The suppression of the Macedonian people shall not stand!

[Cort Haus]

Sloww, what's going on here?

[Nubclear]

The name "Greece" is offensive - why, it wasn't too long ago that Greece wanted to unite all Greeks under one flag, even those living in (for instance) Turkey. By adopting the name "Greece" (or, sneakily, the "Hellenic Republic"), Greece is semi-officially laying claim to all areas that have Greek populations.

I propose that Greece be officially recognised as "Grease". After all, it is mostly what they want to be called, without offending anyone outside Grease!

[Cort Haus]

I suppose it would be too obvious to state that the 'pro-Macedonian' position adopted by many posters here has nothing to do with solidarity for the Macedonian people, and everything to do with trolling MarkG.

Where were these legions when the state of Fyromia was under attack from NATO-backed terrorists in 2001, dedicated to advancing the Greater Albania agenda by giving Albanian militants a quota-driven stake in the fledgling state?

Hmmm?

[DinoDoc]

I was against Clinton's decision to become the air force of a terrorist army and said as much at the time, Cort. Do I pass my Macedonian Solidarity test?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I suppose it would be too obvious

Yes.

[SlowwHand]

Should be a poll,

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I was against Clinton's decision to become the air force of a terrorist army and said as much at the time, Cort. Do I pass my Macedonian Solidarity test?

Damn right you do.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Sloww, what's going on here?

[Colonâ„¢]

Markos, how should the country be named in your opinion?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Colon�
Markos, how should the country be named in your opinion?

in greece the country is referred to as "Skopia" (from the name of the capital, Skopje), and the people "Skopiani".

fyromians argue that this is silly, but ignore cases like small countries (luxemboug, monaco) or ever large ones (brasil) where the name of the country is the same as that of it's capital...

that said, the main issue is not the name. it's the policies, official and semi-official of the fyrom state regarding historical and minority issues. as an example, less that two months ago the fyromian goverment decided to rename the main airport of fyrom to "alexander the greek". the responsible minister said it was a "gesture of good will"

[Cort Haus]

Except that Albanians claim that Skopje comes from Sqip as in Sqiptar (Kosovo Albanian) as part of their claim on it. Once Greeks start supporting Albanian claims, they could be in trouble.



'Historical' is of course contentious.

[Cort Haus]

The map above is a clearer version of this one directly from Greater Albania advocates.

[MarkG]

meanwhilte, searching on wiki i've found this guy

Alexandru Macedonski, a.... Romanian poet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandru_Macedonski

for the little search i did, this Alexander has yet to be claimed by fyrom

[Varwnos]

The constitution of slavic Macedonia states that one of its founding ethnicities is the albanian. I think that this in itself should be enough to end any claims to something more than a bit of the ottoman province of that name.
Moreover the UN name of the country is indeed F.Y.R.O.M. Last time i checked countries were still called by their official name.
Imo it would have been a good compromise to agree on the name Slavic Macedonia. Too bad it did not happen.
However it is very probable (if not absolutely certain) that the country will have an albanian majority in the near future.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
The map above is a clearer version of this one directly from Greater Albania advocates.

well the "greater albania" plan towards greece is silly as there is no albanian minority in epirus (e.g. the part of greece shown in the map as being included in the greater albania). in fact, the larget part of albanian economic immigrants that have moved to greece over the last 15 years are in athens

meanwhile, there is a long-standing greek minority in south albania(=north epirus), with local goverment and parliament representation, etc. but there are no great greece plans...