Part 1 - Introduction - Part 04

So for Slavs, Albanians and Vlachs who want to be Greeks they can be Greeks because they feel like being Greeks but for Macedonians who are Macedonians and want to remain Macedonian, according to twisted Greek logic, they cannot be Macedonians! Why is that, why the double standard and what are the Greeks up to? Well to put it bluntly, it is very simple. Greece has stolen Macedonian lands and has expropriated the entire Macedonian heritage. It doesn’t want anyone to know about it or have to give back what it stole from them. So instead of dealing with its issues Greece is making all kinds of childish accusations to avoid them. One of its most childish accusations is its claim that “Macedonians don’t exist”. First and foremost everyone must understand that it is not up to Greece to decide whether Macedonians exist or not; it is up to the Macedonians and the Macedonian people decided a long time ago that they do exist and have spilled blood to establish themselves in this world. YES there are Macedonians and YES they exist all over the world and inside Greece and Bulgaria. Most of the world, except for Greece and Bulgaria and their European Union supporters who shall remain nameless, has accepted the fact that Macedonians exist and have no problem with it. It is well known to historians and to most laymen that Macedonia was a “nation state” and even an empire with historic roots which proves its existence, whereas Greece was NEVER a nation state that is not until 1829 when the Philhellenes artificially created it. Greece has no proof of its existence as a nation state prior to that. In fact there is not a single ancient map that shows the words “Greek” or “Greece” to ever have existed. If you have been reading these articles by now you should also know that “there is no such thing as a Greek” in a natural or ethnic sense. The Modern Greek nation was created by the 19th century Western European Philhellenes and rests on the bones of the Slav, Albanian and Vlach cultures which were sacrificed to artificially create Greece. Macedonians on the other hand are a genuine people who do have their own unique culture and recognize, acknowledge and respect their true roots. Besides stealing Macedonian lands and expropriating the Macedonian heritage, the Greeks have also committed many atrocities against the Macedonian people of which I am sure they are not proud and of which they don’t want the world to know. These include burning Macedonian villages, killing innocent civilians, exiling families, exiling children, confiscating properties, imprisoning and torturing tens of thousands and downright murdering thousands of Macedonians. These are recent and well documented historic events that can easily be proven and cannot be denied. On top of that Greece has also changed peoples’ personal and family names, changed all Macedonian place names and prohibited Macedonians from speaking their Macedonian language and from identifying as Macedonians. In fact Greece went even further and erased everything that was Macedonian including Macedonian inscriptions on public buildings, church icons and gravestones. Why did Greece do all this? Obviously it had a reason! The reason Greece did all this is because it is hiding a deep dark secret, a secret it doesn’t want the world to know. So to avoid revealing this secret, Greeks will do anything to keep Macedonians distracted and away from these issues. But as long as Macedonians pay attention to the Greeks, the Greeks will continue to engage them in their lies and rhetoric which will keep them busy and away from finding the truth. Greeks love nothing better than to engage people in nonsensical issues like the “name dispute” to keep them from finding out what truly matters to Greece, the “Macedonian lands”. Greeks couldn’t care less what the world thinks of the “crazy debates” that go on between Macedonians and Greeks as long as they are distracting and not about what matters to Greece most, the “Macedonian lands”.

Greece would rather have the entire world believing that all Balkan people are crazy with nothing better to argue about than ancient names and who was who 2,000 years ago. And as long as the world thinks we are all crazy the Greeks will enjoy living in the warmth and luxury of our Macedonian homes while we freeze out in the cold. As long as we engage the Greeks in nonsensical issues and the world thinks we are crazy the Greeks will continue to pillage and rape our Macedonia, our inheritance from our fathers and grandfathers. And while the Greeks enjoy the comfort of our homes and lands we will roam the Diaspora as political and economic refugees. You want the truth about Greece? This is the truth about Greece and our predicament with it! Macedonian homes and lands today are occupied by former Albanians, Vlachs and Asia Minor Turks who today call themselves Macedonians, themselves victims of Hellenism, while the real Macedonians are roaming the world living in foreign lands. And why is this? Because Greece wants to hold onto Macedonian lands at any cost, lands that do not belong to Greece, lands that Greece acquired by war in 1912, 1913 and against the wishes of the real Macedonian people. Why is Greece making childish claims that “Macedonians don’t exist”? Why is Greece continuingly inventing new lies? So that it could lay claim to Macedonia, so that it could say that Macedonia belongs to Greece. So that it could forever steal our inheritance from us! In order for Greece to “lay claim” to Macedonian lands, it must remove all other claimants who may have similar claims or who may challenge its claim. The only people who have legitimate claims to Macedonia and the Macedonian heritage are the Macedonian people themselves. So by denying the existence of the Macedonian identity Greece is in effect removing the Macedonian people from this equation. So, according to Greek logic, if Greeks continue to believe Macedonians do not exist they cannot challenge Greece’s claim to Macedonia: plain and simple. In order to “lay claim” to the Macedonian lands and heritage Greece requires proof of ownership. So far however there were no reasons for Greece to show proof of ownership because there were no challengers to its claims. But with the appearance of the Republic of Macedonia, Greece is becoming increasingly insecure and feels that sooner or later those challengers are bound to surface. So to delay or divert those challenges Greece has invented a number of nonsensical issues such as “the name dispute” and the various vetoing threats to keep the Macedonian people busy and away from the main issue; challenging Greece’s hegemony over Macedonia, a land and heritage that does not belong to Greece, a land and heritage that belongs to the Macedonian people. And there ladies and gentlemen lies the crux of the entire problem. Now for those who think they know Greece! (This includes most Greeks and many foreigners) No one knows Greece’s attitude towards the Macedonians better than the Macedonians themselves who have lived in Greece. No one knows Greece better than the Macedonians who have experienced Greek justice first hand. Being Macedonian from Greece and having lived in Greece we qualify, more than anyone, to judge for ourselves what Greece is and why Greece is behaving the way it is. We have a good idea of what it is like to be abused by Greece and Greeks and I can assure you our story is not a pretty one. We know exactly what the Greeks are capable of, what they will do and how far they will go to hold onto Macedonia. And as Macedonians from Greece we know that there is but one real issue to focus on and that is the lands the Greeks have stolen from the Macedonians; everything else is trivial. Everything that Greece has done to this day was done to safeguard its hold on the Macedonians lands. By what it has done to this day is proof that Greece will stop nothing short of exterminating the entire Macedonian nation in order to safeguard its hold on Macedonian lands and to hide the atrocities it has committed against the Macedonian people.

The so-called “name dispute”, veto threats, history lessons, etc., etc., that Greece continues to invent are nothing more than smoke and mirrors to hide the only tangible item Greece values “the Macedonian lands”. “The recent furor over the publication of a relatively mild historical and ethnographic account of the progressive Hellenization of the Greek province of Macedonia (Karakasidou 1997) exhibits both the nervousness of the Greek establishment and the persistence of stereotypes of Greeks as irrational, hysterical Balkan lunatics among supposedly sober commentators in the West. It also demonstrates the neuralgia that anthropology can induce in those who are committed to unitary myths of national origin…” (“Theoretical Practice in Culture and Society, Anthropology” by Michael Herzfeld, page 68). Are Greeks who know their own true identities and who are well aware of how they acquired Macedonian lands nervous? You bet they are! More nervous than ever since the Republic of Macedonia came into existence and the Macedonian people started to take matters into their own hands. Greece was launched in early 19th century like a sailing ship without a rudder. What happened to it was not entirely its own fault. But since then Greece had all the time in the world and plenty of opportunities to build a rudder and change direction. But as of yet it hasn’t! Instead of joining the post World War II democratic nations and embracing democracy, Greece has chosen to remain static; a racist bigot nation which refuses to submit to the truth and reality of its own situation. Part 14 – My personal Opinion

Recently one of my readers wrote to me asking for my personal opinion of what I think is Greece’s dispute with the Macedonian people. More precisely as a Macedonian from Greece what do I think is the core issue that troubles Greece with regards to the Macedonians? Let me start by saying that, in my opinion, there is one core issue that troubles Greece and that is the Macedonian lands. Greece in 1912, 1913 occupied 51% of Macedonia’s territory and since then has turned it into Greek lands at the cost and exclusion of their real owners, the Macedonian people. Irrespective of what one calls them and how they identify themselves, I see the Macedonians as the indigenous people that have lived in Macedonia for millennia. Macedonians have no collective memory of ever arriving in these lands or having lived anywhere else except in Macedonia. So naturally I support the fact that those lands belong to the Macedonians. On the other hand the Greeks in 1912, 1913 invaded, occupied and annexed Macedonia, which never belonged to them and makes their annexation illegal under international law. But worse than that, after annexing Macedonian lands the Greeks were not satisfied with having the Macedonians living on them so they implemented assimilation policies to turn Macedonians into Greeks. Naturally many Macedonians resisted and over the years were punished by Greece. Many were tortured, exiled, jailed and even murdered. It is difficult for people to believe that Greece would want to assimilate alien ethnic groups and turn them into Greeks. What would be their motive? There is plenty of evidence that suggests that the Greeks did this to expand their manufactured Hellenic Empire and bring back the glory of the mythical Hellas of ancient times, a type of Hellas that never existed before. Given that Modern Greeks themselves are a manufactured entity and having nothing to do with the so-called Ancient Greeks, these modern charlatans felt it was their duty to convert every Macedonian into a Greek, even if it meant doing it against their will. The Greeks did this in order to create a false idea that Macedonia somehow was once part of Greece and that the Macedonian lands, heritage and people belonged to Greece. Today however we know that the Macedonians are a unique ethnic entity entirely different from the Greeks and that the Modern Greeks are in reality the descendants of the Slav, Albanian and Vlach immigrants who came to Greece during the 11th to the 14th centuries AD. So through its assimilation policies Greece turned the 51% of Macedonia it occupied into a type of Borg-hive (like in the fictional Star Trek movie series) where people were not allowed to have real names, speak a real language, or express themselves in their own familiar culture. Real things like personal names, place names, mother language and familiar writing were forbidden from being used and were replaced with alien names, an alien language and an alien writing system all in the name of Hellenism and all for the glory of modern artificial Hellas. The Macedonian peoples’ lives in Greece are full of tragedy. Not only was one occupier (the Ottomans) replaced with another (the Greeks) in 1912, but many Macedonians lost their lands and all of them lost their identity, language, culture and continuity. But their tragedy doesn’t end there. Outside of the Macedonians who were forced out of their homes and lands and outside of the ones who submitted to Hellenism because of fear or for personal gains, there are also the majority of Macedonians who felt oppressed with no opportunity to improve their lives and political situation. These Macedonian are left in limbo waiting for an opportunity to bounce back. Unfortunately the Greeks know this and have made sure such an opportunity never presents itself. That is why consecutive Greek governments since 1912 have made it their mission to suppress and torment the Macedonian people so that such opportunities are avoided at all cost. Besides losing their lands, freedom and identity and being treated like second class citizens in their own lands, the Macedonians in Greece who feel Macedonian, even without publicly expressing it, have been unjustly persecuted.

Greece continues to this day to close the border to Macedonians and to confiscate Macedonian lands. Greek authorities look away when Macedonians are harmed and Greek courts often side with the perpetrators in such cases. Putting it more bluntly, Greece not only discourages people from expressing their ethnic sentiments but will legally prosecute those who do. Given the current situation and Greece’s attitude towards the Macedonians what can be done to help bring positive change? A valid question indeed, a question I have struggled with for many years but to this day I have found no answer. Since Macedonia’s occupation in 1912 Greece has maintained a singular policy; exterminate the Macedonian people and permanently annex their lands and heritage. This policy has not changed since it was implemented in 1912 which leaves the Macedonian people with little room to maneuver. In fact the only options left for the Macedonians in Greece are to disappear all together or fight back for their survival! In my opinion there is but one option for the Macedonians and that is to “liberate Macedonia from the Greeks”! To do that, however, Macedonians must first stop responding to Greek engagements in nonsensical issues and start focusing their effort in highlighting the truth about their status in Greece. Macedonians must let the world know what Greece has done and is still doing to them. All Macedonians originating from Greek occupied Macedonia who care about their inheritance, who care about their family’s lands, properties and homes which their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers poured sweat and spilled blood to build and protect, must stand up and demand their human rights from Greece. Failing that, they must then demand that the Greeks leave Macedonia. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks and what the Greeks will do; Macedonians have a duty to express their own feeling, their own desires and their own needs. By any definition, the 51% of Macedonia that was occupied by Greece in 1912 is still occupied by Greece to this day. Greece had all the time in the world and plenty of opportunity to voluntarily stop its persecution of the Macedonians and award them their human rights as prescribed by International law. Unfortunately Greece to this day has ignored every call from every International institution to voluntarily comply. Perhaps what the Macedonians need to do, to give Greece a wakeup call, is amass in every major city in the world and hold human rights demonstrations with huge placards held high with slogans like “Macedonia is Macedonian”, “Greeks get out of Macedonia” and “Greece stop the ethnic cleansing of Macedonians”. It’s about time the Greeks are given reciprocal treatment by challenging their identity as they have challenged ours for the last one-hundred years. It’s time we raise placards with slogans like, “There is no such thing as a Greek”, “a Modern Greek is nothing but a Slav, an Albanian and a Vlach”, “Hellenism is Barbarism” and “I am a Macedonian from Greece and I exist”. Greece has proven it will not yield on human rights on its own unless it is extremely pressured from the outside. Greece has a long record of abuse against all people who are not committed to Hellenism and fear they are a threat to its integrity. Greece feels that if it recognizes any of its ethnic groups living on its soil it will have to justify to them the violence and criminal conduct it perpetrated against them over the years. In other words, what Metaxas and others like him did to the Macedonian people in pursuit of Hellenism, will no longer be viewed as an act of “glory for Hellas” but a criminal act of “cultural genocide” against an innocent population. If the Greek government recognizes a single minority it will have to explain to the people why in the past it committed cultural genocide against that minority. It will also have to punish all those involved in perpetrating the “cultural genocide”. And how can it do that when everyone in the entire Greek government today is a devout Hellene who believes in the glory of Hellas and that no “minorities” exist in Greece?

How can it do that when Greeks who today hold high positions in Greek society are the pillars of Hellenism and claim to be the descendants of Plato and Pericles? What are the chances of the Greek government ever doing that? Greece will not become a democratic state and will not allow its ethnicities to self declare until racism and intolerance are completely eradicated in that country. Greece cannot and will not free itself from its prejudices until it deals with its past and corrects the injustices perpetrated against its innocent population. There can be no closure for any of the ethnic groups living in Greece until Greece gives up its Hellenism and its imperial plans for glory and the pursuit of its expansionist Megali Idea, an Idea that today lays dormant. Given that Greece will not yield on its own, what can be done to improve the Macedonian situation in Greece? First and foremost we need to fight for our human rights as a people protected by international law. As people we have certain rights that need to be exploited. We can’t continue to dismiss what Greece is doing to us thinking of it as “an act of fate” when in fact it’s “an act of crime”. Second we need to learn to voice our concerns and no longer be silent and put up with abuse. After all the harm Greece has done to us, how much more harm can it do? Keeping silent only prolongs our agony and allows Greece to further rob us of our lands, heritage and dignity. The Greeks today live warm and comfortable lives in our homes, the very same homes our Macedonian ancestors slaved to build and died to protect. And while the Greeks live comfortably consuming “our inheritance” we roam the Diaspora. It is time to speak up and tell Greece to recognize us and accept us for who we are, Macedonians, or to speak up and tell the Greeks to “get the hell out of our Macedonia”! “The relationship between the Modern Greeks and the Macedonians is a relationship marked by bloodshed, murder, unimaginable atrocities that have yet to be accounted for - and it all started with An Invasion in 1912 that broke every international law, and treaty of its time. This is what needs to be addressed - if the Macedonians raise this one point, it will be a massive blow to Modern Greece, and significantly Europe too, which has unofficially sanctioned Greece's state sponsored genocide of the Macedonians. If the Macedonians, anywhere in the world, can get this point (and only this point), there is hope some wrongs of the past, might be addressed.” Paul from www.maknews.com/forum And now I leave you with this: Thanks to one of my readers for bringing it to my attention; Please click on this link; http://www.youtube.com/ristostefov As much as I don’t like what this person is doing, especially the “impersonating” part, I welcome the initiative which proves that I am getting my message across. This imposter while accusing me of “falsification” has failed to notice the irony in his message which hypocritically, is also an act of falsification! Thank you again for reminding me why I do this (fighting for the rights of all Macedonians) and for confirming that I am on the right track. By impersonating me and by your rude comments you not only have belittled yourself but you have inadvertently validated everything I have said about your behaviour and the way your kind treats the Macedonian people. Congratulations, whoever you are, in your depraved ways you have done your racist country proud! “There cannot be an Athenian alive today who can trace a direct line of descent from classical times to the present without leaving Athens. Because of numerous and protracted foreign occupations, true Athenians were a relatively small minority even in the age of Pericles. In a later period the city was suffering with severe depopulation and was re-stocked with Albanians! At the time of Greek independence in 1834, Athens was a miserable village with a population of only 6000. So, in this sense, there cannot be any true Athenians of classical breeding.”

(Insight Guides, Athens, Greece Series, page 42) Part 15 – More questions

As much as I don’t want to turn this series into a “Dear Risto” column, a couple of you have asked some very important, worthwhile and valid questions that I would like to answer. 1. As Macedonians should we be abandoning our “Slavic” culture in favour of the Ancient Macedonian one? 2. What is your personal, and not a dictionary quote, definition of a Hellene? In your opinion who and what is a Hellene? I will begin answering the first question by saying that the Macedonians of today are a product of all that has happened in Macedonia. We are the descendents of all the people who set foot on those lands and therefore are the inheritors of everything that was left for us. Since man set foot on Macedonian soil our culture has been evolving, growing and adding to our being; culminating in what it is today. We are Macedonians because we have lived in Macedonia for many generations and have experienced what is Macedonian and that which we have experienced has made us into who and what we are, Macedonians. If we seek the truth about who we are then we have no choice but to accept and embrace everything that makes us who we are. We are Macedonians, one of the deepest rooted people in the world and inheritors of everything that was Macedonian since before history was recorded. In an ethnic sense we are Macedonians but linguistically we speak a Slavic language, a language that today is described as belonging to the family of Slavic languages. Ethnically we are not Slavs, we can’t all be Slavs from the Balkans to Siberia. We are Slavic speakers who over the years have evolved into a unique entity which can only be described as Macedonian. We have, however, contributed immensely to what we today call “Slav culture” more than any other ethnic nation in the Slavic speaking world. We know for a fact that Slav culture, particularly the written form of the language, was spread from Macedonia by the Solun brothers Kiril and Metodi and that is undeniably part of our Macedonian heritage. Are the modern Macedonians the descendants of the ancient Macedonians? My answer to that question is why stop with the ancient Macedonians? Why not go even further back and ask “are we the descendants of all the people that occupied Macedonian lands since the melt of the last ice age”? We cannot say with certainty that we are and neither can we say that we are not. All we can say is that Macedonia, the land and all that has taken place on it over the ages has made us into who we are today, Macedonians. One thing we need to refrain from is allowing others, particularly our enemies to define us. Our neighbours to the south, the Greeks, have made the mistake of defining themselves as the “descendants of the ancient Greeks” ignoring many years of evolution, population movements, invasions, conquests and so on. The Greeks followed the “Western European” blueprint for nation building and falsely linked themselves to the ancients and only the ancients, leaving a wide gap in their culture. However they only did this to make political gains and take advantage of their neighbours, particularly the Macedonians. In fact most of Western Europe has used mythical historiography to build its modern nations. Macedonia does not need to resort to myths because Macedonians have historically existed since pre-history. If there is the question of who the Modern Macedonians are then there must also be a question of “who the Ancient Macedonians were”. As far as we know the Ancient Macedonians began as a small tribal nation somewhere in today’s Kostur Region sometime in the 9th century BC. They only occupied today’s geographical Macedonia in the 4th century BC after Philip II became king. From what we know, Philip II defeated the various tribal kingdoms in the vicinity of today’s geographic Macedonia and incorporated the people and their lands into his Macedonian kingdom. These tribes were not all Macedonian before Philip conquered them. So what were they? From what we know from history, Ancient Macedonia, before it became a nation state, was the land of the Pelasgians, Illyrians, Thracians, Phrygians, Paeonians and others.

Hardly anything is known about these great ancient and prehistoric tribes except that they were very numerous “like leaves in a forest”. So what happened to these people? Naturally modern mainstream history would have us believe that they all disappeared, but did they? Or could these people be the ancestors of today’s modern Slav speakers? There are some well educated and prominent scientists today who believe that large groups of people who moved into the Balkans and Europe after the last ice age are still living there to this day. Could one of those large groups be the modern day Slav speakers? There are some who believe they are! How else does one explain the Slav language being spoken over such a large expanse and by so many different people in Eastern Europe? Now if we put two and two together we come to the realization that there is a high probability that today’s Slav speaking Eastern Europeans are the descendents of any or all of the prehistoric Illyrians, Thracians, Phrygians, Dardanians, etc.; the very same groups of people mainstream history claims have disappeared. If the people incorporated in Ancient Macedonia by Philip II indeed came from these same tribes, and we know they did, then they too must have been the ancestors of the modern day Slav speakers. This raises the possibility that the Ancient Macedonians may also have been “Slav speakers”. We know that the most prominent Ancient Macedonians including Alexander the Great were bilingual and we have many historic examples to prove it. We also know Alexander’s Macedonian soldiers spoke an “unknown” language unique to the Macedonians. The only thing, as of yet, is that we don’t know if that language was Slavic. But with time, that problem too will be solved. So, without knowing all the facts, why would we opt for “accepting” the Ancient Macedonian heritage while rejecting our “Slav” culture when there is a possibility that one is a progression of the other? If I had to guess, I would guess that the “Slav culture” of the 9th century AD is the revival of the Ancient Macedonian Culture of the 4th century BC but with a Christian twist. And now to answer the second question, “my definition” of what is a Hellene? I believe I answered this question before but I guess not to the satisfaction of at least one reader. A Hellene is a 19th century mythological being that encompasses all the desired qualities that the 19th century Western European culture craved. Trying to define what a Hellene is is like trying to define who Santa Claus is. The word “Santa Claus” conjures up an image of a white bearded man dressed up in a red suit who gives away presents; an image of happiness. But is Santa Claus real? It depends who you ask? Most children will say that he is! But does Santa Clause exist? Yes he does, you can find him in practically every mall around Christmas time. A Hellene is like Santa Claus in many ways. Conditioned over the years many people believe he or she exists. Any ordinary person properly dressed in red and white attire can unmistakably be Santa Claus, similarly any person who speaks and feels Greek can qualify to be a Hellene. The story of the Hellene is something like the story of Santa Claus. They both started somewhere back in Ancient times and borrowed something from this culture and something from that. The case of Santa Claus, evolved into what we know today as “the white bearded man in the red suit, living in the North Pole, making toys for little girls and boys and delivering them to all the children in the world on Christmas Eve on his sled pulled by his flying reindeer”. The case of the Hellene also evolved in a similar fashion borrowing from the ancients what was attractive then mixing it with Christianity and what was desirable we then have “a Hellene who is a Christian Orthodox, speaks a bastardized ancient Language and claims to be a descendent of a race of people that died 2,000 years ago”. Will the “Santa Claus” of modern times survive the scrutiny of science if so examined?

Will we find that he is real, exists and flies a sled pulled by reindeer? No! We believe in Santa Claus because he is a powerful symbol of our traditional values which today is exploited and utilized by merchants to sell their wares and make money. Similarly Hellenism (for some) is a symbol of a “perfect culture”. It does not really exist and will not survive scientific scrutiny but is tolerated by people because it benefits a certain and powerful segment of our society. Like ordinary people who put on cheap red suits and fake white beards, pretending to be Santa Claus in order to sell merchandise, ordinary people who speak Greek can also be Hellenes in order to improve their social status in society. Does a Hellene exist? Does Santa Claus exist? It all depends on who you ask! Is a Hellene real? Is Santa Claus real? No, because they both exist only in the imagination of those who believe in them! “To be a Modern "Hellene" one must be a liar. One has to lie about their ethnic heritage. One has to lie about their mother tongue. And one has to lie about their history. And so it goes, a Hellene is a person who is faking their ethnicity, mother tongue and history.” (Maknews from www.maknews.com ) “The British, French and Russians demanded that the modern Greek identity be Hellenic and respond to the Europeans’ nostalgia…” (“Blood Lines from Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism”, by Vamik Volkan, page 121) “Thus, the recourse to the new image of Hellas (both as cultural construct and as social system) began immediately upon the brief rule of governor Kapodistrias and became efficiently implemented with the takeover of the Bavarian monarchy and its explicit desire for centralization and Hellenization. In fact, the cultural image of Greece was put into production with much greater urgency than was a political-economic infrastructure, despite the obvious importance of the latter in a newly constructed state.” (“Dream Nation Enlightenment, Colonization and the institution of Modern Greece”, Stathis Gourgouris, page 87) “It should be strongly emphasized, however, that this image of classical Greece was constructed in Europe and was imported to the newborn Greek state (Tsoukalas, 2002).” (“Entangled Identities Nations and Europe”, edited by Atsuko Ichijo and Willfried Spohn, page 109) “The adjective ‘Hellenistic’ not, significantly, existing in any Greek original – was first coined in its French form ‘hellenistiques’ by J.B. Bossuer, in 1681 as a term for the Greek of the Septuagint, the ‘Hellenized’ version of the old Testament.” (“The Hellenic Age a Short History”, Peter Green, page xvi introduction) And now I leave you with this; “And thus, I call upon the western intellectuals in general and the western philhellenes in particular to separate their personal sentimental attachments to Greek history, to do the only honorary thing left and treat Macedonia and Macedonian history as a separate and comprehensive study that it is, and that it certainly deserves to be. The conflicting statements left strewn in the literature in the past hundred or so years—are the result of biased and subjective influences—and have not only caused political discourse and confusion, but bring about contradictions, fuel tensions and cause unnecessary hateful speculations. For instance, when some nineteenth century unsuspecting authors depict events in antiquity and describe the ancient Macedonians as Greeks, it was done not because the evidence left from the ancient biographers would support such an act but because the western media and the western academia in particular, would allow dissemination of historically inaccurate information. Such supposedly "harmless" omissions—read desirable proliferation of myths—would seep easily into the readers´ consciousness for whom the built up historiography of the artificially created Greek nation, lay in tandem with the envisioned fundamental grand scheme of things in the regional geography designed for Balkans. It is morally wrong, ethically inadmissible and scientifically incorrect to lump the ancient Macedonians under Greek umbrella, simply, because today’s Greece—the creation of the western powers—enjoys sentimental support of many western intellectuals.

Truth does not need lobbyists. Truth is not a tradable commodity and cannot be conditionally used and selectively applied. Appropriation of Macedonian history is not an acceptable act; portraying ancient Macedonians as Greeks is an outright fabrication.” (Gandeto -http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/97381) Part 16 – On to Macedonia

Modern Greeks, who were educated through the Greek educational system, seem to think that Macedonians did not exist prior to the 1940’s. In fact some are so sure that they are willing to stake their own reputation on it, so they say. One Greek, who claimed to be a Professor of History, not long ago wrote and told me that there is absolutely no evidence to support the existence of Macedonians prior to Tito’s “alleged” creation of Macedonia. In fact, he said that he was so sure that Macedonians did not exist he was willing to accept everything I said at face value if I could only show him a single piece of evidence that proved Macedonians existed before 1940. Believing he was sincere, I had no reason to doubt him, I took up his challenge and put together a document which can be found at this link; http://www.oshchima.com/Historical%20Documents/hdoc1.pdf After reviewing the document the good professor was kind enough to write back to me but it wasn’t what I expected. The only thing he wrote was “Macedonia is Greek”! Nothing else! I never heard from him again. I used to believe that Greeks were sincere in their quest for the truth but experience has taught me differently. I used to believe if one laid the facts on the table all arguments could be resolved through reasoning and logic but unfortunately I was wrong! As I have found out over the years, Modern Greeks, at least the ones I have dealt with, are not interested in finding “the truth” unless the truth serves their purpose. The only thing these Greeks are interested in, as I have found, is covering up all evidence that might challenge their claims on Macedonia and expose their lies. Facts, evidence, or logic do not matter and no Greek can be convinced of the truth unless it serves his or her purpose or supports his or her claims on Macedonia. Therefore it would be a waste of time to try and prove anything to a Greek who is convinced that his or her truth is the only truth. If I were to classify the Greeks into categories I would classify them into three types. The first type which includes the vast majority of Greeks is the silent type which steers away from “anomalies” or information that is not explained by their indoctrination. These Greeks have found that curiosity can be painful, as Anastasia Karakasidou discovered when she wrote her book “Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood”. The second type of Greek is a patriotic and devoted type who believes that everything the Greek government tells him or her, particularly about Macedonia, is true. This Greek is taught to believe the indigenous Macedonians, the ones who lived in Macedonia for many generations, the ones whose lands Greece stole, are his or her enemies. They are convinced that these Macedonians are preoccupied with “stealing” their Macedonia from them and therefore should not be trusted and should be punished at every opportunity. The third and most dangerous type of Greek is the one who knows the truth but is entrusted with protecting Greek interests at any cost. This is the Greek that seeks out evidence in order to destroy it. So the next time a Greek asks you to produce evidence that proves Macedonians exist remember that by providing this evidence you are helping him or her to cover it up. The problem these Greeks have is not only with evidence but with the people who are bent on digging it up. Remember Karakasidou’s case? The Greeks threatened to “blow up” the publishing house in London if it published her book. Greeks often use this kind of “intimidation” to prevent what they deem “damaging” information from coming out. But more often than not, they publish “their own” versions of “the facts” to create confusion and bury the truth. For example Greeks, for years, maintained that Macedonians did not exist. But when stories started surfacing that Macedonians do indeed exist, they invented the idea that these people were not really “ethnic Macedonians” but “geographic Macedonians”. In other words they are called “Macedonians” not because they are ethnic Macedonians but because they are “Greeks” who just happened to live in Macedonia!

Until a couple of decades ago, according to these Greeks, Macedonians did not exist; today, according to the same Greeks, we have all kinds of Macedonians. In fact the Greek Prime Minister himself just announced to the Greek Parliament that he too is a “Macedonian”! This is how Greeks logic works. If you can’t outright eradicate “the information” then you bury it in a huge tangle of lies. Greeks are experts at this! Fortunately Macedonians and even foreigners are slowly coming on to these “Greek tricks” and the Greek lies are gradually being exposed. Today there is an overwhelming amount of evidence uncovered all over the world not just from books but also from newspapers and journals. Greeks however are trying very hard to bury it by side tracking the reader with personal attacks on the messenger instead of dealing with the message. In place of responding to the questions posed, Greeks tend to attack the credibility of the messenger calling him or her “anti-Greek” having an “axe to grind” or not possessing “the right credentials” to be an authority. It seems that when facts are presented that contradict the “Greek view”, Greeks tend to dismiss them by accusing the presenter of not having the “right credentials”. Recently old newspaper stories from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s have also been surfacing from various library archives. These newspapers, it appears, have been carrying all sorts of stories from the Balkan conflicts, including many from the Macedonian 1903 Uprising against the Ottoman Empire. These stories exist and are real and can be found in the archives of practically every major library in the world. Some of these documents are now being digitized and will soon be available online everywhere on the internet. Here are some examples; http://www.maknews.com/forum/archive/here-are-som-articles-from-the-new-york-times-t5689.html

http://www.maknews.com/forum/archive/newspaper-articles-about-the-macedonians-in-the-1800-s-t5734.html

http://www.maknews.com/forum/general-discussions/reference-list-1-newspaper-articles-t14740.html

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1139