“Namecrime,” Dimitrov says, “I am definitely on the right side of history,” and identity
Srdjan Cvijic, who works for George Soros at the Open Society Foundations in Brussels, issued a lengthy report in late January in which Macedonia is referred to throughout as “N**** Macedonia.” When I pointed out on Twitter that he — and the organization he works for — are leading the charge to encourage and/or demand that the world call Macedonia something it is not, he tweeted back “No one demands anything, but to respect the policies of the democratically elected government in Skopje.” You can imagine what I tweeted back. The fact remains: Soros, Open Society and those like them will push and demand — in so many ways — that the world call Macedonia by something other than Macedonia. (Recall from this summer when Denica Yotova, a Bulgarian it should be pointed out, and an employee of the European Council on Foreign Relations stated “It is important not just to change the name, but people to agree to call each other with that name.”) In fact, I will not be surprised in the least if these individuals and organizations and those like them start attempting to belittle, ridicule and otherwise heap scorn on those Macedonians and others who continue to say Macedonia. A new Orwellian crime will be created in their twisted minds, lips, and in their writings (and likely used liberally by the Twitter mob): namecrime. Thou shall not use a name other than the approved name.
Next, and all of this is related, Macedonia’s current foreign minister, Nikola Dimitrov, has been on a tear lately asserting with various media outlets that those working to change Macedonia’s name, identity and uniqueness are “on the right side of history.” He hit a new low this week though, with his assertion, as he told AFP, “I feel that I am definitely on the right side of history on this one, and I think that some years from now… even those who are now angry protesters, will say: ‘Looks like they were right.’” That’s about as arrogant as one get possible get. To paraphrase Dimitrov “I’m right, you’re wrong, suck on it and by the way, one day, you’ll thank me for this by recognizing just how stupid you were.” (In late January, Dimitrov repeated his earlier statement in a slightly different manner stating “Even the biggest opponents of this historical reconciliation will one day agree with our steps.”)
At the beginning of this year he gave an interview for the Macedonian Information Agency in which he stated, among other things, that in a few years’ time, the vast majority of Macedonians will collectively say to themselves “why haven’t we done this before,” and that the name change “finally creates possibilities after many years to start discussing about real matters of the citizens’ every-day life.” To his second point that this “finally creates possibilities after many years to start discussing about real matters of the citizens’ every-day life,” this is because he thinks that one’s identity is not valuable, because he considers himself a “citizen of the world” first and foremost, and a “European” second, both of those before he considers himself a Macedonian, if at all. This is probably true: case in point, he recently wrote a column for the Robert Schuman Foundation in which he stated “On 26 September 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron set out his initiative for a sovereign, united and democratic Europe which could gradually expand to include the Western Balkan countries.” You see, Dimitrov sees Macedonia as one small cog in the wheel of a “sovereign, united and democratic Europe” a super-state that has finally overcome the passé idea of national identity and achieved something greater: a global hegemon with its grand capital in Brussels, staffed by efficient if not effete, unelected and unaccountable men and women that freely worship the perfectibility of mankind, forcing it into their image.
Two points about identity. First, Dimitrov’s unstated but implied assertion that identity is not a “real matter” is simply more hubris. We all know and are brought up to understand that there is much more to life than mere money and we all know that most things in life — good family relationships, deep friendships, faith in God, a healthy neighborhood and community, personal meaning found through all of the things in life we do outside of work — these things are vastly more important than mere material wealth. Identity, too, is a part of that meaning — who we are as members of our nation, tribe, culture, family. Those who flippantly discard identity do so at their own peril, as we are seeing throughout Europe and America, especially, today.
Second, I find it revealing that he believes more in a little Macedonia as a part of a grand European super-state to which it has freely (or not so freely) given its sovereignty — and its identity. This merges with what the above referenced Srdjan Cvijic of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation wrote recently about Macedonia. He wrote that the entire Prespa deal would be good for the region writing “Action by both Greece and the EU would open a trajectory for integration for North Macedonia. Equally important, they could show other political leaders in the region — including those in Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia & Herzegovina — that compromise pays off, and that sacrificing entrenched notions of national identity to secure a common European future is worthwhile.”
Did you catch that? “…sacrificing entrenched notions of national identity to secure a common European future is worthwhile.” It’s the same damn project: a European super-state with its worshipful capital in Brussels served by a high priestly class of men and women, uneletected, unaccountable, unconcerned with the various peoples of Europe, and building their version of heaven on earth because there is no God. All the peoples of Europe will be made to comply. Think this fantastical? Think again — it has happened before. This time, however, the elites are much more subtle.
I finish with Dimitrov’s statements about the future and how the ungrateful, unwashed and boorish Macedonians will agree with him one day and thank him. Statements such as these are designed to protect him for the immediate short-term — they are a type of protective coating that should deflect the statements of those who disagree with him. In effect what he is insinuating is that “Look here now, this is a great deal and you’ll recognize it some years from now.” Statements like these are simply unfounded. How can the person objecting to your policies fight against, right here and now, a statement that projects the present into the future as being inherently good? This is a logical fallacy designed to shut down debate. I wrote about these things here and here. You can’t prove his statement is right — or wrong — because we are here and it is now, not then, at some distant point in the future. And of course, in that distant future, Dimitrov will be off at some job in the UN or elsewhere, unchallenged and unperturbed by his statements from years before.
“One day,” and “some years from now” to quote Dimitrov, it will be richly ironic when Nemisis, a goddess of the ancient Greek pagan religion, comes to visit Dimitrov. She was, after all, the goddess who exacts retribution on those who engage in the real sin of hubris.
