“…for us, and my country, the Republic of Macedonia.”
With those nine words, Stojance Stoilov, the team captain for HC Vardar said what Macedonians in Macedonia and around the world both know and believe — that Macedonia can and will overcome all adversity if the Macedonians put their heart and soul into it. After all, that is what HC Vardar did to win the EHF Champions League title — they put their heart and soul into winning, and they did so admirably, honestly, and decisively, over their competitors. And Macedonians around the world celebrated that win and the title with passion, joy, and pride — pride in Vardar, and pride in Macedonia, pride in the Macedonian people.
When the team arrived back home in Macedonia late Monday night, June 3, they received a deserved heroes’ welcome when tens of thousands of Macedonians turned out in Skopje to greet them and celebrate their success, with Macedonians chanting “Never north, only Macedonia!” at the welcoming party. Macedonians around the world celebrated that night as well, and social media erupted with praise, pride, and passion.
All of this goes to show us that it is culture, and this time expressed through sports — that can overcome. Goce Delchev famously said “I understand the world solely as a field for cultural competition among the peoples.” In this case, Macedonian culture won the day, and the year, giving Macedonians a big win to celebrate and to affirm their place in the world, as Macedonians, with dignity, pride, and honor.
And yet Macedonia and the Macedonians still face adversity and even as this important win was being celebrated, those who demand that Macedonia and the Macedonians change their name and adhere to a warped worldview chimed in, often with meanness and spite.
Media outlet Agence France-Presse (AFP), in an online article about so-called “hate speech” during the celebration, wrote the following:
After clinching the handball trophy in Cologne, Germany, on Sunday, the club’s captain Stojance Stoilov interrupted an interviewer to say: “I just want to make a correction. My country’s name is the Republic of Macedonia.”
The comment was applauded by nationalists, particularly on social media.
On Monday evening, Stoilov and the crowd also chanted: “Never North, only Macedonia”.
Meanness and spite. The writer of that article attempted to link a love of Macedonia by those calling the country “Macedonia” with being a “nationalist” which, these days, is an increasingly meaningless word. The writer meant to portray those who love their country and want to keep the name, Macedonia, as backwards provincials, bitter-clingers, and deplorables.
Meanness and spite.
The British Ambassador to Macedonia, Rachel Galloway, tweeted “The streets are going wild for Vardar in Skopje tonight. Честитки!” I’m not sure if the ratios have stopped, reminding her that every city in Macedonia and that Macedonians around the world were also “going wild” for Vardar…and for Macedonia. The Swedish Ambassador Mats Staffansson tweeted nothing — but he was very vocal on social media in his support for Tamara Todevska a few weeks earlier during the Eurovision Song Contest. The US Embassy — which tweeted its support for Tamara Todevska in the Eurovision Song contest — was also visibly silent. Interesting, isn’t it, how Tamara often invoked the name “North Macedonia” and Stojance insisted on the name Macedonians insist on — Macedonia — and the very different treatment of the two by the Western embassies?
The far-left elites in foreign think-tanks and academia, including Florien Bieber, James Ker-Lindsay, and Dimitar Bechev, to name but three, were silent, unusual for them when Macedonia is in the news. Ker-Lindsay, who has probably never been to Macedonia, tweeted seven times during the Eurovision Song Contest about “#NorthMacedonia” for his own mere sadistic pleasure in rubbing the “name” into the faces of Macedonians. And as for Vardar’s incredible win and congratulations to the Macedonians? Nothing.
Meanness and spite.
And here’s something interesting — given how Zoran Zaev and other members of the Macedonian Government were quick to tweet out their congratulations to Tamara Todevska and how effusive they were in their praise of her, it was revealing how little praise they had for Vardar — in the case of Zoran Zaev there was one tweet from him acknowledging their win. Stevo Pendarovski tweeted a few times during the game and his congratulations but never mentioned Macedonia. And there were no tweets from him as the team returned: but he did manage to get out two tweets of him with his wife and son, together with Sting at the concert a few days before which, to my mind at least, is an example of where his priorities are.
As for the others, the so-called “colorful revolutionaries,” it was a mixed bag but given the enormity and dimension of the win and what it meant for Macedonia it seemed, to me at least, that a fair number of these people secretly wished that Vardar had not won. In fact, I would not be wrong in thinking that a great number of them will praise anything and anyone who says “North Macedonia” but will ignore, or condemn, anyone who says “Macedonia” as the AFP writer, above, proves.
Regardless, the win belongs to Vardar, to Macedonia, and to Macedonians wherever they live. In a way, I hope that their win is a catalyst for continued good things to come to Macedonia and the Macedonians as they prove, through the field of culture, that Macedonia, and the Macedonians, have a great deal of unique culture to share with the world while retaining their own deserved pride in that culture and in Macedonia.
