Dismantling the Greek Myth A Collection of essays By Risto Stefov 1 Dismantling the Greek Myth A Collection of Essays Published by: Risto Stefov Publications [email protected] Toronto, Canada All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief and documented quotations in a review. Copyright 2012 by Risto Stefov e-book edition 2 Index Index ............................................................................................. 3 Preface .......................................................................................... 5 Introduction................................................................................... 7 Essay 1 – Who are the Modern Greeks?..................................... 12 Essay 2 – Who are the Greeks - A Macedonian Perspective...... 16 Essay 3 - Where did modern Greeks come from? ...................... 21 Essay 4 - Why Greece and not Arvanitovlachia? ....................... 27 Essay 5 - Why did the Europeans need a Greece?...................... 32 Essay 6 – On the way to Hellenism............................................ 37 Essay 7 - The Greek President is Albanian! ............................... 42 Essay 8 - What do you really mean when you say you are “Greek”? ..................................................................................... 45 Essay 9 - Once a Greek Always a Greek.................................... 52 Essay 10 - Greek by Politics....................................................... 62 Essay 11 - Twenty Authors can't all be wrong!.......................... 69 Essay 12 - Modern Greece according to David Holden ............. 75 Essay 13 - G. A. Henty on 19th century Greece and the Modern Greeks......................................................................................... 79 Essay 14 - Connecting the Past with the Present........................ 82 Essay 15 – Language Religion and Identity ............................... 88 Essay 16 - Why expose the Greek Fraud?.................................. 93 Essay 17 - The curse of Hellenism ............................................. 99 Essay 18 - How Macedonians were made into Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians!......................................................................... 104 Essay 19 – Is there a Misunderstanding?.................................. 117 Essay 20 – What is Greece up to? ............................................ 122 Essay 21 – My personal Opinion.............................................. 126 Essay 22 – More questions ....................................................... 131 Essay 23 – On to Macedonia .................................................... 136 Essay 24 – Education................................................................ 141 Essay 25 – Assimilation............................................................ 148 Essay 26 - Greeks by Birth? What’s that all about? ................. 155 Essay 27 - Fifty authors can’t still all be wrong!...................... 159 Essay 28 – The Macedonian Party?.......................................... 170 Essay 29 – Baiting the Trap...................................................... 176 Essay 30 – The Greek Macedonians......................................... 181 Essay 31 – The Need for Intelligence Gathering...................... 187 Essay 32 - The Walls are closing in.......................................... 191 Essay 33 – Reacting to Rumours.............................................. 196 3 Essay 34 – The Unconvinced ................................................... 204 Essay 35 – Time to Stand Up ................................................... 212 Essay 36 – Twenty-five more authors ...................................... 216 Essay 37 – My fascination with Greeks?.................................. 224 Essay 38 – Who writes my books?........................................... 231 Essay 39 – Ilinden 1903............................................................ 236 Essay 40 - Why Greece can’t have minorities! ........................ 245 Essay 41 - Greece is not the Cradle of Democracy .................. 251 Essay 42 - Some Modern Greeks today believe there is one story to Greece, their own story......................................................... 256 Essay 43 - Is Greece forgetting something? ............................. 261 Essay 44 - After two centuries of living a myth Greece now faces reality ........................................................................................ 268 Essay 45 - Greeks and Identity theft......................................... 273 Essay 46 - Assimilation of Macedonians Continues ................ 279 Essay 47 - Cause of Greek Fears and Paranoia ........................ 285 Essay 48 - Greece is one of the worst human rights violators in the world ................................................................................... 289 Essay 49 - Falsity of Greece vs Reality of Macedonia............. 297 Essay 50 - Getting to know thy Greece .................................... 302 Essay 51 - Greece is plugged in the Matrix.............................. 307 Essay 52 - According to the Greeks Tito was either a god or a magician.................................................................................... 310 Essay 53 - The West we Trust? ................................................ 315 Essay 54 - What’s Europe’s Problem with Macedonia? .......... 320 Conclusion ................................................................................ 334 4 Preface Modern Greeks on one hand claim to be ethnically pure “Greeks” who have descended from the so called “ancient Greeks” and on the other they claim “Macedonians don’t exist!” How can that be since Macedonia and Greece not only have been without borders for over two millennia, but both have been exposed to the same invasions, conquerors, settlers and ravishes of time. Whatever happened in Macedonia happened in Greece. Historically this, without a doubt, can be proven. Sorry but Greece can’t have it both ways and I can’t emphasize this more strongly. The world needs to know the truth, particularly the Macedonian and Greek people. Both Macedonians and Greeks need to know that the Modern Greeks are just as diverse a collection of ethnicities as are the Macedonians. The truth is that all peoples in the Balkans are so mixed that only their politics makes them unique. And by that I mean by living without borders, by mixing with one another and by being exposed to the same cultures, we have become indistinguishable from one another except for our politics of course. This we all need to understand! We also need to understand that it was the Western Europeans who came along and told us who we can or can’t be. Let’s not forget that and let’s not let others and their plans be the object of our division. Heck let’s tell it the way it is! We are Macedonians, we feel Macedonian and that is what we always have been and will be. We deserve to be treated the same as our neighbours because we are no different than them. We should not be asked to make “compromises”, especially to our detriment, in order to make our enemies happy. Unfortunately it goes deeper than just happiness. I think the question of who we are has nothing to do with “really who we are” but has a lot to do with who benefits if we are not Macedonians; if we don’t exist. Our loss is someone else’s gain, more precisely it has to do with what the Greeks will gain because of our loss; something they have stolen from us and now don’t want to give back. Personal interests are always at the root of every “conflict” be it between individual people or between countries. Western Europeans created Modern Greece basically out of fiction to satisfy their own interests and as a result they sacrificed us and our Macedonian identity. Why they did this is another story but it does not change the fact that they allowed Greece to invade, occupy and annex Macedonian territories, displace people, commit genocide, confiscate properties and assets and all that without any compensation to the true owners. Perhaps that was fashionable in the old days but none the less it was illegal. Things, unfortunately (for them), have changed now and the 5 winds favour us, the Macedonians, and we want back what was once taken from us. Besides compensation for what was illegally stolen from us we also want recognition for the injustices perpetrated against us. We are asking them to admit their guilt for their wrong doings, which obviously for them is very difficult to do. So it is easier to maintain that “Macedonians don’t exist”; out of sight out of mind. How can they be guilty of committing crimes against a people that don’t exist? Thus abusers continue to excuse themselves of their responsibility and of the criminal acts they committed against the Macedonian people. Besides that, Greeks want it all for themselves. They already have the so-called ancient Greek heritage but they also want the ancient Macedonian heritage all to themselves. Outside of that, they have 51% of the historic Macedonian territories and those too they want to own exclusively at the expense of the Macedonian people, the true inheritors of the Macedonian heritage. Is that fair? I would say not! Above all, are they really the true heirs even of the Greek heritage? We need to question that since