Some answers To the Macedonian Dilema!

Please read below in plain black text a rather interesting letter received from an anonymous writer which goes to the root of the "Macedonian" name issue and find my answers in blue italics....

You talk of FYROM propaganda in renaming highways and airports, but totally fail to see your blatant propaganda by referring to Macedonia as FYROM. No country in the world is called FYROM (I beg to differ as according to the U.N. there is a country with just that name be it temporary or not and it can be found just north of the Hellenic province of Macedonia). Also people themselves choose who they are, not their enemies.(I am in agreement with you on this matter 100% however that choice cannot come at the expense of someone else just because I choose to call myself an Eskimo and claim Eskimo rights doesn’t necessarily mean that I have the right to do so at their expense. Especially when my ties to the claim are non existent and based on fictional dilemmas). Your job is to recognize and accept that, not to play godfather.(Unfortunately for you no it is not, our job is to safeguard both our history and our heritage, which in this case are being threatened). Macedonians have no problem with their name, so they have nothing to negotiate.(when you choose to lay claim to something you have no historic right to then I’m sorry but you have everything to negotiate). Greece has a problem with Macedonia and Macedonians so let Greece solve its problem.(We have absolutely no problem with Macedonia or the Macedonians firstly b/c Macedonia is the province of Northern Greece and spans from the days of antiquity with Great kings like Phillip and Alexander and secondly the term Macedonians relates to the people of this province who put simply are Greeks) Macedonians do not prevent anyone from calling themselves Macedonian, but Greeks and Greece want to prevent me from being a Macedonian.(put simply because your not a Macedonian plain and simple, you are a Slav-Macedonian at best, a title I am sure Greeks would be very happy to grant you) Furthermore, people like yourselves self identify as Greek Macedonians, not as Macedonians, so where is the confusion? (Again put simply there is one Macedonia and she is Greek there is another and she is Slav, one holds his ties to the kingdom of Phillip & Alexander(Greeks) and the other to the Slavic invasions of the 7th century (Bulgar-Slavs). The confusion I and people like me are Macedonians (again if you intend to self identify with Slav-Macedonian we would be willing to consider it) and you and people like you are Greek Macedonians. Why is it my problem that you want to be both Greek and Macedonian at the same time?(who said it was a problem? We just want to continue to distinguish ourselves and our glorious past from the invaders and marauders of history - yes, that would be you!) If Greece is so concerned about the Republic of Macedonia and the confusion with its Macedonian territory, let Greece change the name of that which is under its jurisdiction and thus dispel the confusion, instead of forcing another country to change its name under duress.(Did you even think before you typed this, change our province and while we are at it our history, cultural heritage, language anything else you would like? As much as the truth might hurts and whatever propaganda you try to whip up the fact remains that WE are the true airs to Ancient Macedonia thus giving us the right to self identify Macedonia as the region of Northern Greece, should I bother to remind you where Pella was exactly and what it was, and the historical findings that have been made? I guess not wouldn’t want to put you on the back foot!) Is blackmail and ultimatums the kind of democracy you Greeks believe in? (Lessons on Democracy should and cannot not be given by a state who discovered the word just over a decade ago!) Or is it that you have become just too damn efficient of changing place names of cities, towns, villages, rivers, lakes, mountains, personal peoples' names and even cemetery tomb stones all over what you call Greek Macedonia, and I call Macedonia, that now you want to change my personal identity as Macedonian and my country's name of Macedonia as well.(Delusional tendencies are something you must get checked out, preaching to us about name changing when you have decided to re-write history to suit you is a bit far fetched, naming airports, roads stadiums and towns with Alexander, Phillip and ancient Greek toponyms makes you the guilty party on the matter not us! Good try though!) And this you call friendship and progressive behavior? No, it is time that Greeks understand that Macedonians are Macedonians because that is who they are, because that is what they want to be.(Want and deserve are two different things altogether. Wanting to be something is admirable provided its not at the expense of someone else and striving to achieve that in a way that is just and proper is something to be admired, however, deserving that title is a whole other ballgame for firstly you must prove that title belongs to you, a case which even through the heavy handed propaganda you continue to dish out you cannot and will never be able to do - because simply you have no just claim!) Just like you are Greek and want to be Greek. My job is to accept that, and not try to change you by force and blackmail, and your job is likewise to accept me as Macedonian and my country as Macedonia.(not at my expense though, its really not that hard to fathom, try it!) It is the first and most basic human right of every human being on this earth. That is the first step in mutual self respect and friendship.(agreed but your state has been anything but friendly in its attempts to rewrite history with inaccuracies and propaganda).

To Finish off this topic:

The Macedonia name question in itself would have been easy to solve between two countries who were good friends, and should still be so, however the question has not proved so to date, confirming the concerns of certain people in Greece in the past, that it is no longer just about a name but about the (wrongful) political decision by a state to adopt for yourselves, as national roots, those historical figures and symbols which were associated with Greece, its history, its language and its people hundreds of years before your ancestors came to the Balkan Peninsula. There is little doubt that the younger generation among you now really believe they are the national and cultural descendants of Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon and look on them as your national heroes. Propaganda tactics to this effect like the invitation to Skopje by your government of an Asian tribe who are the remnants - descendants of Alexander's army, and your feting of the tribesmen, made them believe that you are the European descendants of their hero Alexander. This gives a small idea of the problem that willful identity confusion is causing. When you construct statues of Alexander the Great and name your airports after him, with the claim that this is your (Slavic) people's ancestor, then you can understand why the name question has become so politically charged. It is not so much a problem simply of the name of Macedonia, which is after all geographically correct, as is the name of Macedonia for 2/3 of geographic Macedonia which is in Greece, but the way that each side uses the name, and what political significance and history they attach to it.