1 Serbia is not that far away. Neither is the USA. They’re already here.

We’re alarmed when we hear of an unimaginable crime, like the one in the Belgrade primary school where a 13-year-old killed eight classmates with a gun, we’re horrified that a similar crime happened again just one day later near Belgrade and – we continue to live with our low moral values. The easiest thing to do now is to moralise about social media, video games and alienated children. We’re real know-it-alls about national strategies, media councils, regulatory bodies, laws on anti-discrimination, respect for diversity, fast-tracked laws… hundreds of institutions, but the institutions don’t work. Hundreds of laws, but the laws apply to some and don’t apply to others. Punishments for some, impunity for others. Everything’s regulated, but nothing is as it should be.

Children are not the ones to blame. Society is. Starting from the basic cell, their family, where children are brought up to say “Good day”, all the way to the highest legislative, executive and judicial authorities. What are the values we’re promoting – starting from kindergartens, then schools, all the way to universities? Who are our heroes? Wife beaters, thugs, plastic beauties who can’t string together a sentence and corrupt servile politicians. In what tone do parents talk to teachers at parent-teacher conferences? How do students belittle teachers? What do the sessions in the Assembly look like? What are the politicians’ statements like? What are press conferences like?

So much rage, anger, contempt, open hatred and aggression can be seen in the entire society, we’re a ticking bomb waiting to go off.

Serbia is not far away. And if weapons are that accessible to children, then children are not the ones to blame when a massacre occurs.

2 What’s the point in being concerned so much about our neighbours, when here at home, lawlessness is institutionalised precisely by those whose job is not only to protect the law, but to promote it. The members of the highest judicial body, the Judicial Council, which elects and dismisses judges, got together behind closed doors and secretly withdrew the decision they had previously illegally made to dismiss the president Vesna Dameva. They dismissed her once again, but apparently this time it was done in line with the law and they elected judge Sashko Georgiev as the new president. When asked why the session was closed to the public, the new president said that “some things shouldn’t be made public”. Of course. Executing directives is done in the company of the close ones. The public doesn’t need to see whether the judge who had shelved cases in the Court of Appeals will now be promoted to the Supreme Court. So he’d shelf cases there as well. It’s more important for them to be shelved there because it takes longer for the statute of limitations to expire.

The new president of the Judicial Council participated in the illegal dismissal of the president last week. He himself admitted that what they had done was illegal, but said he believed in God. God almighty! Not only are they breaking laws, but they’re also engaging in blasphemy. What does it matter if a judge believes in God, if he doesn’t believe in law and justice? It’s not like the judges elected by the highest judicial body, the Judicial Council, are elected to administer God’s justice. They are elected to administer justice according to the Constitution and laws, are they not?

When it comes to the institutionalisation of lawlessness, not even God can help us. Judges had their salaries raised and are now silent. That’s yet another indication that raised salaries don’t lead to greater independence, but to even greater servility to the government and the business overlords.

The most tragic thing in this situation is that, with the behaviour of the highest judicial body, its member didn’t promote only illegality. They promoted immorality as well. If they were guided by conscience at least three percent, as much as citizens trust the judiciary, they would have abolished themselves by now. They’re free to do as much harm as they want and to whomever they want. Since, apparently, only God is above them.

3 The former director of “Communal Hygiene” from Skopje became the organizational director of the Cardiology Clinic. Upon taking the new office, he posted on Facebook and publicly thanked his friends and “especially for Mister Ali Ahmeti’s trust”.

I don’t want to speak ill of anyone. Maybe this trusted member of DUI will prove to be a capable director of the Cardiology Clinic and will successfully manage the procurement of stents and the duty scheduling of cardiologists and anaesthesiologists, since he previously successfully managed the cleaning of the capital. However, when you achieve some professional success, it’s logical to thank your parents for educating and raising you, your family for the sacrifices they’ve made for your career. It’s not logical to thank a certain mister leader of a party.

We’re debating and whining about our doctors and nurses leaving public hospitals and going to private hospitals or moving to Germany, while someone who’s a loyal member of the ruling party isn’t even ashamed to thank the “mister” for being appointed as the director of the healthcare workers who feel humiliated precisely because of those backdoor deals. So his career is going well not thanks to his abilities, education, skills, but because he knew how to suck up to the party leader.

The more intense the sucking up to the leader, the higher the office. The highest title – First Deputy Prime Minister.  Or, go back to point number 2 – God’s Judicial Council.

4 At an event at the Shtip Hospital, Minister of Health Fatmir Mexhiti told reporters: If you asked me if I would like to be treated in these conditions, I’d say – no!

Well done to the minister. His perspective of the problem is realistic. The minister made the statement during the handover of 24 hospital beds donated by the Czech Republic. So the Czech Republic, as a foreign country saw what the Shtip Hospital needed and found the cure. And the minister, as a doctor, gave an accurate diagnosis. However, he didn’t give the cure.

Who’s supposed to give the cure? Minister Mexhiti has just joined the Government. His party Alliance went to great lengths to enter the Government. They blackmailed, fought, bargained for ministerial positions. Why? Is it because they’ll go to Europe only with constitutional changes?

All right, let the minister come to an agreement with his party for the parliamentary group of Alliance to propose a law that will abolish organizational directors in the clinics, which have been a home for people employed by the party. The annual salary of just one organizational director could be diverted to do much more than 24 hospital beds. The salaries of their secretary and their driver could be used to renovate the toilets. Official cars could be replaced by ambulances. That way we’d achieve the right conditions for the minister not to fear he’d get stuck in the Shtip Hospital as a patient, and to gladly go to work as a specialist doctor.

The best inventory for what the Macedonian public health sector needs has been done by the embassies of Japan, Switzerland, USA, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden… They have a list of everything their taxpayers need to provide to Macedonian society. Our ministers have other lists. They themselves come with lists for employments. And not lists about how many doctors and nurses should be employed, but how many of them need to be Macedonian and how many Albanian and who is from one ruling party and who from the other.

They’re interested only in those lists.

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski