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ALEXANDER THE GREAT

THE GREATEST EVER MACEDONIAN
FROM A MELTING POT TO A NATIONALIST NEST

Macedonia is a region at the heart of Old Europe, a birth place of modern European civilisation.
It has always been said, and it is true that, what the Greeks invented and introduced in Antiquity, the
Macedonians implemented worldwide and developed Hellenism into one of the greatest culture
exports in known history.
Macedonia has always been a crossroad of business and commerce, a regional centre and source of
ideas that revolutionised science and philosophy and particularly warfare.
Its the birthplace of Alexander the Great and the first global empire known to the world.
Alexanders Hellenic Imperium consolidated the then known World into one global village and
successfully exported the idea of peaceful coexistence under centralized rule.
When he finally defeated Darius, he dedicated the reminder of his very short life to his dream of
uniting the world thru a merger of ideas and a fusion between the Classical Greek and the rich
Persian heritage.
But Alexander was not just a great general; he was a great humanist and promoted multiethnicity, as
well as cultural and religious tolerance.
He introduced the idea of a cosmopolitan and international worldwide global confederation, where
an exchange of ideas and goods would flow freely for the common benefit and well for all the
people.
Up to this day modern mainstream politics are streaming towards achieving what Alexander did
almost 2500 years ago.
The dream of uniting the world, however, was not just a goal of Alexander; Global world domination
has been an obsession for a range of world leaders who did not always promote egalitarian and
peaceful coexistence.
One of the reasons why one man achieved so much within such a short time span was indeed
because the conquered did not feel as occupied for the first time in history.
Alexander offered more, so much more than what the self determined and sovereign could achieve
on their own, he offered everyone the world, he offered security and a protection of a global
alliance, a worldwide partnership, but above all freedom to blossom and flourish under their own
tradition and culture, consolidated and united under the values and ideas of Hellenism, the most
advanced and modern culture concept of ideas of the day!
This is why it has been so hard to copy and replicate the achievement of Alexander from Pella,
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It was his undiscriminant love of people and other cultures, his anticipation and lust to merge ideas
from everywhere for the joint common good of all people, that made him an icon impossible to
reproduce.
This was the biggest true of the nature and origin of Alexanders Eastern Campaign;
It was not a Military so much as cultural and political campaign of entering one global alliance;
Alexander offered everyone peace and local autonomy in exchange for a membership in the
worldwide League of Nations, one united world, one global village.
A lot of the tribes and cultures along the way to India were not even conquered, they just accepted
Alexanders terms without conflict.
In the view of this people, Alexander offered a revolutionary partnership, security and prosperity in
exchange for solidarity and membership in the global alliance.
Macedonia as a region has always been ethnically much more diverse than the reminder of the
Balkan Peninsula.
Today, landlocked between four different nation states, it has always been the centre of gravity of
the region and a cross road into and from central Europe.
The region has been a homeland of Albanians, Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks from the neighbouring
countries since time immemorial.
It has been home to established minor communities of Sephardic Jews and a very small but a
thriving community of ethnic Romanians popularly known as Vlachs, only to mention the most
prominent ethnicities, but not to forget the Turks as well as the minor village sized communities of
people divided along religious lines into small local sects such as the Bektashi, a small Turk Shia
offshoot gathered around the village of Kanatlarci in the Vardar district of the region among others
This is why an ethnic Macedonian has never existed, and all those who made an effort to invent a
separate national identity along clearly defined ethnic lines have failed to do so in vain.
That is in no way to say that Macedonians do not exist, however all of them, every single one, each
individual person could easily trace his roots to one of the ethnicities previously mentioned.
One of the biggest cultural assets as well as what makes the region more diverse and rich is indeed
the fact that it has always encouraged all the local ethnic communities to mix and coexist living along
each other side by side.
This is why the issue of one ethnic group trying to dominate the region has only produced divide and
separatism that almost always calumniated in a regional war.
For this reason the most prominent intellectuals and local academics from the region have always
emphasised the issue of ethnicity as the Macedonias Pandoras Box.
Whenever the major powers tried to intervene in the region for personal reasons out of pretention
for global domination, they usually relied on the regions Achilles Heel; they tried to encourage an
ethnic dispute.
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Even today, the biggest hurdle for prosperity and peace in the region would be for the ethnic
communities to divide along nationalist lines, deteriorating the relationship into another conflict.
For those who love Macedonia have to cherish its multiethnic, multicultural and multireligious
character, they must promote and encourage peaceful coexistence and desire the mixture of
traditions, and overall integration of all the communities into one big Macedonian family.
Only closer integration and getting to know well one other will help us live together in a peaceful
future.
The most important process to consolidate statehood and establish a credible sovereign and
independent country with all the adequate institutions of state as well as various departments of
state to manage and run the country in the region, has always been the very hard task of uniting all
the various tribes and religious fractions as well as linking tribes from different cultural backgrounds
and uniting them into a military and political alliance.
This is exactly why the most prosperous ages for the region in history have always been times of
consolidation and formation of alliances and unification of all the various fractions and elements.
History remembers all too well Agamemnon as well as Alexander, but also Asparuh the Bulgar Who
managed to establish the first Slav State in history exactly as a consequence of being able to unite all
the various tribes and fractions in a military union to counter the Byzantine treat from the south.
For the region the most important ingredient for prosperity and acquiring statehood has always
been consolidation of power in a military alliance between the culturally diverse tribes and
communities.
Back in Antiquity when the first Macedonian state was established under Phillip the II, the first thing
that he did was to merge and unite all the neighbouring tribes, creating a powerful coalition of tribes
thru mixed marriages as well as encouraging active social integration.
It was from this point of strength that Phillip embarked on a campaign further into Greek territory
towards the south.