BBC report angers Greece
A BBC report in which the broadcaster maintained that there is a Slavic-Macedonian minority in Greece is causing a stir in the country. Athens' ambassador to London has complained to the broadcaster about "historical inaccuracies and distortions". The existence of such a minority is hotly disputed in Greece. While some commentators agree with the ambassador's criticism, others see it as absurd.
Propaganda from Skopje
The BBC's report is nothing but propaganda organised by Skopje, Eleftheros Typos concludes:
“For three decades Skopje has tried desperately to propagate such stories. ... Stories of elderly, repressed people in Greece that show the plight of an entire people living under the yoke of the Greeks. Similarly, Skopje has managed to win over a negligible but nonetheless existent part of the academic world which in its quest to leave a legacy is rewriting history in a criminal way. ... The Prespes agreement won't stop Skopje. The neighbours will continue to use the narrative of Macedonianism and to reproduce the story of the 'bad neighbour'.”
Strange panic
Writing in Kathimerini, columnist Pantelis Boukalas can only shake his head at all the fuss:
“A paradoxical mixture of arrogance and self-contempt leads us to believe that we remain the centre of the world. And that therefore it is the duty of all other countries to focus on us, preferably in a glorifying way. At the same time we believe that an article published abroad is enough to destroy our country. ... Now we are panicking because of a BBC reportage that talks of an 'invisible Slavic-Macedonian minority'. As if we had learned only yesterday that Slavs lived in Greece for centuries on end, that they didn't 'assimilate' and not all of them left for Slavic countries after the war. ... Or that some Greeks speak their own language in addition to Greek (generally with a sense of fear). This is not real panic but fake panic.”