site:
http://www.exploreturkey.com/exptur.phtml?id=199
nuances in the Balkans; they can also be misleading."
"In other words, language does not denote or equate with ethnicity...
To sum it up: "it is identity that counts, not language not blood, not anything else."
As you can see Mr. Boralis, your feet are not resting on a firm ground. In other words, you are walking on thin ice. That usually happens to people who, as you so loudly put it in your article, use lies and distortions. So, it is not the language people speak or write that identifies the person's ethnicity? What about the inscriptions written in Greek that "prove" Alexander's Greek-ness? Which is it?"
It might come as a surprise to some, but the world is not as black and white as their color blind narrow vision and handicapped intellectual capacity might allow. The world is colorful and not everything fits the narrow cookie cutter standards of the less bright.
I know that it sounds like divine wonder to some, but the fact that South Africans and Australians speak the same language does not signify the same ethnicity. Likewise, speaking the same language, Spanish, does not make an Argentinian proud of his Mexicanidad. Are we clear on this?
We move to the next point. A Russian Jew and an Israeli Jew feel as belonging to the same ethnicity despite their ability to converse in the same language, one speaking Russian, or even Yiddish, and the other in Hebrew. A Jew in America may only feel culturally and or religiously Jewish, while the Russian Jew is Jewish in an ethnic sense, and he is legally considered to be a member of an "ethnic minority" by Russian law. He may or may not be religious. An Israeli Jew is ethnically Israeli and he feels Jewish whether he is religious or secular. The same can be said of an Armenian of Greece, of France, of Turkey and of Armenia, Iran, the USA or Russia. He may or may not be religious, he may or may not be speaking Armenian, but if he has an Armenian identity, then he is an Armenian. The ethnic and religious can over the years recede into cultural only and vice versa. A Muslim Slav from Bosnia had never acquired an ethnic identity and many had lost their religious identity that had receded into a cultural identity: Their grandparents were Muslim, so, if asked they would identify themselves as Muslims, and could easily intermarry with Catholic Croats or Orthodox Serbs. After the civil war, most Bosnian Muslims elevated their cultural and religious identity into an ethnic identity and now they even have their own language: Bosnian! You can also call it Serbocroatobosnian, but you may be run over by a nationalist truck or two...or three! Before the Balkan wars and WWI, someone could be a Turkophone Greek in central Anatolia, in Turkey that had lost his Greek language over the years but not his Greek Orthodox religious and cultural and ethnic identity. You could also be a Greek Muslim who spoke perfect Greek, in Macedonia or Thessaly or Crete, but lost your religious and ethnic identity, since being Muslim made someone identify themselves as Turkish. During the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, there were Greeks who came to Greece who spoke not a word of Greek and Greek Muslims who left because they identify themselves as Turkish. In Macedonia, and Albania there were bilingual people who could and did switch from one identity to another. I had dinner with a n army friend and his wife in Edessa a few years ago, and my friend's wife told me that her cousin's were coming from Bulgaria to work on the fruit orchards on picking season. Your cousins from Bulgaria? I asked? Were they children of civil war partisans from the 1940's? No...they had left earlier, in the Greek-Bulgarian voluntary population exchange of the 1920's. Momentary puzzlement on my part. That was normal back then, she explained. My grandfather was Greek, but his brother decided that he was a Bulgarian, so he left. Being brothers, they kept in contact. Now the grandchildren have different ethnic identities, this side Greek, that side Bulgarian, and they communicate in English! This was the time when the Exarchists were still calling themselves Bugari, the call for united Makedonija was only being promoted by Bulgarian fascists and the Bulgarian Communist Party and Kriste Misirkov was still debating in front of the mirror as to what to call himself, a simple Bulgarian, or a truest kind of Bulgarian, i.e. a Makedonetch.
POINT F. Did I ever say or write that Philip and Alexander were Greek just because all the ancient inscriptions found in Macedonia written by and intended to be read by the ancient Macedonians were Greek? I am sure I did not. Let me see what I wrote:
"Finally, we have the strongest indication on the ethnicity of the Ancient Macedonians, is their Greek language." Yes, indeed this is correct. The "strongest indication" on what? "...on the ethnicity of the Ancient Macedonians". No Alexander, no Philip involved in this. And I did not say proof either, I said "indication": one indication. You add several indications and then you have the proof!
For example, you put also the fact that Macedonia and all the countries that Alexander conquered are full of Greek theaters and this is another indication that the people who went into these Greek theaters were able to understand Aeschylus and Euripides because that is what they would hear in those theaters, not Chinese opera.
 |
| The restored Hellenistic theater of Babylon, in Iraq, dating from the time of Alexander |
spread of the Greek language another indication of the language that the ancient Macedonians spoke? Is the fact that Jewish and Sanskrit and Iranian texts mention Greeks when they speak of Alexander's Macedonians? I suppose this is another indication. How about the fact that when Alexander asked that his Persian recruits be taught to fight in the way of the Macedonians and asked to have them learn Greek so that they can join his army...is that possibly an indication too of what language the Macedonian army was using for its commands? After all, the first thing you learn once you decide to join the Foreign Legion, is the French language, n'est-ce pas? Now, when someone lives in France, he speaks French, if he travels the world and he only reads French poetry and asks his friends to send him more French books, his father has been known to be a Frenchman, his mama is a French lady and his great great grandpa was proclaiming to the world that he was French...there is no way that I am going to call this man a Ukrainian. I am sorry, I cannot. I'd say that the better guess is that he is a Frenchman.
Now, we know Alexander had his Homer's Iliad and Odyssey with him all the time, he even had a Persian golden box to keep them in, he orderedGreek poetry and philosophy to be sent to him from Macedonia whilesightseeing and touring in Afghanistan. His father was called the only statement among all the Greeks who has worked for the good of Greece, against the barbarians ("When, therefore, you see the renown which even in a single city is bestowed on men who possess these gifts, what manner of eulogies must you expect to hear spoken of you, when among all the Hellenes you shall stand forth as a statesman who has worked for the good of Hellas, and as a general who has overthrown the barbarians?"Isoc. 5 140), He was also called a no good for nothing barbarian, but also "more Greek than all Greeks", by the same self proclaimed "queer, ill-conditioned fellow", Demosthenes:
308] And as for Philip, why, by Heracles, he was more Greek than all
Greeks, the finest orator and inspeech friendliest than everyone
towards Athens you could find in the whole world. And yet there were
some queer, ill-conditioned fellows in this city who did not blush to
abuse him, and even to call him a barbarian!"
Alexander's mother was Myrtele, a Greek princess from the royal house of Molossoi in Epeirus, who had to change her Greek name Myrtale to the even more Greek Olympias when she married into the Macedonian Royal household. His great great grandfather was Alexandros I, the benefactor of all Greeks, who, through Herodotus relayed to us that:
"Had I not greatly at heart the common welfare of Greece, I should not have come to tell you; but I am myself a Greek by descent, and I would not willingly see Greece exchange freedom for slavery...consider the risk I have run, out of zeal for the Greek cause, to acquaint you with what Mardonius intends, and to save you from being surprised by the barbarians. I am Alexander of Macedon."
"He goes to great pains to convince the reader that Alexander the Great was Greek because the writings on the found artifacts were in the ancient Greek language." I suppose we covered this.
Now:
"The fact that neither Philip nor Alexander the Great ever claimed to
be Greek or to have Greek consciousness is simply immaterial to him."
Let's read:
"While Alexander was in the region, a prophecy is said to have
occurred. A fountain near Xanthos suddenly welled up of its own accord
and threw out a bronze tablet inscribed with archaic letters
announcing the overthrow of the Persian Empire by the Greeks."
I read this in a Turkish web site:
http://www.exploreturkey.com/exptur.phtml?id=199
Nobody could accuse the Turks of firebrand Philhellenism. So, then, if Alexander was, let's say a Proto-Slav Makedonskiot...why on earth would he be
"[3] Encouraged by this prophecy, Alexander hastened to clear up the seacoast as far as
Cilicia and Phoenicia." ?
Let us read again this prophesy which made Alexander be so encouraged:
"Now, there is in Lycia, near the city of Xanthus, a spring, which at
this time, as we are told, was of its own motion upheaved from its
depths, and overflowed, and cast forth a bronze tablet bearing the
prints of ancient letters, in which it was made known that the empire
of the Persians would one day be destroyed by the Greeks and come to
an end. "
"[3] Encouraged by this prophecy, Alexander hastened to clear up the seacoast as far as
Cilicia and Phoenicia." ?
Let us read again this prophesy which made Alexander be so encouraged:
"Now, there is in Lycia, near the city of Xanthus, a spring, which at
this time, as we are told, was of its own motion upheaved from its
depths, and overflowed, and cast forth a bronze tablet bearing the
prints of ancient letters, in which it was made known that the empire
of the Persians would one day be destroyed by the Greeks and come to
an end. "
Plutarch Alexander 17.2
Let me just say this: If I were Aleksandar Makedonskiot the ProtoSlav Czar of the Slavomakedonci and heard that "the Persians would one day be destroyed by the Greeks ", I not depressed!...not encouraged...I would have called it quits and turned the army back! Why waste my time!...if it was to be the Greeks who would destroy the empire of the Persians? Now, one more tiny point.
Why did Alexander say "Alexandros Philippou and the Hellenes..."? Does this mean that pseudo-Makedonism's "Aleksandar Makedonskiot" forgot to take his "ethnic Makedonci" to the Granicus river battle? He obviously did not mean to say that his Makedonci were Greeks... did he? He did not mean to say that he had won that great battle against the Persian satraps with ALL the Greeks, INCLUDING his Macedonians...or did he?
Let me just say this: If I were Aleksandar Makedonskiot the ProtoSlav Czar of the Slavomakedonci and heard that "the Persians would one day be destroyed by the Greeks ", I not depressed!...not encouraged...I would have called it quits and turned the army back! Why waste my time!...if it was to be the Greeks who would destroy the empire of the Persians? Now, one more tiny point.
Why did Alexander say "Alexandros Philippou and the Hellenes..."? Does this mean that pseudo-Makedonism's "Aleksandar Makedonskiot" forgot to take his "ethnic Makedonci" to the Granicus river battle? He obviously did not mean to say that his Makedonci were Greeks... did he? He did not mean to say that he had won that great battle against the Persian satraps with ALL the Greeks, INCLUDING his Macedonians...or did he?
Let's see again:
‘Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Φιλίππου καὶ οἱ Ἕλληνες πλὴν Λακεδαιμονίων
ἀπὸ τῶν βαρβάρων τῶν τὴν Ἀσίαν κατοικούντων’
‘Alexander the son of Philip and all the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians
from the Barbarians who dwell in Asia.’
Yeah...that's a tough one all right...We can't say that Risto did not try...He gave it all he had: "The fact that neither Philip nor Alexander the Great ever claimed to be Greek or to have Greek consciousness...". Talk is cheap.
"Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Φιλίππου καὶ οἱ Ἕλληνες πλὴν Λακεδαιμονίων
Alexander the son of Philip and all the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians", but including the Macedonians is PRICELESS!"Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Φιλίππου καὶ οἱ Ἕλληνες πλὴν Λακεδαιμονίων
We don't feel any sympathy for the poor trickster.. He and his kind are used to academic derision. They write whatever their glava comes down with, they throw some chopped up ancient quote to try to make the ancient Macedonians seem like they were not Greek, and then they wait. If nobody answers their nonsense, they are happy. If someone does, they hush up. They move to the nest issue. Being slapped around by truth and historical documentation is part and parcel of a normal day's job for a Skopjan propagandist and they are well adapted to the fact. It's like being a fake money printer. they print a lot of money, mostly in large denominations...the bigger the lie the more believable. if they are not caught, they keep on printing more. If they are caught, they stop but they continue as soon as they can, because this is the only thing they know how to do. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Whatever the Titoists learned in the Stalinist school or falsification, the Skopjans applied and still apply feverishly till today.
Do they need to see a video where Philip and Alexander proclaim themselves to be Greek, to be convinced? There is none. All you need to do is read the sources. If you cannot read the sources, then go here:
http://macedonia-evidence.org/ , and read the opinion of Academics world wide.But even if ancient videos had been found, Tendov and Boshevski would still invent more Rosetta stones with Demotic Egyptian read as proto-Slavic "Makedonski" in them, Stefov and Odisej Belchevski would invent pre-historic Slavomacedonski Homeric bards that taught that wretched Homer the ABC's of poetry and Aleksandar Donski would invent pseudo-Slavic words for every Greek, Thracian, Illyrian or Latin name ever found in Macedonia.
To end this, I would try to play the devil's advocate. Would the finding of a Slavonic inscription in Macedonia in any script, be it Egyptian, Chinese, Aramaic, Phoenician, Greek or Latin, produced in the years before the descent of the Slavs, of any time before Byzantium, that is, Roman, Hellenistic or Classic or Archaic eras of Macedonia, would this SINGLE inscription containing a proto-Slavic message be heralded as proof that the ancient Macedonians were not Greeks but Slavs? We are being reasonable here. We filled a page of "strong indications" why we believe the Macedonians were Greek. All we ask is for ONE tiny little inscription. What do we have instead? The fraudulent invention of an inscription by two pseudo-scientists on the Rosseta stone, a document that has been translated and scrutinized for almost two hundred years now, making internationally acclaimed bufoons out of the two Electrical engineering professors. And who can forget the notorious pseudo-linguist cum pseudo-historian, Aleksandar Donski, the one who found George W. Bush, and half of the US presidents to date plus Queen Elizabeth of England to be "Makedonci" descendants of Alexander the Great, the one who invents fraudulent pseudo-Slavonic etymologies fooling his nations' youth into a dead alley pseudo-archaist identity. What about the restauranteur-turned paleographer, Wasil Iliov, the charlatan who can read Slavonic Makedonski in every rock inscription south of the Danube...
And are we to accept that the deceptive delusions fabricated by the above named state paid charlatans have the same validity as thousands of Greek inscriptions exception of the several hundred Latin one after the Roman occupation), over 95% of them with Greek names (a few with Thracian or Paeonian ones), are we to say...that they mean nothing?
If a hypothetical catastrophe hits a country, say Holland tomorrow and all that is left for the archaeologist of the future, by which to make a determination of what was the ethnic identity (since identity is a personal issue, and not written in front of the house or place of work of each individual), what should we guess that they will say? he will fins some inscriptions or books in Englishem, German, French, even some Arabic or even Chinese, and some Russian, but the 95 % will be in Dutch. Will such future archaeologist be credible to come to the conclusion that the inhabitants of Holland in the 21st century were Hindus or Iranians?
POINT G: "Instead of disseminating worn-out propaganda lines and attempting to buy and collect new "converts" to your failed political goals you should advise, since you claim to be in that business, your leaders..."
Let me understand this now. I am "buying" converts? And...what exactly is "that business" which I "claim to be in"? I don't know what kind of deals Stefov Inc. is involved in, but some of us happen to work for a living. What we write is out of conviction, not profit. Unlike others, across the table, whatever we write is free in the public domain. And no, we have no money floating around to "buy" converts. After all, we do not run any kind of Buccephalist cult in need of converts. Do not judge others by your contact, in other words. We are all about truth and historical accuracy. Nothing else! And we are not known for showing mercy to pseudo-intellectual frauds.
Charlatans beware! Identity fraud will be relentlessly exposed to derision!
The circus with the clowns and the tigers jumping through the fire circles can be spectacular for some time but you cannot build a stable national identity based on Pharaohnic size statues and pseudo-science. I am sorry to bring an owl to Athena, as the ancient saying goes, but the middle section on the Rosetta stone, despite Tendov and Boshevski's ludicrous claims is not Slavic, but Demotic Egyptian. I am terribly sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the ancient Macedonians spoke a Greek dialect, not any kind of proto-Slavo-Makedonski. Read Nicholas G.L. Hammond, read Eugene Borza, read Ian Worthington, read R.Malcolm Errington, tehre might be dissagreements as to when the Macedonians started speaking Standard Coene Greek, but everyone agrees that their original dialect was a mix of Aeolian and Northwest Greek. I am sorry to remind the Slavomacedonian youth of this, while it is a prerogative of anyone to chose when their previous ethnic identity does not meet their current existence, it is not a crime to say, that their grandparents spoke Bulgarian and thought of themselves as Bugari, or that their Grandparents were Greek and Latin speaking Vlachs even if themselves do not speak those languages any longer, and feel more of Slavic identity nowdays. That is fine. Untold millions of Canadians, Americans, South Africans or Australians have been through that same transformation, and many are now immensely proud of their ethnic mix. And yes, Greeks and Turks, both former imperial nations have had a lot of other nations adopt their identity. A quick comparison between a Greek and a Turk of the Aegean coast will make it apparent that their DNA is not that different, while a comparison of the facial characteristics of Turks from the Aegean coast with Turks from Central Asia will immediately prove that Anatolian Turks are basically Islamized Greeks, Armenians and to a smaller degree Slavs. I doubt that the average Turk cares for this. They feel a strong connection to the very Mongolian-looking Uygur in Xinjiang, the original Turks, who revolted recently against the Han Chinese. It is ok to say that there were Paeonians and Greek speaking Macedonians as well as Ilyrians and Thracians living in those lands in antiquity.Iit is ok to say that FYROM was a Greek speaking and Latin speaking territory before the Slabs showed up in Byzantine times. If it is ok for the Canadians, the Australians the Americans to say that their grandparents met indigenous populations when they arrived 200 to 500 years ago, it is perfectly ok I believe for the young Slavomacedonians to learn that more than a twelve hundred years ago, when the Brijaci and Draguvites and the other Slavonic tribes showed up, there were indeed Greek and Latin speaking Byzantines in this land and they did not simply disappear in thin air, many are still there, making up the ethnic mix of the country. No it is not all right to avoid the basic historic truth and create imbecile myths and make the children that they are basically Makedonci, who lost half of Macedonia to the hated Greeks. It is not ok to parade the Slavomacedonian youth in pseudo-Macedonian-phalangites apparel, making a carnival circus out of them.
The ones who criticize and expose the fraudulent pseudo-Makedonist myths of the VMRO-DPMNE regime and its well-paid apologists worldwide, do not show hatred towards the people of FYROM. The truth makes you stronger, the lies make you weak and vulnerable. A strong identity that can last into the future can only be built on truth, otherwise, and someone does not need a Cassandra, to be told of this, FYROM;'s population will start splitting in their component parts. Yugoslavia did not look anywhere as vulnerable, when I was growing up, yet it took its place in history books as a failed experiment.
Instead of crying and screaming and trying to make their critics as ethnic haters and KKKmen, the apologists of pseudo-Makedonism should consider starting an ethnic Glashnost, an opening up of a national debate as to where they stand and where they want to be 10, 20, 50, 200 years from now.
If anyone is perpetrating a crime against the Slavomacedonian youth, it is those who make a living selling books that promote pseudo-Makedonism and feed it with ethnogonetic myths which cannot stand to any serious academic scrutiny. I am sorry to personalize this but it is obvious that the likes of Donski and Gandeto, Stefov and Kuzman cannot be part of such a renaissance. People who have been tainted with lies and deception, cannot possibly be part of the solution. Ljupco Georgievski is the only exception to the rule, having been a Makedonist in his youth but moving towards a rapprochement with his family's Bulgarian identity. While there are many in FYROM who would be ready to shed Makedonism for Bulgarism, that might in fact create more problems and ethnic splits than solve the overall identity problem in FYROM. Things are not easy, but covering the issues under the rug is not the way to proceed either. First of all, not all Slavomacedonian speaking citizens are of Bulgarian ancestry and who can convince a Vlach or a Torbeshi that they are now Bulgarians?
It is obvious that FYROM cannot stay in limbo in eternity. Something has to give in. To begin with, the Makedonist ultra-nationalists might as well come to terms with reality and forget about grand schemes of Obedineta Makedonija, of taking over northern Greece's historic Macedonia and Bulgaria's Pirin region. Secondly, who says that an ethnically limiting name has to be applied to a state that is a multi-ethnic conglomerate of multiple nationalities in the model of ex-Yugoslavia? Additionally they have to realize that no matter how many countries recognize an inexact name for FYROM, it is obvious by now, after some 20 odd years of tug of war that they cannot get what they want. No government in Greece, no matter how strong or weak will commit suicide in the hands of the two million Macedonian Greeks if it dares compromise on the wrong side of the name issue and gives in to FYROM. The solution, therefore, needs to be one which cannot be negotiated by the builders of bronze equestrian Buccephalist sculptures and godfathers of Philippian stadia and Alexandrian highways.
FINAL THOUGHT:
Until now, they had thought that time is on their side. More and more countries were recognizing FYROM under its pseudonym ROM, and they had thought that the issue will fade into a solution in their favor. Two NATO summits later, the EU doors shut closed and an increasingly restive Albanian minority unwilling to put up with all this nonsense, plus the fact that Greece is bound to have weak governments for some time to come, therefore unable to compromise and be sen as traitor to long term Hellenic national interests and now the bleak realization is finally sinking in:
Time is not on Gruevski's pseudo-Makedonist side after all.
Let me understand this now. I am "buying" converts? And...what exactly is "that business" which I "claim to be in"? I don't know what kind of deals Stefov Inc. is involved in, but some of us happen to work for a living. What we write is out of conviction, not profit. Unlike others, across the table, whatever we write is free in the public domain. And no, we have no money floating around to "buy" converts. After all, we do not run any kind of Buccephalist cult in need of converts. Do not judge others by your contact, in other words. We are all about truth and historical accuracy. Nothing else! And we are not known for showing mercy to pseudo-intellectual frauds.
Charlatans beware! Identity fraud will be relentlessly exposed to derision!
The circus with the clowns and the tigers jumping through the fire circles can be spectacular for some time but you cannot build a stable national identity based on Pharaohnic size statues and pseudo-science. I am sorry to bring an owl to Athena, as the ancient saying goes, but the middle section on the Rosetta stone, despite Tendov and Boshevski's ludicrous claims is not Slavic, but Demotic Egyptian. I am terribly sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the ancient Macedonians spoke a Greek dialect, not any kind of proto-Slavo-Makedonski. Read Nicholas G.L. Hammond, read Eugene Borza, read Ian Worthington, read R.Malcolm Errington, tehre might be dissagreements as to when the Macedonians started speaking Standard Coene Greek, but everyone agrees that their original dialect was a mix of Aeolian and Northwest Greek. I am sorry to remind the Slavomacedonian youth of this, while it is a prerogative of anyone to chose when their previous ethnic identity does not meet their current existence, it is not a crime to say, that their grandparents spoke Bulgarian and thought of themselves as Bugari, or that their Grandparents were Greek and Latin speaking Vlachs even if themselves do not speak those languages any longer, and feel more of Slavic identity nowdays. That is fine. Untold millions of Canadians, Americans, South Africans or Australians have been through that same transformation, and many are now immensely proud of their ethnic mix. And yes, Greeks and Turks, both former imperial nations have had a lot of other nations adopt their identity. A quick comparison between a Greek and a Turk of the Aegean coast will make it apparent that their DNA is not that different, while a comparison of the facial characteristics of Turks from the Aegean coast with Turks from Central Asia will immediately prove that Anatolian Turks are basically Islamized Greeks, Armenians and to a smaller degree Slavs. I doubt that the average Turk cares for this. They feel a strong connection to the very Mongolian-looking Uygur in Xinjiang, the original Turks, who revolted recently against the Han Chinese. It is ok to say that there were Paeonians and Greek speaking Macedonians as well as Ilyrians and Thracians living in those lands in antiquity.Iit is ok to say that FYROM was a Greek speaking and Latin speaking territory before the Slabs showed up in Byzantine times. If it is ok for the Canadians, the Australians the Americans to say that their grandparents met indigenous populations when they arrived 200 to 500 years ago, it is perfectly ok I believe for the young Slavomacedonians to learn that more than a twelve hundred years ago, when the Brijaci and Draguvites and the other Slavonic tribes showed up, there were indeed Greek and Latin speaking Byzantines in this land and they did not simply disappear in thin air, many are still there, making up the ethnic mix of the country. No it is not all right to avoid the basic historic truth and create imbecile myths and make the children that they are basically Makedonci, who lost half of Macedonia to the hated Greeks. It is not ok to parade the Slavomacedonian youth in pseudo-Macedonian-phalangites apparel, making a carnival circus out of them.
The ones who criticize and expose the fraudulent pseudo-Makedonist myths of the VMRO-DPMNE regime and its well-paid apologists worldwide, do not show hatred towards the people of FYROM. The truth makes you stronger, the lies make you weak and vulnerable. A strong identity that can last into the future can only be built on truth, otherwise, and someone does not need a Cassandra, to be told of this, FYROM;'s population will start splitting in their component parts. Yugoslavia did not look anywhere as vulnerable, when I was growing up, yet it took its place in history books as a failed experiment.
Instead of crying and screaming and trying to make their critics as ethnic haters and KKKmen, the apologists of pseudo-Makedonism should consider starting an ethnic Glashnost, an opening up of a national debate as to where they stand and where they want to be 10, 20, 50, 200 years from now.
If anyone is perpetrating a crime against the Slavomacedonian youth, it is those who make a living selling books that promote pseudo-Makedonism and feed it with ethnogonetic myths which cannot stand to any serious academic scrutiny. I am sorry to personalize this but it is obvious that the likes of Donski and Gandeto, Stefov and Kuzman cannot be part of such a renaissance. People who have been tainted with lies and deception, cannot possibly be part of the solution. Ljupco Georgievski is the only exception to the rule, having been a Makedonist in his youth but moving towards a rapprochement with his family's Bulgarian identity. While there are many in FYROM who would be ready to shed Makedonism for Bulgarism, that might in fact create more problems and ethnic splits than solve the overall identity problem in FYROM. Things are not easy, but covering the issues under the rug is not the way to proceed either. First of all, not all Slavomacedonian speaking citizens are of Bulgarian ancestry and who can convince a Vlach or a Torbeshi that they are now Bulgarians?
It is obvious that FYROM cannot stay in limbo in eternity. Something has to give in. To begin with, the Makedonist ultra-nationalists might as well come to terms with reality and forget about grand schemes of Obedineta Makedonija, of taking over northern Greece's historic Macedonia and Bulgaria's Pirin region. Secondly, who says that an ethnically limiting name has to be applied to a state that is a multi-ethnic conglomerate of multiple nationalities in the model of ex-Yugoslavia? Additionally they have to realize that no matter how many countries recognize an inexact name for FYROM, it is obvious by now, after some 20 odd years of tug of war that they cannot get what they want. No government in Greece, no matter how strong or weak will commit suicide in the hands of the two million Macedonian Greeks if it dares compromise on the wrong side of the name issue and gives in to FYROM. The solution, therefore, needs to be one which cannot be negotiated by the builders of bronze equestrian Buccephalist sculptures and godfathers of Philippian stadia and Alexandrian highways.
FINAL THOUGHT:
Until now, they had thought that time is on their side. More and more countries were recognizing FYROM under its pseudonym ROM, and they had thought that the issue will fade into a solution in their favor. Two NATO summits later, the EU doors shut closed and an increasingly restive Albanian minority unwilling to put up with all this nonsense, plus the fact that Greece is bound to have weak governments for some time to come, therefore unable to compromise and be sen as traitor to long term Hellenic national interests and now the bleak realization is finally sinking in:
Time is not on Gruevski's pseudo-Makedonist side after all.
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