Review: Zaev: Macedonia should not have reacted to “Slavomacedonians”
Published in Reviews
on 27 - 09 - 2014 Author: Владо ЃорчевThere is at least two reasons why this text cannot be called a journalist text. First, because it is false, and second, because it has so many spelling, grammar and technical errors and it can hardly even be interpreted. And once it is interpreted, we can conclude that every sentence is a story for itself, being spinned or having some part of the truth removed or added.
Link to the original article: Заев: Македонија не требаше да реагира за „славомакедонци“
Date and time of publication: 25.09.2014, 21:47
Review Date: 27.09.2014
Reviewer: Vlado Gjorchev
DISAGREEING WITH THE TRUTH
This text disagrees with the truth. The next US Ambassador to Macedonia did not use the term “Slavomacedonians” (which should be written with a capital letter) but Slavs. The difference between these two words is enormous. One is an archaic term for a people, and the other means belonging to a group or people with similar linguistic and other characteristics.
According to the text (Note: republished as the original, with all technical and editing errors):
“The opposition leader, as a guest in the television station of the Albanian minority in Macedonia, Alsat M, said that Macedonia should not have reacted the way it did, after the statement of the newly appointed US Ambassador Baily, in which he called us Slavomacedonians.”
In his speech, however, Baily also mentions the Macedonian people:
“Although the largest ethnic Albanian party is in the ruling coalition, gaps persist between the ethnic Albanian and Macedonian populations, as evidenced by protests this summer.“, или во превод:
“Although the largest ethnic Albanian party in the ruling coalition, there are still differences between the ethnic Albanian and Macedonian populations, as evidenced by the protests this summer.”
The term “Slav majority and Albanian minority” (see image) is first mentioned by senator Murphy in the context of the Balkans, which is true, because there are more Slavs than Albanians in the Balkans.
Baily’s speech before the US Senate caused a storm of reactions in the media, and consequently, it was the reason for this text, which aims to distort the policy of SDSM and present it in a negative context. This is why the thesis for “bending the spine” is wrong, and false. That phrase was not used with the intention to give in when it comes to the name dispute, but the pro-government media immediately used it to degrade the current leader of SDSM, Zoran Zaev.
And, in order to make it clear what was said in the Senate, we will analyze the part that caused the greatest interest among the public.
Baily says:
“We are also working in many areas, for example, public diplomacy through the programs of the Peace Corps, to build a sense for a mutual future, and for tolerance between ethnic Albanian and Macedonian populations. We notice that there are more Slavs than Albanians in the Macedonian Society. There are also Turks, Roma and other minorities. So it (Macedonia) is a microcosm, which in many ways represents the wealth of the Balkans…”
We can’t say the statement was false because in general, Macedonia has more Slavs (Macedonians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Croats, Torbeshi) than Albanians. This can be interpreted in many ways, first as a reflection on the general situation in the Balkans (more Slavs than Albanians), but it would be difficult to draw a conclusion from these two sentences that the Macedonian ethnic identity is being negated (because the term “ethnic Macedonians” was mentioned in the previous sentence).
And, of course, the biggest lie in the text is that at no point in the speech, the term Slavomacedonians is not mentioned as a substitute for the term ethnic Macedonians.