1 What are the odds that two convicted men from the same company, sentenced in the same trial, both avoid prison because they’ve each got a testicular hernia? The owner of “Durmo Tours,” Durmish Beluli, and the firm’s transport manager, Remzi Miftari, were sentenced to ten years in prison for the February 2019 bus crash on the Skopje–Tetovo motorway that killed 16 passengers and injured more than 30.
They should have been behind bars five months ago, but the Basic Court in Tetovo, Department for Enforcement of Sentences, told us that both convicts have testicular issues. Beluli allegedly has a hernia on one testicle, and Miftari on both.
My sympathy to anyone in genuine pain down there, but these two have clearly got the state by the balls and are totally indifferent to the feelings of the victims’ families to such an extent that they didn’t even bother to buy different diagnoses, yet it passed through the courts without question. Of all the possible ailments, both just happened to suffer hernias and just in time to stay out of prison. As if it’s contagious.
What are the odds that the boss and his employee both developed the same testicular condition at the same moment? Or did they find some promotional deal: “pay for two balls get one for free?”
If they were from Bitola, they’d already have the nickname Balls of Steel.
In a ruptured state, everything’s ruptured, so even the convicts have ruptured testicles.
2 Meanwhile, here we are waiting for some resolution in the Kochani tragedy, where 62 young people died and more than 200 were injured, many still recovering. There will be a trial, but it will drag on for years, documents will be passed from one court to another, lawyers will be replaced, hearings will be postponed, and in the end, perhaps someone will be convicted.
Far more worrying than the verdict is that a tragedy of that magnitude hasn’t shaken the political elite. I’ve been following the campaign for the local elections. Honestly, every time I see the buses, the songs, the applause and the flags, I think of Kochani. The parties don’t need much imagination. Instead of billboard poetry generated by AI, it would be far more effective to remember what led up to that tragedy. The election programme would write itself.
The answers to those questions are the real topics to address in these elections. Starting with building permits, repurposing of buildings, extensions, parking, access for emergency services, inspections of all kinds, loud music, fiscal receipts, alcohol served to minors, smoking indoors, and finally, fire safety.
After every major disaster elsewhere, there’s something called – a lesson learned. Back here, the parties never learn. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t because in positions where they should hire people with integrity, they place party lackeys, who end up as petty thugs collecting favours, some more, some less. Some do it for free entry and a good spot at the bar, others for a free drink or lunch, others for a state job, a watch, maybe a flat or two. And who oversees all this? The competent institutions. And who works in those institutions? Someone’s sister, brother-in-law, husband, brother, sister-in-law … We know them all from party headquarters.
In countries that have learned lessons, this would be called murder by corruption.
Here, a tragedy caused by a chain of corruption that blackened an entire city is called an “unfortunate incident,” when, at 3 a.m., they woke the Prime Minister, and that supposedly became one of the worst days of his life.
3 Even after Kochani, after the 2019 Laskarci crash (16 dead), the 2021 fire in the modular COVID hospital in Tetovo (14 dead), the 2021 “Besa Tours” bus accident in Bulgaria (45 dead), and this year’s mass poisoning of citizens in Skopje by fires from illegal dumps, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski tells us the greatest patriotism is to have children.
A government that can’t even provide basic living conditions, such as clean air, water or environment preaches childbirth as patriotic duty.
Many developed countries face low birth rates. However, the problem here the bigger problem is that the ones already born are leaving. Once they come of age, they hit the road, with their mothers, with their fathers. Because what use are smiling politicians on billboards and attractive campaign videos, when at home, people are barely making ends meet?
And they don’t all leave for more money. Accomplished people leave too. It’s not always about the money. A specialist doctor moves abroad with his wife and three children, and doesn’t think twice. Why? Because he’d lose his health here dealing with directors appointed by the party, all sorts tender shenanigans, the “we have medicine / we don’t have medicine” roulette, the “this patient is one of ours,” the inevitable “someone called from above.” Or perhaps because he finds it humiliating to work in private healthcare, where his boss values his effort as if he were a shop assistant expected to maximise profit.
Hell no. You live only once. People simply want to work, earn, and go home to live in joy.
And they don’t all leave because they have no home and expect the government’s offers to build houses with no utility payments. Hardly. Flats and houses here gather dust, while their owners live abroad, paying rent, taking loans, making new friends, starting again.
People want order. Predictability.
At the end of the day, it’s not the Prime Minister’s job to plan my family. His job is to provide decent living and working conditions, and I’ll decide about my family myself.
4 Let’s say VMRO-DPMNE wins these local elections in a historic landslide. Let’s say Mickoski gains absolute power.
How will he finish all the projects he’s promising if he has no allies? Will he work only with his own people? How does he plan to achieve anything for the common good when every sentence he utters drips with threat or mockery toward opponents and anyone who disagrees? He hasn’t yet begun hurling curses, but give it some time and before the campaign ends, we might hear that too. “You hate Macedonia,” every chance he gets.
In a country so split on every line, Macedonia needs dialogue, not bickering.
What vision does this government offer to make children stay? Because if you listen to what our Prime Minister is saying at his rallies, the choice is clear: either VMRO-DPMNE, or “the traitors from SDSM, DUI and Levica.”
Fine then, be a patriot, and have kids.
5It’s been thirty years since the assassination attempt on President Kiro Gligorov on 3 October 1995. We still don’t know who ordered it or who carried it out.
That year, in October and in November, I wrote about it in almost every column. Especially considering the fact the President survived and we followed his recovery.
Rereading my archive from that year, I found a column from 18 November 1995 entitled “Forgotten Reality.” I’d written:
“Was there an assassination attempt in this country last month? I think a car bomb went off in the centre of Skopje or something!? Or perhaps I’m mistaken?”
We had an attempt on the head of state, and six weeks later we’d already forgotten.
I fear the memory of the Kochani tragedy will fade the same way. Especially since it’s been six months and we haven’t seen a single systemic reform that could prevent another catastrophe. This column could easily carry the same title as the one from 1995: Forgotten Reality.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
