Canadian MPO to US Congress: Injustice against Macedonian Bulgarians must be remedied
There is no excuse for the Bulgarian historical identity to remain eradicated from schools and textbooks and our children to be inculcated a version of our history, which is offensive to our forefathers. Human rights are about tolerance and mutual respect, reads an address to the US Congress by the Macedonian Patriotic Organizations "Justice" – Toronto.
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE US CONGRESS
Washington, D.C.
COPY: US DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Honorable House Speaker,
Distinguished members of the US Congress, We are addressing you this letter as members of the MPO "Justice" - Toronto, a branch of the Macedonian Patriotic Organization in the United States of America and Canada - one of the oldest organizations of Macedonians in North America, celebrating this year one hundred years since its foundation in 1922.
The first significant group of Macedonian Bulgarians from the three geographical regions of Macedonia, encompassing parts of todays' Greece, Bulgaria and North Macedonia reached the US and Canada in the first decade of the twentieth century. Ever since we have been part of the social fabric of the USA and of Canada through the network of our Macedono-Bulgarian church communities and through the comrnitment of various organisations.
For decades we have been fortunate to be able to freely celebrate our identity and to work for achieving our main objective - a free and independent Macedonia where all its ethnic groups, including the predominant Bulgarian one, would enjoy the benefits of Democracy, non-discrimination and Rule of law.
Historically, the new "Macedonian" ethnic identity was conceived in Yugoslavia as an artificial substitution of our clearly Bulgarian self-determination by our otherwise strong Macedonian regional identity - an ethnic engineering campaign launched on the eve and during the Second World War by the Yugoslav communist party and its allies. lt had long lasting consequences in what was then the People's (later Socialist) Republic of Macedonia - part of communist-ruled Yugoslavia. The campaign was bloody in the beginning and remained forcible afterwards and lasted for decades. Concentration camps were crammed with Macedonian Bulgarians and schools were burdened with the task of brain washing ad everywhere in the Communist world. The campaign was clearly aimed at transforming our regional Macedonian identity into an ethnic one, its objective being to eradicate the traditional Bulgarian national affiliation of our population. This policy, proclaimed as "Macedonism", was built at the expense of neighbouring countries' historical legacy - mainly Greece and Bulgaria. And it included a key tool - the "Macedonian" language, newly created by decree in 1944-1945 and based on the local version of Bulgarian spoken by our forefathers.
After the fall of the Berlin wall hopes ran high among American Macedonians when independence of the ex-Yougoslav republic was proclaimed. Neighbouring Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the then Republic of Macedonia in 1992. Yet Yugoslav policies, hostile to the Bulgarian cultural and historical legacy still continue to dominate the internal policy of today's Republic of North Macedonia.
As Canadian and American citizens and Macedonians of Bulgarian descent we remain attached to the cause of the MPO which has been an American-Canadian structure since its very establishment. We strongly believe that the USA is a natural leader of the Free word and subsequently has great responsibilities in Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Canada's commitment has the same objective. The huge efforts and sacrifices of the American people and of Canadians for reaching a democratic settlement in the Western Balkans during the Yugoslav wars clearly speak for themselves. This implies the need of a strong reaction to every injustice that could hamper stability and peace. The injustice done to the Macedonian Bulgarians is an example which we urge you not to underestimate in this respect. There is no possible excuse for the Macedonian Bulgarians not to be included in the Constitution of the Rеpublic of North Macedonia along with other nationalities already mentioned in the Constitution.
There is no excuse for the Bulgarian historical identity to remain eradicated from schools and textbooks and our children to be inculcated a version of our history, which is offensive to our forefathers. Human rights are about tolerance and mutual respect!
Distinguished members of the congress, We believe that constitutional recognition of the rights of the Bulgarians in the Republic of North Macedonia is a key tool for achieving stability in the ex-Yougoslav republic. Even more so with regard to the fact that it recently achieved NATO membership, which is a morally demanding status. Constitutional guarantees for non-discrimination of Bulgarians is an important democratic step. lt will allow both our NATO allies - Bulgaria and North Macedonia - to celebrate their common history and to re-establish good neighborly relations as members of NATO and allies of the USA and Canada. The Alliance would greatly benefit from this. So would the integrity of both NATO and the European Union. The regretful alternative to this is the doubtful legitimacy of Yugoslav-era "Macedonianism" bound to be exploited by powers destructive to American and Canadian interests. /Such was the case with the anti-American government of Nikola Gruevski sponsored by Serbia and Russia./
Today MPO "Justice" - Toronto is looking forward to the integration of the Republic of North Macedonia into the European Union. We remain hopeful that the official US institutions would intervene with North Macedonia's authorities in order to encourage them to reform the inherited Yugoslav state ideology and to guarantee political rights and non-discrimination for the Macedonian Bulgarian population thus showing respect for basic democratic values in line with the newly achieved NATO membership.
Respectfully yours,
President of MPO "Justice"
Alexander Karadjov /BGNES