Kocho Andonovski: LYNCH

By the Law on protection from discrimination, the government practically sent a message for lynch of those who do not think “properly”

Kocho Andonovski

Since I am an activist, I will try to describe plastically how the political dialogue is going on in Republic of Macedonia, especially in the sector that I am active in, that is the civil sector, in correlation to the political structures.

A year ago, meaning in March last year, a group of students at the Faculty of Architecture, wanted to protest against building a church on the Square in the center of Skopje. They had their professional, guild remarks on the urban and construction solutions of the project itself. They asked for help, we, several activists, have gathered and gave them our support. We came out with them because we had also had our remarks on the whole project. We thought that in a society such as Macedonian, projects promoting exclusivity would be harmful and would cause controversies and tensions. That was actually our proposal for dialogue in the society. The response to this offer was fierce. We were attacked by more than thousands of people who came on the Square in Skopje. To the appeal for dialogue, a public appeal to attack us was announced. The previous night, this kind of appeal was publicly announced in the electronic media, on bloggs..It was the first time I have experienced something like that,  that kind of dialogue, the people that attacked us were so frantic, they were looking at me hatefully, screaming: “homos, atheists, we are going to kill you”. Fortunately, the attackers were not from Skopje, that is, they were brought by buses from other towns, so they could not chase us while we were running away along Skopje streets.

I would like to link this hate speech, this kind of dialogue that occurred on the so called “Freedom Square” with the Law on protection from discrimination, a process that I am already involved in for five years, since the time when no political party had political will to pass this law. During the years, we as activists learned about the whole process, the law, about the mechanisms, about everything, and, I want to believe, to hope, that the political structures have learned, too. The day for visa liberalization has come and the government decided that this law should be passed. And we were involved. We have made, not a perfect, but a beautiful proposal, that was a base for negotiations and finishing. The government used that proposal in Brussels, in behalf of the negotiations for approving the visa liberalization. The visa liberalization has been approved and afterwards, suddenly, a completely different proposal appears in the Parliament, that none of us as participants have seen it before, neither can support it. To pass this through, the government let go off two smoke bombs: the first one was the sexual orientation, the second one was the homosexual marriage and the adoption of children. In both cases, a marginalized group is stigmatized, placed as a main culprit and dragged into a risk of violence upon it, because the message is: we are not going to include the sexual orientation, so we are not going to protect these people. Now, everyone that could be perceived as gay, along the streets in Macedonia, can be attacked in every moment, because the message that the citizens have heard is: we do not legitimize that, we are not protecting these people. That is also part of the political culture and dialogue in Macedonia.

Considering that the law is protective towards the religious orientation, that is the atheism is excluded and not protected, and this associated with the last year events, when they were naming us as “homos and atheists”, including the fact that these kinds of labels have been actualized these days again, somehow the dices are being arranged and this begins to look like a stigmatization, victimization and putting people who represent the critical thought in Macedonia under beam of light. That is actually a lesson for the others who will dare not to think “properly”.

In the meantime, the quotes for night shifts in the Labor Relations Act have been abolished, and the law itself is changing constantly. The conditions of the workers are getting worse, the unions are brought into impossible position of functioning… If we are aware that the principal on human rights comes from Unions and working relations, all this starts to make some sense. Unfortunately, I recognize the political culture as guerilla culture, and the political dialogue as stationary. We cannot, by any means, get out of the trenches, give each other a hand and say what we really mean.
(Kocho Andonovski is a human rights activist)