This article of mine is about the article in Foreign Policy titled “Alexis Tsipras Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize”, by Edward P. Joseph.
I hope that you will publish it. Many people do not know the truth about the Macedonian issue.
I would like to mention some serious mistakes that Mr. Joseph has made in his article.
1.He has mentioned the Macedonian conflict. It is not a conflict, but an issue. In a conflict, between two countries, the two parts fight each other about a territory. Greece has never demanded a part of FYROM. Here, the case is much different. There has been, for thousands of years, a territory which has been called Macedonia. It has been a place like other places of Greek nation. A place where the Greek tribe of Macedonians have been living in* all educated persons would agree on that. North of Macedonia, was the Socialist Republic of Vardaska, a land of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Mr. Tito, the communist leader of Yugoslavia, wanted his country to have access to the Aegean sea and he wanted to do this without war. He wanted the northern part of Greece, Macedonia, to become part of his communist Yugoslavia.
Propaganda has been the best weapon of totalitarian regimes. Tito decided to change the name of Vardaska to Macedonia, after the end of WW II. Tito stole a Greek name and a part of Greece’s history to CREATE a nation. Some of the Greek communists were Tito’s supporters in this plan. They also wanted the creation of a communist state. Communists do not believe in “nations”, but only in a communist society. Greek civil war (1946-1949) was about the creation of an independent communist Macedonian state.
Since 1948, the communists in Yugoslavia have been using political propaganda to persuade the citizens of Vardaska that they belong to a nation called Macedonian. As I mentioned above, all educated people know that Macedonians have been one the tribes of the Greek nation. Macedonian is not the identity of a nation but the identity of a Greek tribe. There has never been a Macedonian nation, a Macedonian language. All was part of the communist propaganda to CREATE a fake nation so that Tito’s Yugoslavia would benefit from it and gain access to the Aegean Sea and her ports.
2. Mr. Joseph calls “nationalists” the people of Greece who oppose the Tsipra’s agreement with FYROM. Mr. Joseph used the word “nationalists” in a bad way and this is so unfair to the eighty five per cent of the people of Greece who oppose the Tsipra’s agreement with FYROM. It is not fair to call fascists and Nazis (the bad meaning of a “nationalist”) people who love their family, people who love their country and the rights of their nation. Tsipras government has been calling fascists all people who have different opinions from his governmental policies and Mr. Joseph is doing same thing.
People who deserve a Nobel Peace Prize are the people who like peace, because they love humans. People who oppose violence and do not divide a nation in fascists (the bad people) and in communists (the good people), deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Tsipras and his government keep saying that left-wing terrorists (who have killed many people) in Greece are political prisoners and not murderers. Do you still think that he desereves a peace prize?
3. The agreement that Mr. Tsipras signed with FYROM-Vardaska is not an agreement of peace. He did not create this agreement. All the communist political ideologies about the creation of a nation called Macedonian is in the agreement. It is not a new idea. This is what he believes it is politically correct, according to his communist ideology and not in order to make peace. He has no vision, he follows his ideology’s vision.
4. Mr. Joseph mentions that “If Macedonians (he means the citizens of FYROM-Vardaska) are considered to have no language, no church, no true national
identity, some may conclude they have no right to a nation-state.” If Mr. Joseph calls them “Macedonians” then the people of Greece who have been part of the Greek tribe of Macedons, for more than two thousand years, what are they? Greeks in Athens are Athenians, Greeks in Crete are Cretans, Greeks in Ionian islands are Ionians etc. The Tsipras agreement takes away the Macedon identity from the people of the Macedon tribe of the Greek nation and gives it to the people of Vardaska. Mr. Joseph does not explain us what the people of the Macedon tribe are called from now on, since he agrees with the Tsipras communist ideology of stealing a people’s identity.
In conclusion, I would like to mention that the Macedonian issue has now become an issue of USA, Turkish, German and Russian interests. All four states want to become a power of influence in the area of Vardaska and in the Balkan Peninsula. Nobody cares about the people of Vardaska. They only want to control the area for their own national-economic interests. Only the people of Greece care about the people of Vardaska and want only the best for them.
The communist propaganda on the Macedonian issue should be analyzed by political scientists. It is a model of what propaganda can do and it should be taught in universities, so people can learn the value and power of political propaganda.
