Macedonians Flock to Sign Patriotic Petition

Skopje's old fortress | Photo by: Balkan Insight

Some 65,000 people and 170 institutions and associations have so far signed the protest petition to Brussels, the “Macedonian Manifesto”, its organizers claim.

The petition is a brainchild of a number of local celebrities, including well-known artists and athletes.

After the campaign started last week in Skopje, it has since spread to other towns. Starting from Wednesday, supporters are also being collected on Facebook.

“This generation of Macedonians is proudly raising its voice to say NO to the demand to give up the people’s soul - its name and language,” the manifesto says.

Starting from the 2009 Progress Report, the European Commission has started avoiding use of the adjective "Macedonian" to describe the people of Macedonia and their language. Instead it uses the provisional reference FYROM [Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia] under which the country entered the UN in the 1990s, to avoid angering Greece.

Resentment flared in Macedonia this autumn following receipt of the latest European Commission report. First to voice discontent were the country’s President, Gjorge Ivanov, and the Prime Minister, Nikola Greuvski, after which many institutions and organizations last month sent EU leaders angry letters.

The petition urges EU officials to stop their alleged attempts to “erase” the national identity of Macedonians, reminding them, among other things, that the word is mentioned 28 times in the Bible.

Photo by: Balkan Insight

“We are aware that this won’t change the world but we wish to show that some people really care about what happens to this nation,” said Rubens Muratovski, a well known actor who along with some of his colleagues thought up the petition.

However, some intellectuals argue that the method chosen for waging the name battle is populist and unproductive.

“I wonder what Macedonian diplomacy is doing,” journalist Katerina Blazevska asked in a Monday column for the Dnevnik daily.
 
“One gets the impression that there is a nationwide contest [among celebrities] in patriotic verbal statements in defence of the name, language and country against foreign and domestic enemies”, Blazevska wrote. She said the petition was distracting the country from its real problems.

Macedonia obtained the status of an EU candidate country back in 2005 and in 2009 the European Commission recommended a start to EU accession talks. But despite consecutive recommendations from the Commission, the country has not made any progress on this task owing to a Greek blockade.

Greece refuses to let Macedonia join NATO or the EU until the country first changes its name. Athens argues that Skopje’s use of the name Macedonia implies territorial claims to its own northern province of the same name.

The collection of signatures for the petition wraps up on November 18.  Organizers plan to send it to the EU office in Skopje and forward it to the European Commissioner Stefan Fuele.