Dear friends,
Let’s have a break. Let us rejoice in the great national holiday 2 August, let us commemorate the great religious holiday St.Elijah and let us enjoy the long summer weekend.
Ever since 1997, when on 2 August, at Mechkin Kamen in Krushevo, a certain Mrs. Srebra spat on the President of the Republic, Kiro Gligorov, with an “unknown liquid from a bottle”, (as the government at the time put it, using vocabulary as if taken from a police or a prosecution report), the parties have been competing to spoil this great holiday for us.
To be honest, I’m sick and tired that every Ilinden I have to worry who’ll appear where, who’ll say what and whether the holiday will be ruined by the party leaders and their party soldiers. Instead of rejoicing, we traditionally celebrate Ilinden by waiting to see whether VRMO-DPMNE will keep spitting insults, whether SDSM will keep whining, whether DUI will honour the holiday, who’ll wave which flag, who’ll wear which uniform, who’ll accuse whom of treason… Instead of gathering at Mechking Kamen with fireworks and staying up until dawn on Ilinden at a huge concert that would attract tourists from the whole region, or a techno party that would bring together young people from all the neighbouring countries, as things should be in the 21st century, we’ll set up cordons of police officers on the road to Krushevo so that politicians would be able to read the speeches that not even their party lackeys listen to.
Parties and politicians don’t own the holiday. The holiday is ours. And we have a great reason to celebrate. This generation enjoys the results of the struggle of both the Ilinden insurgents of 1903 and the Ilinden anti-fascists of 1994. We have our own country. We have significantly more friends than enemies. And, indeed, we must be very stupid to allow parties to set our holiday mood and kidnap our patriotism.
Srebra from Drachevo, who was brought to Krushevo on Ilinden 1997 with one of those bus excursions organized by the party, was sentenced to five months of conditional imprisonment for insulting the President of the Republic. She said on TV: “They spat on him, and they set me up”.
People, let us get out of the whirlwind of wickedness. Let us get our holiday back. Let us celebrate the Republic, not the parties.
I wish you a happy 2 August, the double Ilinden.
I wish you good health and let us raise our glasses to Macedonia.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
