Several years ago, I was a victim of hate crime and was attacked by four unknown aggressors. I have not spoken or written about this publicly, but now I feel I should, having in consideration that the pre-election campaign of the regime has began, precisely in their style. With violence.
None of the aggressors who claim the right to retaliate on behalf of those who were attacked from their own ethnic group, understand the pain and anger that the attacked feel. In fact, the aggressors are the ones who are responsible for all the victims, including those of their own ethnicity. Nationalists feed each other, it has always been this way. Yet, they are so accustomed to this comfortable way of living … They no longer remember how it was for them before. Before they learned to hate. And it is easy for them. Rather than to face themselves and to stand behind something worthwhile and something for which courage is needed, they choose to stand in an abstract defense of a larger group. Cowards. Real courage lies in fighting against evil and injustice far and wide. And not to hide behind a fictitious identity and the role of a victim.
It is very simple, fellow citizens! Self-defense is when you defend yourself in the moments you are being attacked, everything after that is revenge, another attack. What everyone needs to understand, including the fascists among us, is that after each punch is made on a citizen of another ethnic group, direct responsibility is undertaken for all subsequent attacks on their own ethnic group. And the guilt.
In a society where violence has become an everyday habit, everyone suffocates. The victims, and also the wretched, who find their sense for existence in violence. Cowards … Do you think it matters to the victims if they were attacked because of pure evilness or because of vengeance? Do you think that the victim of your ethnic group you are supposedly avenging, feels better because another innocent person suffered from abusers? The victims of any ethnicity are closer to me than the abusers of my own ethnicity who give themselves the right to administer justice. I consider them the same as the abusers of the other ethnic group. Exactly the same. In order to distinguish a righteous person from an evil one, the person must show this through an example. If this person acts as the evil one, than this only proves that the person is nothing better, and that this person has no right to excuses or to moralize. Both individually, and as a representative of one ethnicity (as one likes to present oneself), the moment a person from the other ethnic group attacks, that is when the aggressor loses the right to represent himself (or to represent his ethnic group) as a victim.
And the supposed love for their nation or ethnic group, which the aggressors propagate, the supposed concern… This is acting and also an attempt for them to feel as part of something bigger, since their lives do not fulfill them enough. Individuality, everything that is personally mine / yours, but does not coincide with the abstract definition of what it means for the aggressors to be Albanian, Macedonian, Bosniak, Roma … – is not acceptable to them. They find this repulsive, as they feel that this excludes them.
Thus, one can easily understand the fact that these fascists do not care at all about the welfare of the others from their own ethnic group, and that the attacks made on someone of their ethnic group is just used as an alibi to relieve their own animal instincts. Why would then attackers in Gorce Petrov, for instance, attack Albanians there, knowing that by this they are putting in danger the Macedonians that are living in Cair, Tetovo or Gostivar? Or why would attackers from Tetovo attack the Macedonians there, knowing that they are putting in danger the Albanians who live in Bitola, Aerodrom, and even in Kumanovo, as in my case? The answer is clear: I do not care!
Fascists, I will not allow you to take revenge! Not in my name! Thank you.
Yes, perhaps the state institutions do not function, but it is better for the attackers who attacked me to run free than for some other innocent person to be attacked only because he/she was accidentally born as a member of an ethnic group. Nevertheless, bullies, fascists of either ethnic group are similar. Maybe their names and flags are different, but it is the same poison they spread.
Emrah Rexhepi
