I really want 2022 not to be a historic year for Macedonia. This column is turning 31 in a month, and I’m sick and tired of writing about historic events, historic dates, historic elections, historic accidents, historic reports, historic summits, historic parliamentary sessions…

And for heaven’s sake people, behave yourselves. Mind your manners. Can’t you see that politicians have led us to a situation where we don’t know how to congratulate each other. Political battle doesn’t mean we have to hate each other’s guts. Criticism doesn’t mean we should be poisoned against each other. It’s not a matter of freedom or death, is it? It’s terrible when the thread that connects them isn’t their ideology, but the toxic hatred that springs from the first person all the way to the last troll on social networks and when that tone of communication becomes normal.

I’ve made a selection of 12 columns about events that I think marked (yet again, the historic,) 2021. The title is the same as the column published on 4 April, inspired by a photo of Pandev and Elmas smiling and hugging after the victory over Germany in the middle of Germany. That’s the image of Macedonia. And it’s a pity that we forget that photo, and we remember it only in moments of success.

Dear friends, hatred will be the end of us.

And the biggest challenge in 2022 will be to overcome hatred with kindness.

Wishing you happy holidays and many joys of life in 2022.

May we all be healthy and stay forever young.

Yours,

Goran

15 January

Be it as it may, by vetoing Bulgaria did the dirty work for the Eurosceptics. Both for the ones in the EU member states and the ones over here. Quite frankly, it will come in handy for the government as well. Who’d think about the fight against corruption, the efficient civil service, transparent governance, urban planning, clean air and clean water, when the priority question is how many times Buchkovski has crossed the Deve Bair border check-point. After all, everything is as it should be. If you read the statements by the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the fight against corruption, Ljupco Nikolovski, you’ll think you’re living in Sweden. At the same time, his colleague Artan Grubi is organizing a private party for his buddies from DUI in the official premises of the Ministry of Nothing.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Zaev announced that cars with Bulgarian registration plates will be registered at a 50% lower cost. There are donkeys who obey the law and pay the full price and there are wise guys who don’t obey the law and will pay at half price. The Ministry of Interior Affairs announced that whole concrete mixer trucks owned by people in the government hadn’t been registered for years, while honest ordinary citizens have their credit cards in the red just to register their cars.

What will be the fine for the law-abiding citizens to compensate for the reward for the insolent?

If you build without a permit, they’ll legalize the illegal construction. If you usurp the sidewalk in order to build an open sitting area for your café, they’ll legalize it with the patio heaters and everything. Lay the platform planks in the lake, they’ll legalize it when it becomes a restaurant. Don’t pay property tax, they’ll kindly ask you to pay in installments. Launder money in a Belize kind of place, bring it back as if an investment, they’ll legalize it…

The whole battle with the disobedient has been reduced to legalization of disobedience.

26 February

Imagine if you were a newcomer and watched from the sidelines as the police, the court and the prosecution act like headless chickens trying to resolve the crisis when Mijalkov disappeared few days before the verdict. I don’t know what’s funnier. Their behavior then, or their explanations after the fugitive appeared at the Prosecutor’s Office to take the decision for his house arrest. So much fuss about a single isolation.

I’d like to believe that “there will be justice – and even more so”, as Zaev says. For heaven’s sake, we’ve waited for that justice since the first day he started publishing the information bombs.

26 March

These couple of days, hundreds, if not thousands of Macedonian citizens are marking the anniversary of the accession to NATO waiting to get vaccinated against Covid-19 in the halls of the Belgrade Fair. Alongside the citizens of Serbia, who are also marking an anniversary these couple of days – the anniversary of NATO’s bombing. It will be interesting to see whether Serbia will manage to vaccinate more Macedonians in a single weekend, than the healthcare workers Macedonia has vaccinated in a month and a half. And even that’s done with vaccines gifted by Serbia.

It sounds ironic? It sounds harsh? It sounds terrible? Yes. But that’s the case. At least for me personally, someone who deeply believes in the Western values, the solidarity and the principles promoted by the European Union, although this disappointment is excruciatingly painful.

Somehow, it feels like the European idea in Macedonia is dying. Why? Because it’s the umpteenth time the European Union has abandoned us, has betrayed us, and hasn’t kept its promises. Simply, it didn’t prove a partner you can rely on when you need it.

And what did we get for our loyalty to the EU? A veto from Bulgaria. And then we feel bad that Macedonian citizens take photos of themselves in front of the poster which reads “Hvala Srbija”[1] after having been vaccinated in Belgrade. Although we want to and yearn to take photos of ourselves next to “EU for you.”

We got vaccines from Serbia. And what did we get from the EU? We got Karakachanov.

So, I’ve decided to get vaccinated by the “dictator” Vucic, since the “democrat” Borisov cuts me dead.

2 April

No matter how pathetic is may sound, the photo in which Pandev and Elmas are hugging and laughing after the win over Germany, in Germany, is the picture of the real Macedonia. It’s a pity that we tend to forget about that picture, so we only recall it in moments of success.

The description of the picture is pathetic. But the picture itself is real. Two Macedonian footballers of different nationality play for their country and rejoice in their success in Duisburg, while at the same time in Skopje the foreign ambassadors encourage politicians to stop being at each other’s throats in the Assembly. The thing is that the national team is comprised of people of all nationalities and religions, footballers are selected with regard to how good they are. While in the Assembly, MPs are elected with regard to how bad they are. In the national team they have to know how to score goals and defend. In the Assembly, MPs don’t have to know anything. They just need to listen to the head of the party and take photos with him.

We’re not used to success. And on the rare occasion when something like that happens to us, we realize how poisoned we are. We’re surprised that we even know how to rejoice and be proud. Has a politician given you a reason to rejoice? Have you felt proud of your country because of a politician?

Pandev and Elmas hugging – that’s the real life. And parties and politicians are here to create problems so they could solve our problems afterwards. The worst part is that we don’t have any other successes like the one with our win over Germany, not just in football, but in all other fields. If we had a reason to rejoice, we wouldn’t give a damn about politics.

16 April

If Zaev had listened two years ago, when the media started publishing documents about the wrongdoings of the then Secretary General of the Government, and until just a couple of days ago a secretary of “whatever” Dragi Rashkovski, the least he could have done was to dismiss him from office. But he defended him. And he still does.

But now, it won’t be just Rashkovski who will go down in flames. The party will go down in flames too.

The senior-year student Toni Sali passed away at 19. He fought with the state for 10 years to get his unique master citizen number. The Office for Management of Registers wouldn’t issue him a birth certificate. And just like that – Toni died. We don’t know how. He’s gone. But, it’s like he’s never even existed.

Everything is done according to the law in this country, where unique master citizen numbers are created for nonexistent citizens, where several ID cards with different addresses are issued to the same people for vote rigging, where valid forged passports are issued to criminals from all over the world, but there you go – when it comes to Toni from Shutka, who was a poor straight A student who won awards, nobody in the country could find a solution.

How will they live with Tony’s death, all those clerks who had been harassing the kid and his parents with full stops and commas for 15 years, bogging them down in red tape, sending them from one counter to another, from one institution to another and kept convincing them that – such were the laws, and the laws had to be obeyed.

Do those people have a soul? Or do they have only a party membership card?

11 June

I find it unbelievable that SDSM are in a position to fear losing the elections. How inapt to rule do you have to be to get to such a low level that this VMRO-DPMNE could beat you? By doing nothing. By booing.

16 July

Six trials of SPO cases on high crime and corruption have been returned to the beginning after dragging on for four years.

This is happening during the rule of a political structure that won the elections, led by the enthusiasm of the citizens eager for changes that they expressed in the slogan “There’s no justice, there’s no peace.” Well, there’s no justice. And peace is bought with party employments. They don’t report the tip, because no tax is paid on it.

13 August

Maybe Prime Minister Zoran Zaev was right that the system was working and the Prime Minister didn’t have to be here, but he felt that citizens needed to see him, so he interrupted his holiday in Greece when the domestic firefighters couldn’t tame the fires in the Maleshevo region. Is there really anyone who trusts the system? Those stories don’t do the trick even on Facebook anymore. Even those whose job is to press likes on social media don’t believe the system works, but they certainly hope they’ll be rewarded with 30 per cent after the elections.

No one believes that the system works even when they see the Prime Minister on TV, when he’s here, let alone when he announces that he’s coordinating the crisis from abroad over the phone and the Internet. What was he coordinating? The fellow-party members made directors, who were also at the beach, or the obedient mayors who spent the money they receive on official cars and salaries for staff employed by the parties, instead of spending it on municipal infrastructure that would be ready for a crisis situation?

And we dare wonder why foreigners interfere in our politics. Why wouldn’t they interfere, when they’re doing everything – from peace agreements and party dialogues to cleaning up garbage and putting out fires. Literally too. We’re lucky that our existence and stability coincides with their strategic interest, otherwise they would’ve left us to burn.

The only thing left for us to do is to pass our laws, print personal documents and keep order. We have laws, we’ll wait for a new tender for documents, and we can’t establish order. In what other country do they install bollards to save sidewalks and bike lanes from cars? And still, they break the bollards again. And no one’s been punished for that. And the ones who don’t punish that not punishing, are also not punished.

And what does the government do? This supreme incompetence, from the smallest municipal enterprise to the highest state officials, will be rewarded with 30 per cent for “outstanding results in serving the public interest.”

10 September

Despite all the sadness, anger and despair that overwhelmed me after the terrible fire in the Covid centre in Tetovo, in which 14 people died, I have nothing to say. I was struck dumb by the realization that there’s no end to this.

How can one say something smart, when we haven’t learned anything even after so many lessons with tragedies caused by sloppiness? How could we learn, when politicians’ reflex is to make excuses, not to solve the problem?

The resignation of minister Filipche isn’t a problem at all. At this moment, it would be a symbolic gesture, which would bring catharsis to all those who seek it and disappointment to all those who support him. He’ll resign, and what then?

Personally, I think that he could offer it based on moral reasons. Because even without waiting for the results of the investigation, it’s obvious that there were serious systemic flaws.

On the other hand, I understand why Prime Minister Zoran Zaev wouldn’t accept his resignation. It’s unproductive to render the whole health department dysfunctional amid the pandemic.

Filipche’s resignation is no guarantee that such tragic failures won’t be repeated. How can one ask for guarantee, when the minister himself says: “I cannot dismiss the director until responsibility is determined.” Why? Because he was appointed by a political party.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t even matter if the director had been appointed by this or that party and which leader they are close to. What matters is if they’ve proved capable or incapable. The worst thing is that all those who have proved incapable are protected by the party. That’s the systemic failure. And Venko, the most prominent person of that system, accepted that practice. That’s why, he can thank politics for falling so low, from people saying “Listen to Venko” at the beginning of the pandemic to a level where they’re saying “Down with Venko.”

22 October

Woah, the evil will happen again!? Well, has it just occurred to you? The citizens who brought you to power have been working you for four years: Be careful, the evil will happen again.

And now, citizens should be afraid that the criminal party which stole everything – starting from the elections and then everything all the way down the line and whose leadership didn’t even apologize for the wrongdoings of the fugitive in Budapest, for the organized attack on the Assembly, for the mass wiretapping, for making us live in fear, for the racketeering, for ruining media outlets, for the fact the state was kidnapped by one party… What has the ruling SDSM done to show they’re afraid of VMRO returning?

Am I now to compare SDSM with VMRO?

Do they still not understand that we no longer have the patience to tolerate someone’s rule just for the interests of the party? We’re tired of it. Resigned. When Zaev used to say “let’s not allow this evil to happen again” after each new published information bomb, we really believed that the evil wouldn’t happen again. The people who didn’t go to the polls now, voted 4 years ago, hoping for change. Now the two largest parties are in decline. At these elections, VMRO-DPMNE got 50,000 votes less than at the municipal elections in 2017. Whereas SDSM lost about 180,000 voters. In fact, the biggest defeat of SDSM is that they’ve killed our hope.

Zaev should stop wondering why he lost so many votes, even in the places where SDSM traditionally used to win. There isn’t much to philosophize about here. You deny citizens the quality of life; citizens deny you the votes.

26 November

All right, you’d think, accidents happen. But, the crushing fact is that we never seem to learn from them. The accident itself is shocking. The death toll of 45 passengers is shocking. But what’s also shocking is the realization that the careless behavior of the government, whichever it may be, the incompetent behaviour of the state institutions and the slow judiciary is something that has long since become normal for us. It’s become a commonplace for us to pay the incompetent and corrupt institutions a blood tax.

And the most crushing thing is that all of this no longer bothers us. Apart from the rare outbursts of rage and sadness, we do nothing. We’ve come to terms with living in depressive lethargy. Making ends meet until the next accident.

The “Besa Trans” bus crash will be like the one of “Durmo Turs” and will drag on over 100 court hearings by presenting expert evidence, counter-expert evidence and super expert evidence and we’ll continue to make ends meet until the next accident. It’s a good thing that at least we have Facebook and Twitter. We have to do this, we have to do that, we have to do it this way, we have to do it that way… What do we have to do? The only thing we have to do is to die. Get angry, comment, sleep on it and – forget it.

But like all wonders, the mourning for 45 lost lives lasts for three days. And we immediately return to the most important topics – Zaev’s resignation, Mickoski’s snap elections, who’ll be part of the new parliamentary majority – will it be Alternativa, will it be Alijansa, will it be Besa… DUI certainly will be.

The essential questions such as how many director-level positions there’ll be and which party will get them in order to save the European integration can’t be overpowered even by the great global problems – the new coronavirus mutation, the expensive electricity, the expensive gas, the lack of chips, the lack of paper, the rising food prices, the inflation growth…

But we don’t seem to care about that. Our lives don’t depend on those global topics. Our lives are paralyzed in the gap between two majorities and two accidents.

10 December

Let’s stop fooling ourselves. It’s not about Tsar Samuil, nor is it about Goce Delchev. And it’s even less about the Bulgarians not having rights in Macedonia. Unlike the Macedonians who do have rights in Bulgaria. Those are just excuses so the Bulgarian offensive to destabilize Macedonia could continue.

The offensive against Macedonia is further intensified by the statements from official Sofia that Albania should be separated in the process and start the EU accession talks. As if we don’t know what destabilizing effect that would have on Macedonia. And they certainly do know.

These are moves of a classic enemy country. Bulgaria doesn’t hide that it has territorial claims to Macedonia and everything it has failed to accomplish for centuries, it wants to achieve now. And to do that as an EU member state.

And if the latest poll that 70 percent of Bulgarians justify the veto on Macedonia is really valid, then we and our neighbors are in a cold war. And it’s unlikely that Macedonia will emerge unscathed from that war.

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski

[1] “Thank you, Serbia” in Serbian. (Translator’s Note)