Macedonian Manifesto: Blooming of Slavic Sprouts after the Ancient Winter Period

This Manifesto was silent about our Slavic gene at a time when it was not “modern” to talk about it, that is, when, not so long ago, we were turned into ancient people, which has nothing to do with the Slavic motherhood. And now the Manifesto puts the emphasis on our Slavic sprouts. The trouble for the members of the association appears in the fact that the Ukrainians are also Slavs, who, moreover, are trying to defend their sovereignty

 

Author: Ljubomir Kostovski

 

Although it was clearly stated from many official sources that no one has ever asked for Macedonian troops to fight in Ukraine and that this request did not come from either the country or NATO, circles have appeared in the country, which have tried to show their anti-Western feelings on the subject. The tightening of the Ukrainian borders was for them a good occasion for the manifestation of a pro-Russian attitude, by problematizing our membership in the Western alliances and of course – the signing of the Prespa Agreement as a kind of critical continuum.

 

A statement knocking on a non-existent door

The emergence of a group called the “Macedonian Manifesto” with a statement in which it “opposes the possible sending of Macedonian troops to any NATO operation in Ukraine”, is not surprising for those who are familiar with their activities. The statement, among other things, has the following request:

“Macedonian Manifesto” calls on all honest Macedonians to say NO to NATO for the involvement of Macedonians in a possible fratricidal war of the Macedonian with the Russian people. NO to sending Macedonian NATO troops to fraternal Ukraine. The Western-minded NATO alliance should know that the Russian and Macedonian peoples drank from the same linguistic and identity source in the past. Their origin is common, common with other Slavic peoples, and it is imprinted as a royal seal in the Macedonian memory. Macedonians and Russians are seedlings of the same family lineage and therefore they cannot fight against each other.

Apart from the fact that this group has no evidence of whether and how NATO will engage in defending Ukraine from the aggression of its eastern neighbor, there is a vocabulary in the Manifesto that is part of an illegal form and when it comes to its own country, which is a member of The Alliance. “Enraged NATO aggression,” for example, is one such expression.

 

Above all, in recent decades things in terms of aggression have come from the opposite side. Should we remember the confiscated territory in East Ossetia (2009), which belonged to Georgia?! Or the annexation of Crimea (2014) with soldiers who carried no state insignia (!), As well as the conversion of part of the territory of Ukraine (Donbass) in the same year, into a battlefield with the consequence of almost two million exiled citizens, only on the Ukrainian side, many soldiers killed and the economy destroyed, which by no means (legal and political) is a form of justified aggression! Why should the roar of tanks, if it comes from the East, be treated differently from the classic military action, that is, from turning politics into a higher degree of aggression (Clausewitz)?

There is no doubt that it is the Kremlin that is reckoning with its neighbors, with whom it has even signed two separate agreements – the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Independent States and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which commits itself to joint defence rather than seizing the territories of the weaker by the stronger. The signatories of those acts from 1992 have created a kind of counterpart of the EU and NATO, only the Kremlin when it wants to defend certain countries (regimes) such as Kazakhstan or Belarus, and when it does not want, it treats them imperially! Not to mention the case of Armenia, which not so long ago as a signatory to the agreements desperately asked for help in the conflict with Azerbaijan (a country that came out of the mentioned agreements), but received only ignorance! Who is pursuing an inconsistent and aggressive policy here?

 

Missed symbolism of sprouts

The attempt to oversee those really harsh but real events among the domestic manifesto lovers under the pretext – as it is said in their statement – that we have, “the same linguistic and identity source”, has simply been overcome long ago and is absurd because of several reasons. Aren’t Ukrainians with the same papillary identity lines? Of course, let us not go deep into history: they are more important in shaping the East Slavic civilization. Indeed, the address of this group to the public speaks of history (paragenesis), but such treatment can not be taken with the same dose of romanticism as in the “Macedonian Manifesto” if we know the fate of Ukraine, which is very more similar to ours in the South Slavic environment.

So, let us not draw symbolism with sprouts, because all Slavic peoples are equally close to us, even the Ukrainians! In fact, the members of the Manifesto did not speak when the official Macedonian policy in 2009 changed our identity, turning us into an ancient people, which has nothing to do with the Slavic motherland. How then did they not mind our “division” from the Slavic sprouts?

Therefore, no jumps in time and space should be made now, especially not towards the Cold War, with some black-and-white representations of things. Russia has been an imperial power for centuries and has had its own strategy towards others, including us.

The connection to the NATO alliance stems from such experiences of the Macedonian people in the past, and the state policy in that direction was part of all political leaderships, except that the Manifesto had empty periods in its action. The members of this association are considered privileged in their demands because they are “nationally awoken”, which, in turn, is against the wishes of most of the citizens who in all polls voted for joining NATO and the EU.

 

 

 

 

 

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