Of slavery and freedom
On September 8, 2019, Macedonia’s 28th celebration of independence, the putative prime minister of Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, tweeted out the following message:
“Northern Macedonia lives freely! Freed from the shackles of the past, we are determinedly on our way as a stable, secure, just, equal for all, European state! We’re on the right track! Let us celebrate Independence Day. Long live the Republic of Northern Macedonia!”
Zoran Zaev — as demonstrated by his words and actions, thoughts and deeds — is both a moral and an intellectual leper. There is no other way to describe this modern-day Quisling.
Let’s break down his assertions and start with his opening assertion that Macedonia — which he calls by another name — “lives freely.” “Freely?” Consider the following and then ask yourself if life in Macedonia under Zoran Zaev is free:
●Greece demands that Macedonia changes its name, identity, heritage, culture, educational curriculum, language and many other things which make Macedonia unique: contemptable and smarmy Western elites effectively side with Greece and refuse to obey their own rules, repeatedly moving the goalposts, and Zaev dutifully complies. Is this freedom?
●Greece AND Bulgaria demand that Macedonia changes its schoolbooks, textbooks, maps, atlases, teaching guides and everything else about the way Macedonian parents, grandparents, other family members, teachers, and administrators teach and educate Macedonia’s children, and Zaev dutifully complies. The Bulgarians threaten that Macedonia may not be able to open accession talks with the EU in October unless the Macedonians “admit” that hero Goce Delcev was “Bulgarian” and that, essentially, the Macedonians are “Bulgarians” (will Zaev dutifully comply?) Is this freedom?
●The Greek foreign minister demands that Macedonians refer to themselves as “citizens of North Macedonia” and not as Macedonians. If Macedonians do not comply, and Zaev’s Government has already demonstrated that it approves of this with its new birth certificates, what will Greece do? Is this freedom?
●When journalists and others say and write things critical of Zoran Zaev and his government that he doesn’t like, he threatens to sue them or worse. Is this freedom?
●The Government of Macedonia, in obedience to the Government of Greece, demands that a symbol, the Star of Kutlesh, found on things dug up from the ground all over Macedonia, and found on cultural artifacts dating back centuries, be banned from the public square and Zaev dutifully complies. Is this freedom?
●The Government of Macedonia uses bribes, threats, arrests, and general intimidation of the political opposition — and others — in a bald attempt to ram through its agenda of “living freely” not just ignoring, but trampling all over a hallmark of democracy, the consent of the governed. Is this freedom?
The putative prime minister of Macedonia has a very odd idea of what it means to be free.
Now, let’s move on to his assertion that Macedonia has been “Freed from the shackles of the past.”
By that statement, Zoran Zaev and his government reject the past, specifically Macedonia’s past. They reject the sacrifices made by Macedonian men and women through the centuries for a free, independent, and sovereign Macedonia. Apparently, Zoran Zaev agrees with writer Milan Kundera who wrote “The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history…. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.” Apparently Zoran Zaev agrees with George Orwell who wrote “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth” as well as “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” And apparently Zoran Zaev agrees with the greatest writer of the 20th century, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote “To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.” Apparently Zoran Zaev wants Macedonians to be freed from the “shackles” of its memory, books, culture, history, and roots, in the process erasing the past, then forgetting the erasure, and replacing the truth with lies.
In stating that Macedonians are “freed from the shackles of the past,” it certainly seems that Zaev and his government want to, for all intents and purposes, remove any thought or suggestion of a Macedonian past, and instead, meekly, and on their knees, accept what the Greeks, Bulgarians, and others tell them about who and what they are now, and in the future. And there is a word for doing just that: slavery. Under Zoran Zaev and his Government of slavery, Macedonia and Macedonians certainly are not free. Instead, they are but vassals. Zaev is attempting to forcibly build a new Macedonia on a foundation of sand. And all wisdom literature of the past — in every culture — tells us what happens to structures built on a foundation of sand.
Last point: I will not even address his assertion that “we are determinedly on our way as a stable, secure, just, equal for all, European state! We’re on the right track!” I think you know that his statement is nothing more than a steaming pile of lies.
By bowing down and worshipping the false spirits of this age, Zaev has created a great deal of damage. But all is not lost and there is still time to remove him and his government, and with them the false gods they worship, restoring and giving back to the Macedonians their own destiny, a destiny that begins with a past, which Macedonians can both celebrate and learn from and which leads to a future of true freedom, a freedom that only a sovereign and independent people in their own sovereign and independent state can proclaim.
