Inheritance and memory
German philosopher Johann Goethe (1749–1832) wrote “What you have inherited from your forefathers, earn it, in order to possess it.” American sociologist, writer, and professor Daniel Bell (1919–2011) writing in “The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism” (1978), notes “…without memory there is no maturity…There is only the constant search for new interests, new pastimes, new sensations, new adventures, new revels, new revolutions, new joys, new….” He also writes about the necessity for a “…reaffirmation of our past, for only if we know the inheritance from the past can we become aware of the obligation to our posterity.”
What have you inherited, Macedonia, from your forefathers, and what are your memories of the past and of that inheritance? Have you earned what you inherited, from the men and women who sacrificed their all for an independent Macedonia, from the men and women who fought, bled, and even died, in the pursuit of an independent Macedonia? Do you have a memory of that past, a memory you pledge to pass on to your children, grandchildren, and generations of Macedonians not yet born? Are you earning, present tense, all of this?
Re-reading what Bell wrote, above, it becomes obvious, to me at least, that the authors of the so-called Prespa Agreement — Dimitrov, Zaev, Ahmeti and their Greek counterparts and Western elite handlers — are intent on achieving two things with their paper document. First, they are intent on searching for the “new” in life — in Macedonia’s case, a “new” everything: name, identity, history, culture, language, whatever. Second, I know that Macedonians have a memory and a long memory at that. And because of this long memory of the past, I therefore know that there can be maturity in Macedonia and among the Macedonians and that in re-reading Goethe, above, you can continue to earn that which your forefathers and ancestors gave you.
This is the continuing struggle brought to you — and Macedonians everywhere — by the actions of the Zaev/Ahmeti Government. A constant battle to save those memories, reflect on those memories, and earn that past inheritance even as the Macedonian Government, together with their friends in Greece and the Western elites, attempt to hollow out that past and that inheritance and substitute something “new” into your lives, into the life of Macedonia.
One of the many problems with the hollowing out of Macedonia’s identity through the so-called Prespa Agreement (a hollowing out pursued and achieved either deliberately and with malice or without consideration for the potential ill effects of the agreement which makes the whole endeavor filled with ignorance and incompetence and therefore illegitimate) is that once you hollow out something like the core of identity, there is a hole which needs to be filled because identity is essential to who we are as individuals and as peoples. And in the case of the Zaev/Ahmeti Government, their intention is to fill that hole with something that is, at its core, empty. Membership in NATO and the EU — essentially “liberal democracy” — has never, cannot and never will provide meaning or identity on a personal, much less spiritual, level. They can’t because both “liberal democracy” and its twin, capitalism, in and by themselves offer an empty shrine to nothing; both are merely tools to be used for good or for ill. Apart from our identities as families, communities, and a nation, they are meaningless. And so when you strip away that meaning and identity, the foundation and roots of Macedonia and the Macedonians — as the so-called Prespa Agreement does — you are left with nothing more than the blind pursuit of wealth which is not a recipe for happiness or contentment.
Stevo Pendarovski, the presidential candidate of SDSM/DUI and Zaev/Ahmeti, has promised a continuation of the so-called “colorful revolution” of SDSM/DUI which led to the current situation Macedonia finds itself in. It seems Pendarovski and the Zaev/Ahmeti Government are not satisfied with merely gutting Macedonia of its name, identity, history, culture, heritage and much more — they want to replace all of that with something new and artificial that will not bring satisfaction, let alone meaning. But in continuing with their “revolution” — in other words, with their continuing drive to reject Macedonia’s past — they forget a key truth about revolutions. The Hoover Institution’s Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist, historian, and author, writes that “few leftist revolutionary cycles ever halt in mid course, whether in 1789 France, 1917 Russia, 1946 China, or 1960 Cuba. The philosophy is always that today’s radical is yesterday’s sell-out to be replaced by tomorrow’s genuine far harder leftist — until the limits of reality are reached and the movement either implodes or leads to an authoritarian Napoleon, Lenin, Mao, or Fidel.” One might argue that Macedonia already as an authoritarian in the form of Zoran Zaev, but again, in continuing this “revolution” (as with the above mentioned revolutions) Pendarovski hopes to continue throwing away Macedonia’s past in the hope of attaining utopia — a word which literally means “no place.” It all ends in wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Macedonia and the Macedonians have a rich history that centers, first and foremost, on faith, family and tradition. In the rush to join the so-called “West” with all of its faults and successes, it is vital that you remember the inheritance that you have been given from those men and women who came before you and fought and sacrificed for an independent Republic of Macedonia that could therefore then be a bastion of support for that faith, family, and tradition and identity.
English author, poet, and philosopher G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) reminds us that “Among the many things that leave me doubtful about the modern habit of fixing eyes on the future, none is stronger than this: that all the men of history who have really done anything with the future have had their eyes fixed upon the past.” Remember that past, Macedonia, as you fix your eyes upon the future.
