by: XHABIR DERALLA
Other suitable titles: The fight for the truth starts from Volino… Or: We’re all Volino… Or: Volino in our hearts… The Kutlesh sun is defended from Volino… Third league…
I was at the Vienna airport and, like others, was lying (literally) on the leather seats near Gate 36, waiting for the flight to Skopje, when the sensational news about the football match from the Third Macedonian Football League that was played between Volino and Crnobuki landed on the palm of my hand. The referee had not ruled properly (had ruled offside for the visiting team), after which general chaos had broken out. There had been punches, cursing, and the police having arrived. They had taken the attacker of the referee towards a police van, when several local people had blocked the exit of the village. This can be seen on the video posted on the social networks.
The story is so far just a funny village story about a third league fight between villages, with a smell of Rakija (brandy) and beer from “in front of a convenience shop”. However, it’s the point from where the “holy” struggle of the “couriers” continues.
The guy who attacked the referee and his friends have all of a sudden become “fighters for freedom”, “victims” of the treacherous rule. With magical transformation, we discover the courier “truth” that these people are not village bullies, but standard bearers of the “Kutlesh” sun, so that’s why they were “delineated by the protectors of the treacherous rule”. Another epic about the “courageous fighters of the Macedonian defiance” whose epicentre is nothing more nothing less, but the village of Volino.
The “uprising” of the Macedonian “patriots” is, actually, “smothered” by the mayor’s gesture. The poor guys, scared to get into the “police van”, but that’s why the mayor came around and volunteered to ride along together with the “patriots” to the police station in Ohrid. Nevertheless, the fighters will take the main “credit”, who are displayed as “patriots” and “martyrs” for the “holy cause” according to the “couriers” (common name for self-proclaimed media for which I won’t be wasting words).
And somewhere here the entire story should end, a funny, grotesque, not very significant story. But thanks to the “couriers”, Volino became Macedonia. We all became Volino. And the MOI is responding to this with a decisive measure… Certainly, this is an irony.
Following the announcement of the government strategy on “decisive fight against misinformation, false news and hybrid attacks on democracy”, we have managed to see just a decisive fight against the strategy. I will repeat this position in the very next occasion, because today I would like to focus only on the heart of the Macedonian resistance – Volino, the village in the small, picturesque Municipality of Debarca.
At the village fight that was displayed as a small “uprising”, thanks to the “couriers”, the MOI responded, nothing more nothing less, with a complaint to the AJM, CEMM, and the AAAVMS “due to the obvious deliberate misinformation by certain media outlets in relation to the incident and are expecting for the news organizations to react to such unprofessional conduct”. This is probably the “most decisive” attack against misinformation that the institutions could have thought of. In the meanwhile, the MOI expressed hope that “these organizations will accordingly respond to the unprofessional, unethical and obviously deliberate misinformation with the purpose of inciting hatred, violence and intolerance of several media outlets”. What “accordingly” can the AJM, CEMM, and the AAAVMS do, and what the state can’t do, remains a secret.
Until the great resolution related to the “patriotic uprising”, everyone remains to be silently repeating “We are Volino” and to be rejoicing in advance for the “accordingly” reactions…
