One of the founders of VMRO-DPMNE and current President of VMRO – People’s Party, Ljubco Georgievski, at the panel discussion “Losing identity, or…?”, organized by CIVIL – Center for Freedom, highlighted that he is an optimist in terms of the question: “Whether the Macedonian identity will exist after the Prespa Agreement?”.
“In the last ten years in Macedonia, one of the most radical changes happened oi the identity of one people in Europe, and even in the world, which we, as witnesses in modern history, can see. All of a sudden, from everything we know, and it was quite an established norm – that the Macedonian people are part of the Slavic group of people, we suddenly turned into ancient Macedonians! Into something special, something exclusive, into something that has nothing to do with anything in the world, and we made a story out of that, which unfortunately many started to believe. And those who were the carriers of that idea, I think abused it out of purely marketing reasons for winning elections”, says Georgievski.
According to the honorary president of VMRO-DPMNE, it is precisely this false identity that caused so much harm in Macedonia’s political relations with its neighbouring countries and with the international community, but that false identity, nevertheless, caused the greatest damage to us”.
“At the psychological level, we rose above all the others, and started to imagine that we are the center of the world, that everything revolves around us, that they can’t do anything without us, and this actually isn’t the case, the world goes on without us being present in it…And without any special discussion, without the quasi- scientists who were writing books and filming documentaries on that topic. All of that actually was quasi- science that simply bombarded us and caused permanent damage, which I believe will last for many years after these events”, said Georgievski.
The Macedonian identity, according to Georgievski, is not endangered by the determinant “Northern” or “Upper” before the name of the country, but from the attitude of the ethnic Macedonians towards their own identity. According to him, the Macedonians under the Ottoman slavery succeeded to save their identity by preserving their culture and tradition.
“They danced Macedonian folk dances, sang songs in Macedonian and spoke in Macedonian language…Let’s take a look at how much we ourselves in Macedonia care about our own Macedonian identity. To go to a Macedonian wedding, Macedonian celebration, I guarantee you that the Macedonian contemporary nation and the Macedonian contemporary state are the only ones on the Balkans, where their own national song is minor compared to the cultural influences. We are not doing anything, we talk about the Macedonian identity, and when we celebrate at a wedding, birthday, we don’t sing a Macedonian song, and then we say that someone else is endangering the Macedonian identity. No, we ourselves are endangering it”, adds Georgievski.
Angela Petrovska
Camera: Аtanas Petrovski
Editing: Аrian Mehmeti
This post is also available in: Macedonian
