I am English. And my former Prime Minister (Tony Blair) speaks French. Does that make him French? Americans speak English, but are they English? So Alexander spoke ancient Greek, because he was educated in ancient Greece, by Greeks. Does that make him Greek?

His father, Phillip II, invaded and conquered ancient Greece. You see, at the time Greece was a series of city states while Macedonia was a kingdom. So to say now that Macedonia was and is a part of Greece suggests that Western Russia was/is NAZI and that Hitler was from Minsk!

So we can disprove Greek claims to Alexsander and Macedonian heritage by using simple logic rather than opiniated historic claim.

51% of "Macedonia" is in Greece. During the Bucharest meetings in the early 1900's The Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians and to a lesser extent the Albanians suggested that they spoke for the Macedonian people (who all had Macedonians fighting for independance under their flags). None kept their word and divided Macedonia up amongst themselves. Only Serbia honoured its pact with the Macedonians in the slightest, granting national status.

Then world war one happened.

History covers the times from 1814 through to 1945 very well. Tito, the new leader of Yugoslavia, granted Macedonia the national status promised in Bucharest, none of the others did.

So now we come to the recent past. Tito died, and almost immediately Greece changed the name of its northern territories to Macedonia (in whatever form you chose to use). Macedonia eventually gained independence from Yugoslavia and began its first infant steps towards fredom and democracy.

Now Greece, who never questioned Yugoslav Macedonia, suddenly get all defensive! Why? Over a name? Have Greeks never heard the expression "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me"?

Macedonians have the fundamental human right of a name. They should be encouraged to call themselves whatever they wish. There are many incidents of two nations having regions and cities of the same name. Washington, Alexandria, to name but two.

NATO invitations should be based on military/political/economic standards alone, and not influenced by petty name issues.

Macedonia in NATO would be good for regional stability, period. Greece has territorial disputes with Turkey, yet both are already members. So there has been a precedence set.

The world needs to realise that Greece is using its superior marketing budget to inflict the kind of totalitarian authority over another sovereign state The Republic of Macedonia, that many in the west faught and died to remove. Perhaps the argument shouldn't be what Macedonia changes its name to, but rather Greece using its correct name of Former Macedonian Republic of Greece or FMROG.

The Republic of Macedonia MUST be supported and defended against the overt and covert political actions of its neighbour.

Mark Farren

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