If that was the case, then they wouldn't be trying so hard to destroy the language and culture of Macedonians by renaming them to "Slavophone Grecians" and refusing to let them name their children what they want or speak their language.

If that culture didn't exist, the Greeks wouldn't need to work so hard to destroy it. Subtle cultural genocide, and the EU needs to give them a spanking over it, imo.

The problem doesn't come from their existence. We know these people exist and treat them already in a special way. The problem occurs when they try to create a country called Macedonia when Macedonia is already a place in Greece. It's like Austria wanting to be named Bavaria because many people feel bavarians. It doesn't make any sense...

If "Treating them special" means "Not letting them have their language, their customs, or their names passed down through generations" then sure. Super special.

I don't think the State has the power to combat these cultural forces brought about by the incumbent majority.

you picked a very bad example here
prussia as is seen today was a german state (independent till the end of wwi, ie 1919, as kingdom of prussia with the king of prussia being emperor of the german empire and a state within the weimar republic for a few more years) but it was/is actually the margravate of brandenburg, (the original) prussia was outside the borders of the holy roman empire (and it's population has a totally different ethniticy [they were/are a baltic people actually]) but after the margrave of brandenburg became king of prussia he prefered to use that title because king is ranked higher than margrave - a situation similar to austria which was an archduchy in itself and the archduke was emperor due to the fact that he was also king of bohemia and hungary
and if you read up on (ancient) greek history you will notice that prior to philip ii the greek states looked down on their 'barbaric' cousins, the macedonians, from whom they tried to distance themselves
hope that clarifies the issue a bit for you

PS btw, due to invasion and occupation (especially after the napoleonic wars) prussia at the end covered an area containing a lot of different german 'ethnicities' and a few others as well but none of the area originally occupied by the prussian people

This post was edited by brmv on May 14 2010 08:49pm

The state is intentionally reinforcing those cultural forces. It's laws that prevent Macedonian names and language from being carried on by Macedonians.

I'm not saying they need statehood immediately for things to be fair, but ffs.

Oh, if only the Americans had enforced this policy in 1492...

This post was edited by Inviction on May 14 2010 11:03pm

Why must current immigrants know English when the first immigrants did not need to know Cherokee or Navajo?

And why do some frown upon Spanish when the Spanish were the first Europeans to discover the New World?



On the contrary, a "Macedonia for people who feel Macedonian" exists. It is called Macedonia.



You are confusing the Slavic Macedonians with the Greek Macedonians. The Macedonian language is official in Macedonia, while the Ancient Macedonian language, the language of Alexander, was a Hellenic language that was eventually replaced by Koine Greek. The two share the same name because they originate from the same region on the northern border of Greece.

I must commend you, though. Using emoticons to give your tenuous arguments an appeal to pathos is a clever trick that works well on the feeble-minded, but honestly, why are you trying to split up nations and rewrite history when you clearly have no background on the subject?

Greek Macedonian culture exists, just as Spartan and Athenian cultures existed and exist. Regardless, they are all Greek. Since the modern nation-state, as opposed to ancient city-states, stresses linguistic and ethnic unity, one would expect Greece to stress the commonalities of being Greek rather than the differences between being Macedonian or Spartan or Athenian or Thracian or Corinthian or Cretan, but this is by no means "cultural genocide" against Macedon or Athens or Sparta or Thrace or Corinth or Crete. To say that Macedon is not Greek is to suggest that Greece break up into separate city-states again.

Is California any less American because its culture has Hispanic elements and many Hispanophones live there while the much of the rest of the United States is Anglophone?

This post was edited by Inviction on May 14 2010 11:12pm

Now imagine if that had been said to some ancestor of yours after he had just alighted from the boat...

O tempora o mores!

This post was edited by Inviction on May 14 2010 11:16pm

I would expect my ancestor to have killed the offending vermin.