1 I don’t understand the need to take sides between Russia and America over the war in Ukraine. The need to gloat at Americans over Russians killing Ukrainians. A sovereign state attacked its neighbour – another sovereign state. You justify the aggression of a great neighbour with imperialistic ambitions, in a situation where you yourself are surrounded by such neighbours. Russia is in the right to commit an act of aggression against Ukraine, and Ukraine is to blame for defending itself.
Who rejoices over dead children? What sort of values are we talking about? Is it a value to rejoice over two million refugees, over shelled hospitals?
The easiest thing to do is to say – peace should prevail. Or – the war should be stopped. There was a poster at one of the protests in support of Ukraine, “If Putin stops attacking, the war will stop. If Ukrainians stop fighting, they’ll be left without their state”. How can peace prevail if someone breaks into your home and beats you up? Meanwhile, the others in the neighbourhood say to you “Hey, you should just give up, give him the house, he’s stronger, don’t let your children suffer”. They even start lecturing you: “When they broke into the houses of every Tom, Dick and Harry and raped their children, why didn’t you put up a fight then”?
What I really can’t understand are the ones wrapped in the Vergina Sun flags, using Facebook to preach that Ukrainian President Zelensky should surrender so civilians wouldn’t die, since Russia is stronger. On the other hand, they’re adamant that they will reclaim the name of the state and that “Thessaloniki Plain will be ours”. Especially the ones who are remotely controlled, the patriots who live in America, Canada, Australia and the strongest NATO member states in Europe. There’s something strange in the situation where NATO guarantees your security, and you worship Russia. And it’s even stranger to expect America to defend you and Putin to lead you.
2 How self-absorbed, how all-knowing, how self-obsessed does one have to be to presume that the Royal Guard, formed five centuries ago to guard the Queen of the United Kingdom, a country with royal protocols, would break the protocol just to humiliate Slavjanka Petrovska, and as a direct result, Macedonia as well. The captain of the guard greets our Minister of Defence in Macedonian, the Royal Guard orchestra reworks the Macedonian folk song “Jovano, Jovanke” into a marching song, and protocol experts on Facebook and other bots on social networks interpreted that act as a plot by the UK to humiliate Macedonia. Apparently, they deliberately didn’t play our anthem because Goce Delchev is mentioned in it.
The situation escalated so much that the British Embassy had to issue an explanation – sorry, we wouldn’t want to interfere in your expert discussion, but we just want to tell you that according to the protocol, the national anthem is played only when the one visiting is the president or the prime minister, and the Queen’s Guard reworked the Macedonian folk song as a sign of respect for the Minister.
It doesn’t matter what the British Embassy has to say. The expert community expanded the debate by insulting and poking fun at the physical appearance of the minister.
Imagine the magnitude of the plot they would’ve discovered if they’d played the anthem. They’d then ask: Why aren’t they singing the names with a British pronunciation… Since we all know what protocols are, and the kingdom doesn’t. The Queen’s Guard which performed “Jovanko, Jovanke” was formed in 1650. That’s nice and all, but, where were they when Saint Paul walked in the village of Paljurci, among us, the Biblical people?
3 Minister of Foreign Affairs Bujar Osmani, in an interview with Makfax, talking about Besmira Ejupi, who was nominated by the Government in a closed session as a consul in New York, said that “there’s a lot of hysteria about her because she’s young, a woman and Albanian.”
She’s Albanian? Ooh, we’re shaking in fear. In case we disrupt the inter-community relations if we ask the only logical question: how come the Government discussed in a secret session whether to send a 28-year-old TV present as a consul in New York? Is it because she’s young, a woman or Albanian?
4 Just because they’re Albanians, are we supposed to avoid asking how come Minister of Finance Fatmir Besimi signed the privatization of state-owned land in the centre of Skopje for just 7 Euros per square meter to the owner of the construction company, Fatmir Etemi.
Everything’s done according to the law. Minister Besimi says that the privatization is in accordance with a Decree adopted in 2011 by the Government led by Nikola Gruevski.
SDSM says that the price of the land across of “Nova Makedonija” was formed by the Government of VMRO-DPMNE with Nikola Gruevski’s signature and that the current situation is the result of the usurpation of Centar Municipality they’d been doing for years. And they announced they’d change all the laws and decrees passed by VMRO-DPMNE which still cause damage.
Really? When? It’s been six years and they still haven’t changed the laws or decrees. They used to criticize how state-owned land was being sold. However, when they came to power, they kept the same regulations because they needed them. Our gang – your gang. And they blame everyone else. They blame Gruevski, independent voters, civil societies, the Greens and Danela… They blame them for having lost the elections but none of them prevented SDSM from changing those laws and decrees during their six years of power. And the most tragic thing is that they still don’t understand how they lost so many votes in the last local elections. With this mindset, they’ll never understand.
The illegal construction endangering public safety at Macedonia Square in Skopje, which Gruevski and Subrata Roy promoted and was built as a monument to Mother Teresa, should be declared a Monument to the incompetence of SDSM. If the surrounding buildings with fake baroque facades are a monument to the crimes committed by VMRO-DPMNE, then the neglect of the heart of the capital, along with the concrete eyesore erected in the middle of the street, will be a testament to the indecisiveness and incompetence of SDSM.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
