Not that the parties won’t do their best to spoil this Ilinden as well. I get anxious just thinking about the venom politicians will spew at one another. They’ll call for unity while spreading hatred that only deepens our divisions. And we’ll be keeping score of who turned up where, who was absent, who threatened whom, who waved which flag, who greeted whom, who hired more buses, who got the loudest applause, who was booed, who branded whom a traitor…

It’s as though we forget that the holiday doesn’t belong to the politicians lining up in front of the cameras to read speeches that not even their own party lackeys listen to.

Ahead of Ilinden in 2022, I wrote: “Parties and politicians don’t own the holiday. The holiday is ours.”

This year, I want to say the same thing again, but also to remind everyone that on 8 September we’ll mark 35 years of independence.

So let our great national holiday on 2 August be a dress rehearsal for finally celebrating the Republic itself, rather than the political parties.

We have every reason to celebrate. We are the generation that enjoys the freedom won through the struggle of both the Ilinden revolutionaries of 1903 and the anti-fascists of Ilinden 1944. My friends, we have a country. We have far more friends than enemies. And, indeed, we must be very stupid if we allow the parties to set the mood for our holiday and hijack our patriotism by telling us whom we ought to hate… As though they love this country more than we do. Don’t bother with them.

Let’s get out of the whirlpool of wickedness they’ve created. Let’s reclaim our holiday. Let’s celebrate the Republic, not the parties.

Happy 2 August, the Double Ilinden.

I wish you good health, and let’s raise a glass to Macedonia.

Wherever we may be.

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski