Slogans such as “brotherly love” and “eternal friendship” have never worked and they will never work without reciprocity. The great strategist Karl von Clausewitz humoring the “peace-loving” nature of the adversary, stated, “The aggressor is always peace-loving; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.”
The convenient advocacy that the people of a nation-state are allegedly brothers regardless of what their government does, implies that the people are detached from their government. To me, it is a lame excuse for ignorance and naiveté. Whether rational-legal, traditional, or charismatic, legitimacy of a government confers authority and power that rely not on coercion but on consent of the people. Since the people of a country by their silence concur to the authority and the power of their own government to handle the issues of their country’s foreign policy, the people are as guilty to their government for its expansionistic tendencies under any cover. Thus, the people of a country are part of the government, not distinct of it.
In the case of the Republic of Skopje, although it is ruled by an elected leadership, the procedures of democratic legitimacy is questionable. Manipulation of democratic procedures such as vote rigging or harassment of the opposition brings the government of Skopje down to the level of an illiberal regime.
Not one would have any problem with the “brotherly love” ideology, if the government and the people of the Republic of Skopje felt the same way and abandoned their incredulous historical claims over Macedonia. For as long as the Slavic expansionism under the cloak of historical arguments by assertion continues and the people in the Republic of Skopje support their quasi-democratic government, the aforementioned ideology is nothing but an argument from incredulity that stems from ignorance or from willful ignorance. Absence of evidence that exists solely in the minds of the people and government of the Republic of Skopje is not evidence of absence.
