http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/guest-commentary/194437-american-hellenic-institute-president-nick-larigakis
By: Miltiades Elia Bolaris
Refering to Sandox's comments* I must regretfully conclude that the Tito School of Stalinist Falsification in Skopje, working in the proud tradition of the Propagandsa Department of the Federal Republic of Slavic Makedonija in Yugoslavija, needs to urgently update its arsenal of fabrications against the Greeks. .
A. Arguing that "Greece...never opposed Macedonia being called Macedonia while it was a province of the former Yugoslavia", is a good enough lie to fool someone ignorant of the region's history. Greece vehemently opposed the baptizing oif Yugoslavia's Bulgarian speaking Slavs as "ethnic Macedonians" because correctly saw it as "a posible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece", as the then US Secretary od State Edward Stettinius prophetically declared. What saved Tito in the eyes of the west was the Stalin-Tito split that made Tito the darling of London and Washington, who then pressured Greece to take a more conciliatory stance against Yugoslavia. This issue remained the thorn in the eye of good relations between Greecce and Yugoslavija throughout the cold war and beyond.
B. The claim that "the Greek position seemed to change overnight only when Macedonia became independent and had an international expression of identity and sovereignty" is unsupported by the facts. What did change is the outrage of the Macedonian Greeks who forced the issue out of the hallways of diplomacy and brought it in the streets of Thessaloniki, one million strong. It is one thing being a federal state which nobody knows, some remote Dakestan, and another issue altogether being a country that claims your history, your culture, your soul as their own. It is not that they can live with being Salv Macedfonians, with which I could live with, but no, they claim to be THE Macedonians, and we, the Macedonians of Greece, the ones who speak the langiuage of Aristotle and Alexander and the ancient Macedonians, we are chopped liver. Thisd was not going to fly then, it is not going to fly now, it is not going to fly with the Macedonian Greeks, even if the politicians oin Athens try to run away from the issue...and they know they cannot run away from to million Macedonian Greek votes.
C. According to the urbn myth popular with Skopje propagandists, "Greece also renamed its upper province of "Northern Greece" to "Macedonia" only in 1988"! This is like saying that before 1988 California was called the "West Coast" ! The truth is that the Ministry overseeing development projects in Northern Greece, Macedonia and Thrace changhed its name from Ministry of Northern Greece to Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace.
D. But the urban myth which crude Skopje propaganda promotes continues unabated: "Before 1988, the Greek position was that there was no such thing as Macedonia, no Macedonian people and identity, and that Macedonia - and all things Macedonian - were a fiction.". Really now...can anyone read Greek maps of 1988 and before? I grew up in Serres, then administratively part of Eastern Macdedonia, now part of Central Macedonia, reading at school about the history of Macedonia, of Philip, the Macedonian king that like anotherr Bismark forcefully united Greece and paved the way for his son Alexander the Great to conquer the East. I, along with my classmates was singing Macedonia, the famous, land of Alexander, and I had family photos taken under the statue of Alexander the Great by the white tower on Thessaloniki's sea shore promenade, decades before Yugoslav Makedonetch "discovered" that they are "direct descendants of Philip, Aristotle and Alexander the Great" and started renaming everything after them, besides erecting Pharaonic statues to Greek kings of antiquity. Who is promoting fiction here? "...now, as if overnight again, the Greeks profess great attachment to Macedonia''...Give us a break, aparatchnik of the propaganda bureau!
Saying that the Greeks of Macedonia are not Macedonians and only the Bulgarian speaking Slavs of Southern Yugoslavia are, is as if the Arab speaking Lybians woke up one day and claimed to be the "real Romans", the "ethnic Romans", that their language is not really Arabic, but "Latin", and that the Romans of ancient times spoke this language and not a language related to modern Italian, and that the Italians of modern times have no connection with Latin or the ancient Romans. Fiction? Try Historic Macedonia whose three capitals, Aegai, Pella and Thessalonica all lie within Greece, and Greek Macedonians who speak the language of the ancient Macedonians, and we can read the ancient inscriptions of the Macedonians, and yes, at school we are even taught Aristotle and we can understand about half of the language of the original.
The bigger the lie, the easier people will be prone to believe it, Hitler said, and Goebbels made a career out of his teacher's dictum.
Greece, we are told, needs to drop its "19th-century world outlook, and begin to act like a genuine European partner and global citizen, will there ever be harmony in the Balkans". In a place like the Balkans, where Albanian nationalists parade as ancient Illyrians or better yet, Pelasgians, the Slovenes nationalists claim Venice and Verona as rightfully belonging to the descendants of the ancient Veneti, where Croatian nationalists (during WWII at least) professed to be Germanic and the Bulgarian speaking SlavoMakedontchi drape themselves in Ancient Greek chlamys and ride Alexander's Buckephalus in the streets of Skopje, in a place, like the Balkans, where two bloody Balkan wars and one World War started, all due to extreme nationalism and thirst for land grab, in the Balkans where only a month ago, Turkey's Erdogan called Tirana, Serajevo AND Skopje as Turkish cities as Ankara, being geopolitically prudent and not caving to pressure is hardly typical of a 19th century world outlook. And who can speak of 19th century mentality, in a country where acceptance and promotion of hatred of the other has reached paranormal proportions, and where an ethnic-hatred-promoting popular song like Grci Katili ("Greek murderers") hits the charts and reaches top 10 in national radio?
THIS ARTICLE was published on THE HILL, as a reply to this comment:
By: Miltiades Elia Bolaris
Refering to Sandox's comments* I must regretfully conclude that the Tito School of Stalinist Falsification in Skopje, working in the proud tradition of the Propagandsa Department of the Federal Republic of Slavic Makedonija in Yugoslavija, needs to urgently update its arsenal of fabrications against the Greeks. .
B. The claim that "the Greek position seemed to change overnight only when Macedonia became independent and had an international expression of identity and sovereignty" is unsupported by the facts. What did change is the outrage of the Macedonian Greeks who forced the issue out of the hallways of diplomacy and brought it in the streets of Thessaloniki, one million strong. It is one thing being a federal state which nobody knows, some remote Dakestan, and another issue altogether being a country that claims your history, your culture, your soul as their own. It is not that they can live with being Salv Macedfonians, with which I could live with, but no, they claim to be THE Macedonians, and we, the Macedonians of Greece, the ones who speak the langiuage of Aristotle and Alexander and the ancient Macedonians, we are chopped liver. Thisd was not going to fly then, it is not going to fly now, it is not going to fly with the Macedonian Greeks, even if the politicians oin Athens try to run away from the issue...and they know they cannot run away from to million Macedonian Greek votes.
C. According to the urbn myth popular with Skopje propagandists, "Greece also renamed its upper province of "Northern Greece" to "Macedonia" only in 1988"! This is like saying that before 1988 California was called the "West Coast" ! The truth is that the Ministry overseeing development projects in Northern Greece, Macedonia and Thrace changhed its name from Ministry of Northern Greece to Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace.
D. But the urban myth which crude Skopje propaganda promotes continues unabated: "Before 1988, the Greek position was that there was no such thing as Macedonia, no Macedonian people and identity, and that Macedonia - and all things Macedonian - were a fiction.". Really now...can anyone read Greek maps of 1988 and before? I grew up in Serres, then administratively part of Eastern Macdedonia, now part of Central Macedonia, reading at school about the history of Macedonia, of Philip, the Macedonian king that like anotherr Bismark forcefully united Greece and paved the way for his son Alexander the Great to conquer the East. I, along with my classmates was singing Macedonia, the famous, land of Alexander, and I had family photos taken under the statue of Alexander the Great by the white tower on Thessaloniki's sea shore promenade, decades before Yugoslav Makedonetch "discovered" that they are "direct descendants of Philip, Aristotle and Alexander the Great" and started renaming everything after them, besides erecting Pharaonic statues to Greek kings of antiquity. Who is promoting fiction here? "...now, as if overnight again, the Greeks profess great attachment to Macedonia''...Give us a break, aparatchnik of the propaganda bureau!
Saying that the Greeks of Macedonia are not Macedonians and only the Bulgarian speaking Slavs of Southern Yugoslavia are, is as if the Arab speaking Lybians woke up one day and claimed to be the "real Romans", the "ethnic Romans", that their language is not really Arabic, but "Latin", and that the Romans of ancient times spoke this language and not a language related to modern Italian, and that the Italians of modern times have no connection with Latin or the ancient Romans. Fiction? Try Historic Macedonia whose three capitals, Aegai, Pella and Thessalonica all lie within Greece, and Greek Macedonians who speak the language of the ancient Macedonians, and we can read the ancient inscriptions of the Macedonians, and yes, at school we are even taught Aristotle and we can understand about half of the language of the original.
The bigger the lie, the easier people will be prone to believe it, Hitler said, and Goebbels made a career out of his teacher's dictum.
Greece, we are told, needs to drop its "19th-century world outlook, and begin to act like a genuine European partner and global citizen, will there ever be harmony in the Balkans". In a place like the Balkans, where Albanian nationalists parade as ancient Illyrians or better yet, Pelasgians, the Slovenes nationalists claim Venice and Verona as rightfully belonging to the descendants of the ancient Veneti, where Croatian nationalists (during WWII at least) professed to be Germanic and the Bulgarian speaking SlavoMakedontchi drape themselves in Ancient Greek chlamys and ride Alexander's Buckephalus in the streets of Skopje, in a place, like the Balkans, where two bloody Balkan wars and one World War started, all due to extreme nationalism and thirst for land grab, in the Balkans where only a month ago, Turkey's Erdogan called Tirana, Serajevo AND Skopje as Turkish cities as Ankara, being geopolitically prudent and not caving to pressure is hardly typical of a 19th century world outlook. And who can speak of 19th century mentality, in a country where acceptance and promotion of hatred of the other has reached paranormal proportions, and where an ethnic-hatred-promoting popular song like Grci Katili ("Greek murderers") hits the charts and reaches top 10 in national radio?
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