Affections and attachments in Macedonia
Here’s a sobering thought: at the beginning of 2019, over 137 countries recognized the Republic of Macedonia by its rightfully chosen name. Today, that number is zero. Here’s another: media, and many others, increasingly refer to Macedonians as “North Macedonians” or “Northern Macedonians.”
“Forward Together.” That’s the campaign slogan of Stevo Pendarovski, the SDSM/DUI, Zaev/Ahmeti candidate for president of Macedonia. It brings up a few legitimate questions the first being “Forward as in where, forward?” It’s a direction, of course, much like “north” is a direction, but the question of where and, critically, how to get there needs be answered. I grant that what his campaign is saying, in terms of “forward” is to NATO and EU membership and polls show — and have continued to show — that most Macedonians want NATO and EU membership. Leaving aside any current arguments as to the merits of these organizations, the next question, as it pertains to his slogan, is, “how do we get there?” In the case of Pendarovski and his party, the joint SDSM/DUI, the answer is clear — there is only one way, their way, to get there. There is no room for discussion and he and his people delight in shutting down any debate with such statements as “there is no alternative” which is a logical fallacy and patently false. Many Macedonians have other ideas to offer and even other ideas about possible alternatives, but they are not allowed to voice their opinions in the public square. So, the slogan, “Forward Together,” has some major problems.
And there is one more, to my mind at least, major problem with it. In order to go forward to somewhere, anywhere, you had to come from someplace. And where you come from, that past, is vital, to any society. More on that in a moment.
Compare the SDSM/DUI slogan with that of Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, “Justice for Macedonia — the Fatherland Calls.” I like this slogan for a few reasons. First and foremost, because it is patently obvious that justice in Macedonia is lacking and is needed. As American author Daniel Bell writes, “…the idea of the consent of the governed” lies deeply in “the concept of justice.” Macedonia has not experienced “the consent of the governed” over the past two years and especially when the Zaev/Ahmeti Government tramples blatantly over the will of the Macedonian people as it was expressed in the September referendum — no name change. This trampling over the “consent of the governed” extends to the trampling over the institutions of democracy and concept of democracy itself.
But the idea of justice for Macedonia combined with the Fatherland calling implies justice for those who came before us, and what they are owed for the sacrifices they made for us to create the fatherland in the first place. This brings up the issue of affections and attachments.
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) was an English author, statesman, Member of Parliament, and considered to be the father of modern conservative thought and a highly influential thinker to this day. Two of his more famous statements are “We begin our public affections in our families… we pass on to our neighbourhoods” and, “To love the little platoon we belong to in society is the first principle of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind.” Throughout his writings Burke regularly uses “affections” and “attachments” to describe the relationships between ancestors (the past), the living (the present) and the unborn (the future), all linked by tradition.
And what Burke meant by all of this is the following: he believed, first and foremost, that we are not born independent of anything or anyone. We are born as individuals, true, but we are born into a family and into a society, without any choice of our own. Because of that, as individuals but as a part of families and societies, we, as individuals, families, and societies owe a great deal to past generations because they created the foundations that allowed for us to come into the world and into our own particular nations. Furthermore, all generations of a society, any society, are linked together from the past, to the present and to the future and that all owe each other. As he wrote in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), “Society…becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
One can no more deny affections and attachments than one can deny the laws of gravity; they simply exist — they are a part of our nature as human beings and human nature is immutable. This is contrary to the belief of Western elites and Macedonian Government who believe in the perfectibility of mankind, with them as the social engineers (at taxpayer expense), tinkering with souls to shoehorn them into something they are not and never can be. Western elites and the current Macedonian Government believe that they can reshape and change the affections Macedonians have for Macedonia, for family, for history, for culture, for identity as Macedonians — and as they have demonstrated, they will attempt to do so by force, if necessary. The elites in Macedonia have more affections for and attachments to the elites in Berlin than they do with Macedonians in Berovo. And, truth be told, they would rather spend time with their elite friends in Berlin than with sheep farmers in Berovo. They have little, if any, use for Macedonia’s past.
Affections for and attachments to family, faith, tradition, country…these are all good things and Macedonians, in my experience, have a great deal of affection for and attachment to those Macedonians who came before them, family first, of course, but then the heroes of old, the men and women who sacrificed for an independent Republic of Macedonia. That is right and the way it should be, and in order to carry on that legacy of the past, and forward into the future, that past and those sacrifices cannot be simply thrown away. Instead, they must be the foundation from which all future endeavors come from. That is the best way, the ideal way to achieve progress in Macedonia.
