Extra Ordinary Ideas

Well, to be excrutiatingly precise, it was actually the FYROM* president Boris Trajkovski and his foreign minister who were offended by the ceremony. But they actually waited politely untl the end of the ceremony before leaving. It was all over the press, though. And Powell issued an "encouraging note" about being extra careful when touching on these sensitive name issues to his embassy staff in Skopje. Hey...way to get your blog up and running!!!! I will be checking back here often!
Pat

The artist formerly and currently known as Prince has had similar issues. At least no one has suggested FYROM adopt a lame hieroglyph for its name.

Oops! In familial fashion, my brother Patrick's come to the rescue of precision. Perhaps I shouldn't try to relate stories I heard in Eastern European bars that sell drinks for $1 US...

So there's good news and there's bad news.
The good news is that since no reasonable person who had real problems to solve could afford to worry so much about names, things must be going well.
The bad news is that most of these people are leaving bigger problems to fester while they waste their time on petty naming issues.
Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

An optimist, Mr. Clements, as you know, but my optimism spings from a different rationale. Such highjinks serve to remind us of the inherent limitations on the power of states.

Slovenia is one of the few former Communist states I look forward to visiting some day. A friend who works for an EU coordination think tank says they are a no-brainer for EU admission, and from what little I can gather in print, that makes sense. What I want to know though is since we are and should be trying to keep Turkey on the light side of the Force, shouldn't we Americans drop the FYROM* and simply refer to it as Macedonia, the heck with Greek fears of irredentism?

sorry, that was me on dropping FYROM*

An interesting point, Dave, as we are currently negotiating with Turkey for permission to station large numbers of U.S. solders on their border with Iraq. I doubt, though, that Turkey takes the FYROM issue so seriously that it would be leverage as to that decision.

The mincing steps Powell and others take with NATO members recalls that with NATO everything must be done through "consensus". In effect it means paying these meager taxes to small countries to keep them on board for bigger decisions. This is what we pay the diplomats for so keep them at it. What's in a name? Well it depends on to whom you are speaking.

Hi! I am new here. Please excuse the fact that I don't want to state my name.
I read all of your suggestions and some of them are really good.
Just for your knowledge, I would like to say that Macedonia has existed for over 3000 years, and it has called itlesfe Macedonia for the whole time.Macedonia existed a long time before Greece or eny country in Europe. And the kingdom of Macedonia was ruled by Alexander The Great, who was not Greek, he was Macedonian. Greeks object to the name Macedonia because they think that if Macedonia gets its real name (Macedonia), the country will have evidence that its ancestors were not slavs, but Macedonians. They also think that if the country is recognised by the world as the Republic Of Macedonia, the country of Macedonia will get the rest of its country back from Greece and Bulgaria. This is also the reason why the Greeks objected to the old Macedonian flag (Star Of Vergina). They say that it was a holy Greek symbol. This isn't true. The Greeks occupy the biggest and most beautifull part of Macedonia (Aegean Macedonia),the Bulgarians also occupy (Pirinska Macedonia). When this land was taken from the Macedonian people, the Macedonians were kicked out of their own homes which were later burned to the ground, some Macedonians were beaten to death for refusing to forget the Macedonian language and speek Greek or Bulgarian, every Macedonian citisen in the Greek part of Macedonia had to change his or her name from the Macedonian surnames of ski,ska,ov (stankovski,petrevski) to the Greek surnames of os,is,as (Andreonopolis,Kaskamanidis). The Macedonians also ahd to go to Greek or Bulgarian churches, because all the Macedonian churches were burned and their preists hung.
This all took place in a time when there wern't eny human rights programs. But now there are many human rights programs and this is still hapening and no human rights program is doing enything to stop it.

STOP TRYING TO REWRITE HISTORY

The idenity of the Ancient Macedonian state was entirely Greek.The name Makedonia means tall one and appears in Homers Illiad.The language of the ancient Macedonians was a Doric Greek diolect.The identity of Macedonian kings with the House of Heraclese is also a Doric trade mark.The Spartans who were also Dorians considered themselves decendent from Heracles.The archeology findings of Royal Macedonian remains show this inspcrition.
The inscriptions found at Virgina (agae)(Greek for Goat) and Pella (means place of assembly in ancient Doric Greek -other Dorian Greeks the Spartans for example called there assembly place the APELLA .All artifacts associated with ancient Macedonia are Greek that in addition
to Greek writing in the Doric diolect include images of Greek Gods and other Greek historical symbols.All the names of the Macedonian kings were entirely Greek begining with Karanos.Used in the Illiad.Karanos is a Greek word for leader and was used quite frequently in Sparta.

The Archeology and findings in Macedonia are clearly Greek and can be seen at the site of ancient PELLA and VIRGINA located in Greece.

The Macedonians were mentioned as part of the Greek family by Hesoid in 750 BC.This was 400 yrs
before Alexander so Hesoid would have no reason to lie to claim Alexander's accomplishments.Herodotus 100 yrs before Alexander firmly stated that the Macedonians were the tribe from which the Dorians emerged before proceeding south into the Peloponese.Since Herodutus was himself Dorian he was clearly able to identify the language practices and traditions of the Macedonians with the Dorians.Macedonian kings claimed to be decendent from the Mycenean House of Argos and this was accepted by other Greeks.

As for Alexander lets see not only did he state he was Greek by blood ( BTW Alexander was 1/2 MACEDONIAN GREEK AND 1/2 EPIROITI GREEK)he considered himself an ancestor of Achilles and carried a copy of the Illiad ( The Bible of the Greek Race)with him.The name Alexandros is entirely Greek Alex ( to protect and resist and Andros (Man).Thus Alexandros means to protect man .

The Macedonian spoke a Doric Greek diolect ( however the upper class spoke Attic or Athenian Greek,worshipped Greek Gods who originated on Mt Olympus in Macedonia,considered themselves decendent from Greek heros and Greek kings.Where mentioned as part of the Greek race in 8th century BC and participated in the Olympic games.In all areas conqured by Alexander Greek language and institutions were established.The Greekness of Macedonia is confirmed by primary sources ,archeological evidence and linquistics.

So Alexander and the Macedonians were Greek.Get over it!!!!

BTW Fyroms main enemy is Albanian nationalist who seek a greater Albania not Greeks Bulgarians or Serbs.

Even the leadership in FYROM knows that the Macedonians of Alexander were Greek.

Here is what they have to say

We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That's who we are!
We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia.
The ancient Macedonians no longer exist, they had disappeared from history long time ago.
Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century (AD)."
Quote from FYROM'S President Mr. Kiro Gligorov.
(from the Toronto Star newspaper, March 15, 1992)

22 January 1999: FYROM'S Ambassador in Washington, Mrs. Ljubica Acevshka, gave a speech on the present situation in the Balkans. At the end of her speech answering questions Mrs. Acevshka said: "We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great." "Greece is FYROM'S second largest trading partner, and its number one investor. Instead of opting for war, we have chosen the mediation of the United Nations, with talks on the ambassadorial level under Mr. Vance and Mr. Nimitz." In reply to another question about the ethnic origin of the people of FYROM, Ambassador Achevska stated that "we are Slavs and we speak a Slav language."

24 February 1999: In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Gyordan Veselinov, FYROM’s Ambassador to Canada, admitted, "We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian." He also commented "there is some confusion about the identity of the people of this country."

If you are not the ancestors of Alexander The Great
why you want to use his symbols his culture his name
his history and claim the whole Macedonian land as your own
when you only came in Macedonian land on the 6th century (A.D.)?

The Archeological Linguistic and Primary Source Evidence clearly proves Macedonia was a Greek Kingdom .Evern the leaders of FYROM acknowlege that ancient Macedonias were northern Greeks.You can fantacise all you want but the hard evidence clearly proves Macedonians were a Greek people with a distict Doric Greek dialect and institutions from their earliest origins.They were as Greek as the Athenians Spartans Cretans ect.

Demetrios Polioketes, the macedonian slavs acknowledge that Alexander the Great and the macedonians of that era are not related to us (the macedonian slavs)! just look at the sources you got on Kiro Gligorov and Ljubica Acevska!
However, didnt the ancient greeks consider the ancient macedonians barbarians? funny that they thought of their own greek cousins like that...
The Macedonians of FYROM, Pirin Macedonia and Aegean Macedonia are a SLAVIC people who speak a SLAVIC language related to Bulgarian and Serbian!
We trace our name from the region we settled in,our religion to the byzantium empire who brought us orthodox christianity and our ethnicity from our SLAVIC ancestors!
Why do you think some of us refer to ourselves as MACEDO-SLAVS?
WE ARE SLAV NOT GREEK!

Some things cannot be taught, only discovered.