The Forced Homogenization of Populations in Greek Macedonia

The Forced Homogenization of Populations in Greek MacedoniaBy Risto Stefov

rstefov@hotmail.com

September 12, 2008

Ordinarily I could care less what people call themselves, it's a personal issue how one wishes to present and even when I know people are lying about their ethnic heritage I let it slide. But, when today's self-proclaimed "Greeks" take it upon themselves to dictate to others how they may call themselves then it's time to speak up.The Greek government routinely denies the existence of ethnic Macedonians, as it denies the existence of all ethnic and national minorities within its jurisdiction. Greece, you see, is a pure country with no minorities, a miracle in the modern World and unique in Europe - or so we are told. In truth today's Modern Greek identity, the Greek identity of such luminaries as Kostas Karamanlis and Dora Bakoyannis, is the result of enforced homogenization. It is a political identity and historically artificial.Prior to 1913 the majority of people living in geographic Macedonia shared common customs, traditions, songs, dances, language, history and religion. These people had lived in Macedonia for some 1500 years and their relationship is probably much older than that. Any decent person, any civilised human being would have no problem referring to such people as 'ethnic Macedonians'. Now, let's consider the so-called "ethnic Greek" identity of today's Modern Greeks.According to Webster's dictionary, belonging to an ethnic group means belonging to a division of mankind as distinguished by customs, characteristics, language and sharing a common history, etc. I recently read an interesting article at in an official Turkish website:http://www.mfa.gov.tr/denial-of-ethnic-identity.en.mfaWhat do Turks have to say about today's Greeks? After all both Macedonia and Greece were ruled by Turkey for centuries; Greece for four centuries and Macedonia for five.The site states:
"The [Modern] Greek Nation is based on the principle of belonging to the Greek race and the Greek Orthodox Church. On this subject, it is enough to glance at the speeches of Greek statesmen about the homogeneity of the Greek nation with the exception of the Muslim minority.If today's Greek Nation is really homogeneous, one cannot help but wonder about the destiny of the Albanians, the Muslim Albanians, Vlach, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Jews as well as Turks. In this respect it becomes necessary to answer the question of how homogeneity has been achieved in Greek Macedonia while ethnic variety still survives in the Republic of Macedonia ."What are the Turks talking about? Who are these Albanians, Vlach, Macedonians, Turks, etc. existing in Greece? As mentioned above, Athens denies the existence of any national or ethnic minorities on its territory. Greece claims to be an ethnically homogeneous nation whose roots extend back to the ancient Greeks of thousands of years ago. Such a claim is utter nonsense, of course, but this is the official mythology of the Modern Greek state. This is what today's Greeks are taught in school and this is the kind of historical fiction promoted by Greek society.The Ottoman Turks were masters of Greece for four centuries, long before a Greek state was created and prior to the Romanoi altering their identity and referring to themselves "Greeks". There was indeed a great variety of ethnic populations in what is today Greece, but apparently they have all vanished.The Turkish site puts it succinctly:
"In this respect, it becomes necessary to answer the question of how homogeneity has been achieved in Greek Macedonia while ethnic variety still survives in the Republic of Macedonia ?"How indeed!When the Greek kingdom was created in 1829, the following ethnic groups dominated the territory: Arvanites (Christian Albanians), Vlahi (Vlachs), Tourki (Turks), Voulgari (Bulgarians and Macedonians), Slavi (Macedonians), Slavo-Makedones (Macedonians), Endopii (indigenous Macedonians), Gifti (Roma), Evreii (Jews) and others. Some citations carelessly refer to those who spoke Greek as "Greeks" but such people more often than not belonged to one of the distinct non-Greek ethnic groups. It is impossible to gauge to what extent ancient Greeks (including the huge slave populations) survived in the lower Balkans and preserved a 'Greek' identity for 2500 years. It is extremely unlikely that more than a miniscule fraction of today's "Greek" population has any connection whatsoever to the ancient Greeks. The vast bulk of today's "Greeks" have been recently made "Greek" as part of the political homogenization process.European powers created the Greek kingdom in an effort to block Russian access to warm waters. At that time, in 1829, the Arvanites still spoke the Albanian language and had their own unique customs and traditions. This was the majority population in the region of Attica (Athens) so much so that there was discussion as to whether Greek or Albanian should become the official language of the new kingdom. The Vlach still spoke their mother Vlach language similar to Latin and they had their own unique customs and traditions. Turks spoke the Turkish language and had their own customs and traditions, etc.Notwithstanding the many names Modern Greeks use to refer to Macedonians, e.g., Slavs, Slavofoni, diglossos, Voulgaros, Slavo-Makedones, Dopii and more recently the ignorant Skopianoi, Macedonians spoke the Macedonian language, which existed and still exists throughout all of geographic Macedonia. Macedonians too have their own unique customs and traditions, which are different from the other groups. If the truth be told today's Greece is inhabited by diverse Ottoman Christian populations of various ethnic backgrounds. These people did not have a "Greek" ethnic identity, that identity was imposed on them later. It was only after the creation of the Greek kingdom that authorities fabricated a new "Greek" identity, the purpose being to homogenize the population. Authorities systematically destroyed people's original ethnic identity. They made the declaration of any non-Greek identity socially repulsive and illegal. People became too ashamed to refer to themselves as Arvanites and Vlach. Even today you see Arvanites like former Greek foreign minister, Pangalos, denying his Albanian heritage and proclaiming himself a pure Hellene. That's quite pathetic but Modern Greeks are taught that any non-Greek identity is vulgar and inferior to the newly fabricated Greek identity. Modern Greeks have buried their true ethnic heritage, and where they still remember it, they have become self-loathing. This is what it means to be a modern-day "Hellene".Greek authorities also taught the citizenry that it was "patriotic" to monitor one's neighbours and hand over to authorities the names of people who refused to identify as Greek and who continued to speak their non-Greek mother tongues. This process of spying on your neighbours and betraying them to authorities went on for generations and still goes on today, even in the Diaspora.Politicians in Athens fabricated a state mythology, a fake history if you will, for these newly minted Greeks to share, the purpose being to bind the different ethnic groups together and unify the state. Greece adopted Koine, which today is paraded as the Modern Greek language. But, just as the Modern Greek flag was stolen from the British East India Company, Koine, which many Greeks boast connects them to the ancients, was stolen from the Byzantine Church. Greece was fabricating its new history, identity and language in a hodgepodge manner via theft. In fact most of today's "Greek culture" is stolen from the various assimilated populations and misrepresented as "Greek".People who learnt Koine are no more Greek nor related to the ancient Greeks than people who learnt hieroglyphs are Egyptian and related to the ancient Egyptians. Adopting a new language doesn't give one rights to the heritage of the ancient populations who spoke it.It made sense to impose the church Koine as religion was the only thing the various ethnic groups of Greece had in common. But, religion is not ethnicity.Greece changed the place names and people's personal names, renaming everyone and everything to make them appear Greek. This tells us that neither the places nor the people were Greek and they had to be made Greek by force. This is Greece's famous policy of ethnic and cultural genocide.As a Macedonian from Aegean Macedonia my new (artificial) "Greek" history begins in 1926 after the Greek government changed my grandfather's name and the name of my village from Macedonian to Greek. There was no Stefou or Trigono before 1926 and everyone spoke Macedonian, not Greek.If I am to believe that after 1926 I am Greek then I must ask: What was I before 1926? What was I before they changed our village name and our family name from Macedonian to Greek? What was the original ethnic heritage of my family?And just what is it that makes today's citizens of Greece "ethnically Greek"? Just what is it that makes Greekocised Macedonians, Vlach, Arvanites, Roma, Turks, etc., share the same "ethnicity" in Greece?According to Webster's dictionary a Greek is a native or modern inhabitant of Greece. So, anyone who lives in Greece is Greek by virtue of geography. One must assume that if such people move to a different location they would take on a new identity. That hardly sounds like an ethnic group.The name Greek is derived from the word Graioi, originally the Latin name of a Boeotian tribe that settled in Southern Italy in the 8th century BC, but clearly the Boeotians did not give rise to today's Modern "Greeks". Use of the term "Greek" cannot, in itself, define an ethnicity. There must be more to it.So, what makes today's Greeks "ethnic Greeks"? It can't be culture, tradition or customs as the original cultures, traditions and customs of today's Greek population (Albanians, Vlachs, Macedonians, Turks, Roma, etc.) were distinct and non-Greek.It can't be language since Koine was formally imposed on diverse groups only after the Greek kingdom was formed in 1829. Koine was not the mother tongue of people living in what became Greece, this was a church language just as Latin was the church language to the West.So, it isn't language, culture, tradition or custom. It's not history either, as more than half of today's Greek population is not indigenous to the region and was only transplanted into the area from Asia Minor and the Black Sea over the last century. These are unrelated, historically disjoint populations.You can see why the Greek government was under pressure to manufacture a language and identity for all these different groups. The only thing they shared, the only thing they had in common, was their religion. Today's Modern Greek state is based on religion, not ethnicity or history. Historically, it is unrelated to ancient Greece. When the Bavarian royal house established the new Greek kingdom it was meant as a haven for the persecuted Christians of the Ottoman regions. The first Greek constitution beckoned to all Christians to immigrate and settle there - it did not beckon to "Greeks" to come and settle there.Other than a common religion there is little if any of the characteristics of an "ethnic group" prior to the formation of the Greek kingdom in 1829. That's why forced homogenization was necessary in the first place. That's why everything and everyone had to be renamed. That's why a new Greek language had to be imposed and people's mother tongues and ethnic identities had be suppressed and destroyed. That's why ethnic variety still exists in the Republic of Macedonia but has vanished from the new Greek state.How is it, then, that people who only recently and just barely qualify to call themselves "ethnic Greeks" are allowed to usurp the ancient Greek heritage and the ancient Macedonian heritage? From what authority does this group attempt to tell ethnic Macedonians who they are and how they may call themselves?Obviously today's Greeks are ethnic frauds, their identity is nothing more than the product of a government program. We indigenous Macedonians of Greece know this first hand as we have been resisting the ruthless ethnocide of Greece for a century now.What is the Macedonian government doing negotiating our Macedonian identity and Macedonian ethnic heritage with such racists and frauds?