tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030246386526469615.post2189330442279533138..comments2011-10-14T12:39:15.837-07:00Comments on Citizen Action Regarding the Skopjan Matter: A Good ExampleOlga G. Yeritsidouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02686517220881634448noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5030246386526469615.post-88761072790888497992008-07-09T15:14:00.000-07:002008-07-09T15:14:00.000-07:00I am glad your blog does not accept anonymous comm...I am glad your blog does not accept anonymous comments. Otherwise, a lot of willing “theorists” with ludicrous, unsubstantiated claims and even more ridiculous excuses (if any) about these claims of theirs would have inundated your otherwise quite serious blog. While every single person living in and accepting our democratic narrative not only deserves but is expected to exercise his/her normative right to be able to express his/her opinion freely, unfortunately very few can sustain an informed discussion and even fewer take the pains to comprehend what it was that is being said to them before they rush an answer all too revealing of their state of knowledge, comprehension, discursive skills and level of maturity. Unfortunately, history and the unbiased knowledge thereof is a scarce resource. At most, both laymen (and sometimes even experts in historical analysis) reiterate dominant narratives constructed in such a way as to reflect the interests of the sociopolitical elite whose pursuits they serve and whose ideologies they are expected to reproduce (in themselves, in their families, in their classrooms, in their discriminatory policies, in their racisms). It is in such a narrative that the Skopjans should conveniently abandon their geopolitically and geohistorically true name Dardania and ethnic identity and claim hold to Macedonia reifying an imagined community which is simply constructed (socially and politically). Their abhorrence and racism towards everything Hellenic is also typical of nationalistic, politically-motivated one-sidedness. However, in this case, one has to pay attention on this one fact: In the propaganda industry, it is not what it is historically factual and true that matters; it is the interpretation of the factual truth that matters. In the case of the Skopjans, this interpretation has amounted to a reification, a fallacy of a borrowed and imagined nationhood, one however which for reasons of political expediency, both internal and external, both conscious and unconscious, is deliberately construed to confuse and fragment their Dardanian collective ethnic identity. Elements of the same reified strands of narrative are, for the same politically-expedient reasons used and sustained in Greece as well, and for reasons which require greater psychoanalytic and sociological analysis, people like the person you are referring to internalize precisely such narratives, profuse with notions of “political correctness”. We live in a bland world and distinctiveness is rare. Following such narratives and adopting similar ideologies gives that person that much sought after distinctiveness, for a while, but alas, no distinction. On the contrary, your excellent substantiated, methodologically correct answer, affords you much of the latter.Michael Tzanakishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16175543907290881462noreply@blogger.com