Letter to The New York Times

Chris Angelkov

Dear Sir,

Despite numerous protests from Macedonians throughout the world, The New York Times and your reporter Carlotta Gall in particular, continue to use the derogatory terms of "Slavs", "Slav Macedonians", "Macedonian Slavs" to describe the Macedonian majority in nearly all of your coverage of the Albanian terrorist insurgency in Macedonia.

Your usage of this term is taken straight from the lexicon of Balkan states (which currently occupy more than two thirds of ethnographic Macedonia and are to this very day oppressing their significant Macedonian minorities) such as Greece and Bulgaria, which deny the very existence of a distinct Macedonian ethnicity with its very own language, culture and history. In the last census held in Macedonia in 1994 almost 70% of the population described themselves as "Macedonian" with no prefixes and suffixes. Not one person described themselves as a "Slav".

Where then does the New York Times get the right to use this derogatory denationalizing term to describe Macedonians? We are either "Macedonians" or "ethnic Macedonians" and no other description is acceptable. Are you not aware that it is a basic human right to self identify and that you are in breach of this basic human right?

If you continue to use these derogatory "Slav" terms can you at least be consistent and use them in all your references to Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Bulgarians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Russians and Ukrainians?

I look forward to a reply to this letter.

Chris Angelkov
Australian Macedonian Forum
509 Charles Street
North Perth
Western Australia 6006

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