1 The broken arms and legs will heal, and thankfully, none of the eleven children who ended up in hospital were seriously injured while doing the “Superman Challenge” on TikTok. I really don’t know what to say or think about this latest bit of monkey business, where several people link arms to form a net, and someone jumps into it like Superman, hoping to be tossed into the air and land on their feet.
We are part of this world. In other countries, too, young people, and not-so-young people, end up in hospitals, and some, tragically, lose their lives trying to complete various challenged set for them on Instagram and TikTok.
We live in the 21st century. Mobile phones are like tissue that has grown into our minds. You can’t take social networks away from children. They don’t know what it’s like to live without them. But how are they supposed to tell which content is useful and which is harmful and should be cast aside? Who’s supposed to teach them? School. What school? The one with a curriculum from the time when there was no internet, which is implemented by teachers between two party rallies.
A few days ago, the Ministry of Education and Science presented the results of an international test according to which out of 58 countries, Macedonian students ranked 47th in natural sciences and 44th in mathematical literacy.
According to the 2022 PISA results, out of 81 countries, Macedonian students are ranked 72nd in language literacy and 61st in mathematics.
Watching the videos with Macedonian supermen, combined with the results of international exams, I recalled several parent-teacher conferences where concerned parents complained to homeroom teachers that their children were overwhelmed with assignments. That they were studying too much. And that teachers didn’t give them enough As. The first thing that crossed my mind was that if our children were really so overwhelmed with assignments, they wouldn’t have the time to toss each other in the air. Not every student needs to have As, do they? Take a look at what an A in physics looks like. Newton beats Superman even on TikTok.
Both Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and Minister of Education Vesna Janevska are university professors. And let’s point out they come from a normal state university, not one of those private ones where you take 40 exams in a single year and can buy master’s and doctoral degrees. I’d like to think they feel offended on a personal level when they’re surrounded by improvisers with inadequate education, bought diplomas, and forged certificates. Or perhaps that suits them. Working with such people makes it easier to order them around, knowing they’ll obey you without question.
Sometimes, VMRO members affectionately refer to Prime Minister Mickoski as “the teacher.” Perhaps it’s time for him, alongside with Minister Janevska, to get down to mastering the “Teacher’s Challenge.” To reform the education system. But also to reform the system that rewards the uneducated and incompetent just because they’re obedient. Otherwise, why would children bother to study when they can see how one becomes an MP, minister, mayor, director of a public enterprise, member of the Board of Directors of a state-owned company, advisor in a ministry? You should sign up for a party, not college.
2 A few days ago, when several media outlets reported that the mayor of Butel had seen the Virgin Mary on a candlestick in the local church, it occurred to me that in 2012, the then-Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski went to inspect the Church of St.Demetrius in Skopje to check if the frescoes were crying. He was accompanied by TV crews, who conducted surveys with the believers, and filmed the astonished face of the God-fearing Prime Minister up close. For days, the public was preoccupied with the debate over whether the frescoes were truly crying or if it was just a case of condensation…
Twelve years later, the public is now preoccupied with a nine-year-old child whose violent behaviour has led to a boycott of classes in two Skopje schools. Minister Vesna Janevska has asked for a couple of days to address the issue systematically. She has also urged the public not to stigmatise the child.
Phew, what a relief. Thank goodness our Minister of Education is a doctor, a healthcare professional, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine, an author of scientific papers… No wonder she’s taking a thorough approach to solving this case. She says that three ministries are working closely together to solve the problem. Otherwise, if she didn’t hold that position, they’d solve the problem with the child with religious exorcism. By purging his demons.
3 I hear Prime Minister Mickoski insult prosecutors almost every day. He’s claiming that women had their period, men had diarrhoea, and that’s why they didn’t process the cases. And they just let it slide. Where’s the Association of Public Prosecutors to defend them? Where’s the Council of Public Prosecutors? Where are they to rip into him: Who do you think you are, insulting us like that?
You’re a prosecutor after all. How can you let someone pressure you like that? File charges against the Prime Minister. By law, you outrank him. You can prosecute him. He can’t.
If you’re corrupt, keep quiet. If you became a public prosecutor because your name was ticked off in a party notebook, keep quiet. But if you let a prime minister humiliate you by saying you’re incompetent and corrupt, and you’re not corrupt, yet you humbly say nothing in response – then you are truly incompetent.
4 The dismissed Supreme Court judge Stojanche Ribarev has been appointed president of the Council for Civil Oversight of Communications. This is the same Ribarev who, in 2017, as acting president of the Criminal Court, ordered a judge to cut short their trip in order to make a 2:1 vote in the Criminal Council, saving Nikola Gruevski from detention. He was dismissed after abusing the electronic case distribution system to rig high-level corruption cases that were being conducted against former VMRO-DPMNE officials.
After his election, SDSM accused VMRO-DPMNE of scandalously privatising the Council for Civil Oversight, claiming it would once again become a tool for mass wiretapping.
The Council was meant to be a civilian body that oversees the work of institutions that can legally wiretap. It was established as an institution back in 2019. Unfortunately, up until now, it has never been fully active.
SDSM has no one to blame but themselves for failing to revive this Council during their five years in power. They allowed VMRO-DPMNE to take control of the positions in institutions that are supposed to track down wiretapping abuses, appointing people who saved them from jail precisely when their members were stealing and wiretapping. That’s how lazy SDSM were. And that’s how little they cared. I think they probably didn’t even know such a body existed and that they were the ones who formed it.
But now, it’s not worth wasting your time talking about them. Out of sheer laziness, I believe that the public broadcaster, Macedonian Radio and Television, didn’t even notice that SDSM was ever in power.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
