VISA card offer upsets Greeks
A VISA affinity card promoted by a group called United Macedonian Diaspora Fund (UMD) is deeply offending ethnic Greeks because the card uses the Star of Vergina, a Hellenic symbol from the ancient Greece.
“The United Macedonian Diaspora UMD a Washington DC-based lobby [is] promoting false historical revisionism,” says a statement of the Cyprus Action Network of America or CANA.
United Macedonian Diaspora UMD promoter, Denis Manevski, has failed to respond to our inquiries. Mr. Manevski declined to answer us after he replied twice to serbianna.com inquiries with questions of his own.
“Star of Vergina symbol that is copyrighted exclusively in all its forms by the Hellenic Republic, in violation of Article 6ter of the Paris Convention for the Protection of State Emblems, and Names, Abbreviations and Emblems of International Intergovernmental Organizations under the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization),” says CANA.
A Star of Vergina as promoted by the United Macedonian Diaspora Fund was originally used on the flag of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia but it was subsequently modified because it is a Greek symbol.
Nikolaos Taneris, of the Cyprus Action Network of America, says that the star used on FYROM flag is the “1995 diplomatic compromise with the Greek state which holds the trademark to the Star of Vergina”.
In 1945, communists, led by Croatian Tito and in cooperation with the Bulgarian-born adviser to Stalin, Georgi Dimitrov, decided to form a unique so-called “macedonian” church and a corresponding “macedonian” nationality out of the Byzantine recognized Serbian church parishes in today’s Macedonia, only in order to use that creation as a pretext to attack Greece and conquer parts of it.
Dimitrov advised Stalin and had influence on the international communist policy making body called Cominform. Cominform said that the Serbs are chauvinists and that Kosovo should eventually be given to Albania. Bulgaria and Macedonia have both recently recognized Kosovo as an independent state.
No Ecumenical Church has recognized the self-proclaimed “macedonian” church.
Bishop from Ohrid, Jovan, has been imprisoned by the Skopje authorities several times because he has suggested that the renegade “macedonian” church should unite back with its holy apostolic sea.
Bulgaria has recently marked it’s independence in Macedonia’s capital of Skopje while the opposition party in Bulgaria has demanded more land from Serbia and Greece.
Many in today’s Macedonia, despite that they are Slavs, believe that they are descendants of the Hellenic leader Alexander the Great to whom the Star of Vergina is attributed to.
Greece is worried that such beliefs are deliberately fostered by the government in Skopje in order to seek Greek territory and has vowed to block Skopje’s entry into NATO and other EU institutions unless it compromises on the matter.
“Using the United Macedonian Diaspora Affinity Credit Card for everyday purchases is an easy way for supporters to help further the Macedonian cause,” said Denis Manevski, UMD Treasurer, on the web site.
With offices boasting to be in Washington DC, Brussels, Canberra, London, Melbourne, New York, Paris, Stuttgart, Sydney, and Toronto, one of the United Macedonian Diaspora Fund missions is to “Defend the Macedonian ethnic identity”.
One can support VISA Macedonia card at:
http://umdiaspora.org/content/view/373/1/
The Cyprus Action Network of America urges to “Ask VISA President Mr. William M. Sheedy to call on the CardPartner Visa affinity credit card program” so it can be canceled at:
https://corporate.visa.com/ut/contactus.jsp
December 10, 2008
SERBIANNA
OI
A Greek and a Roman were walking down the street together. The Greek keeps on blabbing about how they invented everything. We invented the wheel, the cheese, the yogurt, the baklava and we even invented SEX..
The roman replies” True you invented sex but we introduced it to women”
And that, une, offers nothing to the discussion.
no but a great joke..
Une.., you can kill your time- just reading, better! There’s million jokes about great- whatever.. (http://www.jokes.com)
Greeks should boycott Visa to hit hard- right now. There’s nothing funny in imperial “joke” with somebodies national symbols or history in the name of miserable interests! There’s 5 (five) higher profile Visa customers in Greece worth more than whole Visa profit can be made in FYROM or it’s citizens abroad in next 50 years, at least! Second, this is somebodies big problem right now. This property belongs to agreement details between Bank/Visa and Card owner and it’s not legal at all, in no one country. Greek government should intervene, also.
Answer to George: They can translate “Old” Bulgarian only!
ZHTW H ELLADA!! GAMISTE THN VISA, GAMISTE TA KOLOPEDA!! GAMISTE TOYS IMPERIALISTES! PARTE TOUS LEUTA!
My congratulation for Sarplaninac- comment!! However written it’s the fair replica of reality itself, bravo!
Denko Maleski, politician of the FYROM:
“The creation of the ‘Macedonian nation’, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the ‘Macedonian historiography’, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the ‘Macedonian identity’ was created….”
(Utrinski Vesnik, FYROMian newspaper, October 16, 2006)
Ljubica Acevska, diplomat of the FYROM:
“We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great… Greece is Macedonias second largest trading partner, and its number one investor. Instead of opting for war, we have chosen the mediation of the United Nations, with talks on the ambassadorial level under Mr. Vance and Mr. Nemitz [...] We are Slavs and we speak a Slav language.”
(On 22 January 1999, in a speech on the present situation
Kiro Gligorov, first president of the FYROM:
“We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century … we are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians.”
(Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992, p. 35)
“We are Slav Macedonians. That’s who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia. Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century AD.”
FYROMs are delusional. Everyone knows that their language is a mixture of Slavic languages. A bit of this and a bit of that language.
One thing is for sure, they have no resemblance to ancient Macedonian at all.
How come? If they are truly Macedonian shouldn’t their language reflect that?
Serbs and Bulgarians can understand them very well so doesn’t this tell them where their past lies?
Looks like they have similarities to Albanians on this issue. Albanians want to claim to be something they are not as well. No wonder they get along so great.
#
Geek men have small toys!
By Makedonsko Devojce on Dec 13, 2008
And you know this HOW? Are you a Macedonian w…e? How many Greeks have you examined closely?
How long will the Salvs of FYROM believe in a lie? At some point, there will be a national awakening in FYROM, and I am quite confident, that there history will start at about 600 to 700 AD – not 300 B.C. Pretty basic stuff unless your blinded with extreme nationalism and low self esteem.
alvis please do not blame me for wrone speling i was edukatet in GREECE
From my research on Wikipedia (not the undeniable voice of God, I know), it sounds like Macedonia (as defined today) has been receiving a large “diaspora” of Slavic peoples for some time now (6th century A.D.). It seems Greece could not defend it during the Cold War from foreign influence or inhabitation and so it has become a Greco-Slavic territory.
The name “Macedonia” belongs to Greece, since Alexander and Phillip unified the Greek Empire in the 300s B.C. They, being Greeks, speaking the languange, and formally accepted by the Greek city-states of the time, can therefore be claimed by the current Greek peoples. Unfortunately, they didn’t write a constitution or magna carta or whatever to make it official and clearly define national boundaries.
Since the northern region is now predominantly inhabited by Slavs, genetically, culturally, religiously, what-have-you-ly, let them call it by its Slavic name: Vardarska. In a sign of good faith, however, the southern Greek-inhabited region should be ceded to Greece with the name Macedonia to honor its people and history as Greek.
This won’t happen though, so the current combination name of Macedonska seems to be the only inevitable course of compromise. That way, both cultures can claim a stake in its name, and none get marginalized… that is unless the Skopjean government continues to brainwash Slavic children with revisionist history. I’m just glad both sides are predominantly the same religion and this hasn’t turned into a one of those kind of conflicts.
And for the record, I’m 25% Greek (Pelopponesian), 37.5% Irish, 37.5% German, and 100% all American.
We Slavs are strong. We aim to CRUSH Greece and take all the women back to the north with us. We will destroy your temples and markets with our strong fists and minds. MattyG will be sacrificed to the pagan gods of the Slavic faith! His blood shall run into the streets and into the sea! We shall sail though a sea of Greek blood until victory! We shall overcome!
And for the record, I’m 25% Scottish, 25% English, 25% German, 25% Dutch, and 100% Slavic dog!