Annual Address by the President of the Republic of Macedonia, Dr. Gjorge Ivanov, in the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia Friday, 28 December 2018
President Ivanov has just delivered his year-end address to the people and to parliament. You can read the entire address here at this link and I urge you to do so (about 20–30 minute read, worth every minute).
Below, I have included some important highlights — he touches on the so-called Prespa agreement, the agreement with Bulgaria, and the so-called Tirana platform.
He elegantly, eloquently, and forcefully defends the Republic of Macedonia and its name, the identity and language of the Macedonian peoples, and its history.
And he talks about something the current government and many in leadership positions in the NGO community refuse to talk about — the vital importance of responsibility and forgiveness.
I urge you to read the whole thing.
Highlights:
When you are ready to resolve an issue at any price, then the price you pay is the highest. The price for resolving the Macedonian question in this manner is a legal and historical deletion of Macedonian people, because without the Macedonian people, Macedonian identity and Macedonian language, there will no longer be a Macedonian question. In other words, the question of identity will be resolved through its deletion. With this, the Republic of Macedonia and the Macedonian people have been pushed into a legal, political and historical abyss.
This Agreement actually puts an end to the Republic of Macedonia as we know it. The Agreement violates internal law clauses of fundamental importance. The text of this Prespa Agreement has been drafted without a national consensus, without my knowledge and without my consent as President of the Republic of Macedonia.
And yet, there was one thing that stood in its way. It was the people’s fundamental right to self-determination. In a Republic, only the people have the right to manage themselves and decide on their life; to choose their name and the name of the country they established, the language they speak and the culture they build. This is why this Government and this parliamentary majority asked the people to agree on that change — in order to interpret the legal deletion of Macedonian people as its own personal will.
During the referendum campaign, the Government claimed that the Prespa Agreement recognizes Macedonian people, protects Macedonian language and strengthens Macedonian identity.
Official Athens denied all statements of our Government. Greek Prime Minister Tsipras stated on several occasions that the Agreement does not recognize Macedonian people and Macedonian identity. Recently, Greek President Pavlopoulos confirmed that he would not accept a frivolous interpretation of the agreement.
Of all these issues, I will only refer to Macedonian language. It is claimed that with the Prespa Agreement, Macedonian language will finally be protected. Protected with what? How can this government state that they have fought and won an inalienable right? Macedonian language was fought for and won by those who had the courage to speak it when it was forbidden; to codify it when it was denied; to promote it when it was ignored. They were the one who protected the Macedonian language, and this government merely reduced it to a bargaining chip. The current government started bargaining with the ones who pretend to hold the key to our past and dispute our historical right to existence and self-determination. Instead of protected, Macedonian language has been exposed to the attacks of those who contest it, and by trying to delete or rename it, they exercise oppression over Macedonian identity.
Orwell wrote that “whoever controls the past controls the future, and whoever controls the present controls the past.” Why such aversion towards history? You claim that the Macedonian people are living in the past and you wish to lead them to the future. People do not live in the past, but with their past, and this not in order to hate, but to remember. And now you wish to censor collective memory as well.
And now there is an announcement that expressing one’s ethnic affiliation at the census will be forbidden. I have been insisting on a census for a long time, but I wonder what the purpose of a census without the possibility of expressing one’s ethnic affiliation might be?
The Ohrid Framework Agreement embedded in our Constitution the concept of individual use of collective rights acquired on the basis of a percent of representation of ethnic communities. I ask very publicly: Does such a census devalue the Ohrid Framework Agreement? Is this not undermining our multiethnic democracy? Do we forget that without an ethnic box there will be no Ohrid Framework Agreement?
Unfortunately, this self-censorship does not stop in institutions, but has a spillover effect on the everyday life of citizens.
I hear about parents who already wonder whether they should sing Macedonian songs to their children by fear of being branded as chauvinists. I hear about authors who wonder if it is of any use to publish books on Macedonia. There are companies who do not know what will happen with the Macedonian brands they worked do hard to build.
Instead of virtue and honor, the love towards our homeland has become a sin.
You cannot love Macedonia without loving Macedonians.
You cannot love Macedonia without loving the Macedonian people.
Why should we be the only state in the Balkans without a state-establishing people?
Just as the Prespa agreement denies Macedonian people, and the free interpretation of the agreement with Bulgaria deconstructs Macedonian history, thus the Tirana platform and the anti-constitutional Law on the use of languages attempts at dismantling the Macedonian state.
The destruction of the state if being justified with the assurance of a future for the state.
From a so-called captured state, I have the feeling that we have also become a blackmailed state.
From the outside, we have been blackmailed by our neighbors, and on the inside, we see many decision makers being blackmailed.
Blackmail became the basic means for realization of goals.
What is the difference between my pardons and your amnesty? Their goals.
My goal was reconciliation through pardon, and your goal is providing support for constitutional changes through blackmail.
While I made the decision for pardon in order to prevent chaos in the country, you made the decision for amnesty in order to legalize the blackmails that bring about chaos and destroy the rule of law.
My pardons did not exclude a procedure for confiscation of illegally acquired property and implied a filtering of the Macedonian political scene and promotion of new people in politics. Your amnesty is just another precedent for blackmail.
However, in a divided society such as ours, one cannot expect the words to have the same value. As long as forgiveness and reconciliation are nothing but a means to reach another aim, you will only devalue both forgiveness and reconciliation. National reconciliation will happen only when all of us, regardless of our ethnic, religious, political or any other affiliation, will ask for forgiveness by those we have wronged and will forgive those who have wronged us. Forgiveness should go hand in hand with responsibility.
Many of our strategic partners were convincing us that the Prespa Agreement would open the doors to EU and NATO membership. But strangely enough, some of them have been quiet about the fact that even if the doors of integration are opened, the iron grid of reforms will still remain. Prespa will not make that grid disappear. At its July Summit, the European Union clearly pointed out the need for reforms. And reforms are a long and painful process.
Here I refer not only to reforms in the area of security, but also the judiciary, education and healthcare. I know that the new Government inherited these problems. But instead of resolving problems, we only see a repetition of mistakes. I wonder if the change that we all expected — intellectuals, professionals, NGOs, people — actually happened.
Here, the issue of economy naturally follows. The new Government brought about hope in people that after a turbulent time with deep crises, there will finally be a period of stability. But instead of major economic projects and reduction of unemployment, we have greater debt. The same mistakes that were criticized in the past period are now being repeated: Corruption, nepotism, employment in state institutions in exchange for votes and support, appointment of irresponsible people on responsible positions. These steps and policies in the wrong direction have disappointed the citizens who expected a better life to come in the Republic of Macedonia. 30% of children in the Republic of Macedonia are living in poverty. All policies and reforms should be directed towards resolving this problem. However, I do not see the focus being on the right place if parliamentary privileges after the end of the mandate are a higher priority than the purchasing power of citizens.
I wish to remind you that in 2014, I urged for a dialog among state institutions in order to overcome the political crisis.
I 2015, I called upon political parties to demonstrate unity regarding the state interests.
In the following 2016, I said that the word of the year should be responsibility, and not a general one, but a specific and personal one.
In 2017 I called for reconciliation, forgiveness and an end to revanchism.
If you had heard me then, perhaps today your responsibility would have been lesser. But I did tell you, and this is why the responsibility for this most difficult situation in the Republic of Macedonia since its independence until today is yours.
It is said that those who are slaves to the money know the price, but forget about the value of things. They forget that there are things with value that are priceless. The value of a house consists in the fact that it is a home. The value of the Republic of Macedonia consists in that it is our only shared home. We have no reserve homeland. Therefore to us, the Republic of Macedonia is priceless. Unfortunately, we act as if it has no value at all.
Reality is that there is a major difference between freedom with responsibility and freedom without responsibility. The first is a basis of a free society, and the second is just another name for disorder and anarchy. This leads to disorder without freedom. Disorder ruled by hatred. People who hate their political and ideological opponents are not, and can never be free. They are the captives of hatred and the desire for revenge and revanchism.
This is why we need to set ourselves free from hatred and revanchism, and turn to reconciliation — but the authentic one, without hidden agendas — the path to which leads through truth and responsibility.
The people not only chose, but they defended the name of their country, and that name is the Republic of Macedonia. I myself, as its President, remain to defend the will of the people, and have no intention to do otherwise.
