1On the day panic spread in Skopje that the city’s water supply contained Escherichia coli bacteria, several friends and acquaintances called me to ask me whether the water in Skopje was safe. As if we journalists know something but aren’t reporting it. They tell me, publish it. Publish what exactly? It’s not news that drinking water is safe to drink. It’d be news if drinking water weren’t safe to drink. They ask me, so you believe that’s true? What am I supposed to tell them?
Well, it’s one hundred percent true, but I very much doubt it?
How can you judge people for believing the rumours a few days ago that Skopje’s water supply was contaminated? You tell yourself, no, that’s not possible. But how come it was possible in Gostivar a month ago? Five thousand people were infected. And instead of taking responsibility for the contamination of Gostivar’s water now, during its own term, the Government fuelled the story by accusing the opposition, saying that the people of Gostivar had been drinking contaminated water for years, including when SDSM was in power. They even called on the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate what the water had been like seven or eight years ago.
If you don’t trust the director of the Public Water Supply Enterprise, if you don’t trust the director of a state laboratory, if you don’t trust the Institute of Public Health, if you don’t trust the Ministry of Health, if you don’t trust the Food Agency, then who are you supposed to trust? Would you rather trust Ole from the City of Skopje services, who brought Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski a glass of water? The mayor who comes from a party whose members, a few years ago, drank water from Lake Dojran to prove it was clean? Yes, members of that party actually did so in June 2016, after the State Sanitary and Health Inspectorate banned swimming at four beaches in Dojran, following analyses by the Public Health Centre in Veles which showed the water in the lake at those four beaches was physically and chemically polluted, contained faecal bacteria, and wasn’t safe for swimming.
2 People are suspicious simply because the government refuses to take responsibility for the job it was elected to do. People expect solutions now, from this ruling structure. What does the government think? That it’ll convince citizens to trust the institutions it’s been running for the past two years by accusing the opposition of spreading panic?
Wow, how things have changed. VMRO-DPMNE is accusing others of bot nets and spreading disinformation.
When a politician refuses to accept responsibility for anything bad that happens while they’re in power and blames someone else for everything bad, and on top of that doesn’t take responsibility for what they themselves publicly say at press conferences and in interviews, it’s somehow logical that any fool can go on Facebook and write that the drinking water is polluted.
And then we’re all stunned that not even Ole giving Orce a glass of water can convince citizens that the tap water is safe.
3 They don’t give a damn about responsibility to such an extent that the government can’t even make sure it gets the national flag right at a concert marking 35 years of our independence. Naturally, the opposition SDSM immediately jumped in to accuse the government of incompetence.
Ugh, look who’s talking, the opposition, the champions of responsibility. SDSM, five years ago, when it was in power, also got the flag wrong in the government’s logo for the celebration of the 30th anniversary of independence. They could at least have kept quiet this time and spared us the reminder. They were so arrogant back then that they didn’t even change the logo. At least the people in power now, by the second concert, had reduced the number of rays on the sun.
There we go again, making a fuss over a flag. As if it weren’t bad enough that we don’t understand art installations, we also keep asking how much the Independence Day celebration will cost us. We just can’t stop asking about money. We just don’t know how to rejoice on big dates.
It’s not that we don’t rejoice. Despite all these incompetent governments and oppositions, despite all the stupidities and the serious consequences they’ve caused, our country has survived for 35 years. That’s cause for great joy. And by God, for amazement too.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
