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Freepen.gr - Ο αρθρογράφος της Εστίας και διαχειριστής της γνωστής ιστοσελίδας antibaro.gr, Ανδρεας Σταλίδης κινητοποιήθηκε άμεσα και ενδεχομένως ταχύτερα από το ελληνικό υπουργείο εξωτερικών, σχετικά με το δημοσίευμα του BBC όπου γίνεται λόγο για αναγνώριση από την Ελλάδα "μακεδονικής" μειονότητας μέσω της Συμφωνίας των Πρεσπών.
Η επιστολή δημοσιεύθηκε επίσης στο antibaro.gr:
Dear Madam/Sir,
Several controversial points were made in this piece. Let me stress my point of view on the article (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-47258809)
First, there is no "macedonian ethnic minority" in Greece. Two main reasons:
1. the people that the article is referring to have a political party that represents them, which in the last european elections (where people vote more freely not bounded by the big ideological political parties) they got around 2000 votes in the area of Macedonia in northern Greece.
2. there is no macedonian ethnicity. Government's signatures don't "recognise languages and ethnicities", as the article states. History does. A macedonian nation doesn't exist because it doesn’t fall within the definition. History says that ancestors of today's Slavmacedonians (either in Greece or in Skopje) 3-4 generations back were Bulgarians and fought along with Bulgarians all Balkan wars. Political scientists concur.
The well known British scholar Nicholas GL Hammond has written volumes on the subject. In the Ottoman census in 1905 there was no "ethnic Macedonian" found. In the Yugoslav census in 1921 there was no "ethnic Macedonian" found. Not anyone speaking a "Macedonian language".
How can a language claiming to be "macedonian" exist, where its own name ("Macedonia") is a foreign word from the Greek language or when it is based on the Cyrillic alphabet devised in 7th AD, i.e. 1000 years after the peak of the Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great, who was speaking Greek, taught in Greek by Aristotle, became the "supreme commander of all Greeks apart from Lacedaemonians" in his phenomenal Asia expedition. How could Slavs claiming to be Macedonians firstly appeared in History such a long time later?
Not only do they usurp Greek history (ancient and modern) but also the Bulgarian, e.g. they adopt the famous historical figure Samuel, Tsar of Bulgarians and they call him "Macedonian Tsar"!
Your readers may find all that as irrelevant and wonder: "what's in a name in the end of the day?"
Well, mame is about identity; a vital core element both for the individual and a nation. British people undoubtedly acknowledge that. Much of British history or current political affairs have been about identity. Irish division, Scottish question on independence, even Brexit: all about identity. Don’t underestimate it.
Especially for the Balkans, which “produce more history than they can consume” as Winston Churchill once said.
Nowadays, non-historic nation-state names can indeed derive modern nations. This is well understood.
Nevertheless, the Macedonian identity is still a fundamental element of the Greek culture. It is utterly impossible to unravel that. I come from Macedonia. I will never call Slavs as Macedonians, Northern Macedonians or whatever else including that term. More than 75% of Greeks agree on this, based on dozens of polls.
If 2000 or 7000 people still speak a Slavic dialect in Greece, which by the way is _not_ the same as the language in FYROM, there are over 2 million Greeks in Macedonia, who speak Greek and continuously claim to be Macedonians since 6th century BC. How would they be called, if denied the name Macedonian?
At the same time, I can assure you that all Greeks want to live in peace with their neighbours and have respectful relations with them. This is an absolute truth whatsoever.
Yours,
Andreas Stalidis,
Bath, UK