Don't rape Skopje by Harald Schenker

1. We demand an official position of the Faculty of Architecture [at the University of] Skopje on developments concerning the city’s public spaces in the interest of society.

2. We demand a professional debate before every key venture for building projects.

3. We demand transparent competitions, announcements, and urbanistic surveys, as well as commissions with representatives and consultants from Macedonia and abroad, NON-PARTY bodies that will decide about such buildings. The final decision must be sanctioned through a referendum, as practiced in European cities in such cases. Until then, a moratorium for construction must be in place!

4. We demand of politicians to - instead of investing in kitsch architecture, instead of building artificial villages for developing rural tourism, instead of drawing up new urbanistic plans, instead of building on extremely inappropriate parcels - to focus public funding on the maintenance of the authenticity and originality of the old buildings that already exist but decay due to neglect.

5. We ask that the citizens wake up, for once think with their own heads, and become actors in the building in their and their city’s future instead of remaining merely passive observers.

Soon after the news for the protest circled the internet, many posts were created to call the citizens to a counter-protest, to support the building of the church. One day before the protest the blog “Jadi Burek” published [mkd] a call for a counter-protest:

Tomorrow at 12 pm, on the square of Skopje, probably a group of gays and atheists will gather and try to spread rubbish under the hidden motive of caring for the architecture of the city, and against the church. Because of that, tomorrow me and my family are going on a counter-protest one hour earlier, at 11 am, and will give our support to the construction of the church!

Similar texts were published on many other blogs.

The protest was scheduled for 12 pm on March 28, 2009, but, before it started, the counter-protesters gathered to support the building of the church. When the two groups met on the square of Skopje, the event turned from peaceful to violent, involving fights between the two groups:

Many bloggers that were at the protest wrote about the incident.

The blogger Harald Schenker from Vision! Come on… posted a full report:

[…] The protest was countered by a mass of up to 1500 church goers, mobilized from all over the country, who gathered to stop the protest from happening. The “spontaneous” and thus not registered counter-protest featured church flags, printed banners, a priest and a lot of people, who have no connection whatsoever to urban Skopje, but who were bussed in from rural areas to fight the Anti-Christ. A large number of expensively produced flyers flooded the city centre – clear indications of a logistically well organized movement. They were in majority, so the actual manifestation remained marginal and actually was about to retreat, when a group of violent hooligans appeared out of nowhere. […] The heated up hooligans attacked individual participants in the protest, using the only intellectual arguments accessible to them – fists and legs. It is almost a miracle that there were only few injuries. […]

All this was happening under the eyes of a stunningly passive police force, which was obviously not able to cope with the events. So they did the obvious – they turned against the protesters. These are now under investigation for not having provided adequate security to their manifestation. No, this is not some sick joke. It is true. […]

The blog Kanalizacija wrote this [mkd]:

Today, a herd of 1000 [Hunzas] didn’t allow us to protest peacefully against the building of the church on the square. They had flags with crosses, icons and posters on which was written “We want temple” and some prayers. Among them there were members of [VMRO-DPMNE], who I know personally.

The people from the Architectonical Faculty, who I joined, were coming from the riverside from the park side. When we arrived at the square the mass started walking towards us, and were whistling and yelling “Uaaa” and “Go to Bakoyanni” [referring to Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis].

If we didn’t escape there was going to be blood! […]

According to the mainstream media, the protests had political background, with the students led by the daughter of the chief of campaign headquarters of SDSM presidential candidate, and on the other side the counter-protesters, who were activists of VMRO-DPMNE.

The Macedonian blogosphere is constantly buzzing about the incident, and almost on every blog post there is a heated debate.

First to publish [mkd] a short review of the documentary was Arheo Blog:

[…] Although the documentary doesn’t have any political tendency, the search for an identity of a song shows the search for the identity and national impatience for the nations from the Balkans. Instead of connecting them, not knowing the situation, in some moments Peeva has to deal with emotional reaction of the interviewed people thinking that she is offending them. Trying to connect the cultural heritage for the Balkans, this time through music, Adela Peeva at the end will conclude that it’s almost unbelievable how only one song with unknown background can create hatred in people. This is shown in the end of the movie, in the scene where one Fiesta is transformed into a field that is on fire and its save by “people from different ethnicities”. This is happening at the border between Bulgaria and Turkey.

Although it’s a great documentary, I was intrigued by the two facts said in the movie – “That this is a war song and that the rhythms are from North Europe, because they are not typical for the Balkans”. It’s up to you to determine which song it is.

When the post of Arheo Blog was shared [mkd] on Kajmak.ot there were several reactions:

Arwena:

I don’t know why there is always a tendency to look for argument and reasons for national tendencies. That is always the case for the Balkans, because politics is unavoidably connected with history. I stand by: “that the documentary doesn’t have any political tendencies”, because it’s made with another purpose. Probably it didn’t have that motive at the beginning, but the results show something completely different. This is something that we have seen several times when there is mixture between cultural heritage and achievements of different ethnicities and civilizations. Everything artistic that includes more sides, by the nature of this region will lead to nationalism and it will be considered as motive with political tendencies.

Zlochko:

Yes, yes. It’s made by completely naive reasons to find the true origin of the song. That’s why she says to the Bosnians that the Serbs have the original (although she still hasn’t been in Serbia), she plays the Bosnian version to the Serbs, and to the Bulgarians she says that the Turks claim that the song is theirs.

There is nothing naive in the documentary… and if it’s full with something it’s politics. But it’s good that it’s made in that way – it shows the nations here in the best way :).

The blogger Razvigor also published the video and wrote [mkd]:

[…] The author of the film in the part for Albania said that she would return, and that really happened with her last movie “Divorce Albanian Style” [mkd]. Is that movie available on the internet also?

These are the things I was talking about when I was searching for the Macedonian Michael Moore [mkd].

There are two version of the song in Macedonia: from the town of Prilep “Oj ti Paco Drenovchanke” and from the town of Tetovo “Oj devojche, ti Tetovsko jabolche.”

The video is written and directed by Milcho Manchevski (an Academy Award nominee in 1995), and its purpose is to promote Macedonia as a tourist destination. The video will be aired on CNN, and a dozen countries in eight different languages. There is a special website www.macedonia-timeless.com, designed to support the campaign.

The video was published under a Creative Commons license Attribution – No derivative works 2.5 Macedonia, and the license will allow users to download and republish the video on other sites. Macedonia is one of the few countries to integrate a Creative Commons license in the internet promotion, although many countries use satellite TV to promote themselves.

The video quickly became the news of the day, and many of the bloggers posted it on their blogs and commented on the promotion and the website [mkd]. Although the comments on YouTube are positive, most of the bloggers had negative impression of the video, especially when they found out the amount of money spent on its production (190,000 Euros)

When the video was suggested [mkd] on the Kajmak.ot, many users commented on it. Some of them wrote:

Pero:

The video is fine from an artistic point of view, but not from an essential point of view […]

Zlochko:

I didn’t like the video also. If I may criticize a person with a resume like Manchevski, I will say that I didn’t see anything touristic in the video. Where is the village tourism, where are the smiling hosts for the tourists, where is the extreme tourism, where are the beaches…?

But, the book was a good moment. That was the most interesting thing for me.

The Arheoblog published [mkd] a post on the situation with the incoming tourism in Macedonia, inspired by the video:

[…] This is a video that needs to attract foreigners to come and visit Macedonia. I’m not bothered with the fact that there are too many motives from Ohrid, and also from the artifacts found near this city. I’m not bothered that the Muslim art and architecture from Macedonia is not represented enough. I’m not bothered with the fact that a man who doesn’t know the religion phenomenons in Macedonia will get a wrong picture that in the country frescoes and crosses are dominating. I’m not even bothered that too many things are not included, because for a country with such a rich tradition it’s very difficult to put everything in a one minute video. […]

I’m bothered with the fact that in Macedonia there is no stable infrastructure for incoming tourism […].

Razvigor commented [mkd] on the video from another angle:

For me the most important thing is that the promotional video for Macedonia is published under a Creative Commons license.

I think (correct me if I’m wrong) this is the first time in the world for a government to publish something on the internet in this way. Also, it’s probably the first time one director from this level, with an Academy Award nomination, to give one of his works in this way.

The campaign of the government has just begun and we'll see if the reaction of the citizens is wrong and if the video succeeds in achieving its goal.

[…]

If you are not able to find Macedonian politicians in their offices, ministries or party headquarters, you will certainly find them on social networking websites. Many of them have their own profiles on Facebook - the world’s most famous social networking website. It is one of the most addictive social networking websites in the world and most of its users are young people, but there are also many other users of various profiles and ages.

Macedonian politicians, too, are not immune to the “Facebook virus.” Vice Prime Minister for European Affairs Ivica Bocevski is a member of this global social network, as well as Minister of the Interior Gordana Jankulovska, Minister of Information Society Ivo Ivanovski, former SDSM leader Radmila Shekerinska, Minister of Foreign Investments Vele Samak and his former colleague Gligor Tashkovik. The negotiator in the name dispute – Nikola Dimitrov - is also a Facebook user, the leader of DPA – Menduh Thaçi, former Minister of Interior Ljube Boshkoski, Macedonian ambassador to The Hague Shpresa Jusufi, former Minister of Environment and Physical Planning - Imer Aliu - from DPA, former Prime Minister Ljubcho Georgievski, the head of NSDP Tito Petkovski, and former MP Filip Petrovski, who is one of the most inventive Facebook users.

[…]

Some Macedonian bloggers re-published the article and let their readers comment on it. The media blog Komunikacii reacted (MKD) to the article, writing:

[…]

• The traditional media based on centralized principles still don’t see the decentralized nature of the new media, and they don’t plan to speak on these subjects. That’s why we have this article, “Politicians on Facebook”! Big deal that they are on Facebook. […]
• The topic that should be covered by one serious newspaper is how our politicians don’t use the potentials of the new media for communication with the population. How, besides so many financial opportunities, advisers, successful examples from abroad and similar things, the usage is still very humble, as if we are waiting for a benchmark from the EU for usage of social networks.
• And finally, last but not least, one useful analogy: while [Greek minister of foreign affairs Dora Bakoyannis] is using social networking sites for promoting her politics, our politicians are using them for friendships. The information that Dora Bakoyannis is a very good surfer (Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Web Page…) was published in several places in our online sphere, but no one thought it was a big deal, but I say au contre, au contre…

On the Antiblog of Filip Petrovski, who also posted the article, Gjurovski left this comment (MKD):

Most of the politicians' “profiles,” “blogs,” “accounts” are updated by political servants, and any interaction with them is silly and absurd.

So, don’t fool yourself and don't get yourself worked up over anything because instead of Shekerinska or Brother Ljube on the other side there is some guy who is certainly laughing and saying to himself – “The idiots I have to deal with!” while doing his job.

On Kajmakot there were even some suggestions (MKD), inspired by the article, for the name dispute with Greece:

Maybe Macedonia 2.0 is not such a bad name suggestion? ;)

The event started on the square, and included a group of artists who collaborated on a painting dedicated and inspired by this day. On the blog of Free Software Macedonia, the members wrote (MKD):

The canvas attracted the attention of the people on the square, although there were more events happening at the same time. The artist started working immediately, and soon there was “free software” on the canvas.

They were satisfied with the response of the people and the event (MKD):

We gave information to a lot of people, and some of them even stopped and asked questions. There were people who came with concrete questions, but most people had general interest in the event and the activities.

Overall, the event was better than expected. Probably some of the people, who really got interested in free software culture, will come sometimes to “Share Knowledge” or “Share Movie”, where we can make deeper contact.

Free Software Macedonia every week organizes events like “Share Knowledge,” where they are sharing their knowledge, experiment and discuss with the people interested in free software, and “Share Movie,” where they are showing interesting presentations, open content films and YouTube playlists. At these events anyone is welcome and can attend free of charge.

Photos credit: Free Software Macedonia, used under Creative Commons license