“…doing the same thing over and over
and expecting different results.”

The definition of insanity according
to Albert Einstein.

In the previous column (“Anticipation”), which caused many reactions, positive and negative, I tried, in one part, to predict the effects of the idle talk of some of my political party members. My verbiage today is not intended to be a “Guide to use” for my column, but rather to demystify the reasons for the unreasonable and irrational statements that directly harm the political party and the Macedonian national interests. The idle talk is one of the seven deadly sins – What is that urge that makes the MPs of VMRO-DPMNE rush into committing a sin!?
The history of mankind is filled with bloody wars and as a result of wars and bloody conflicts, there are countless innocent victims. The reasons for this human self-destruction, atrocities, are the subject of research by scientists from various fields. Mostly the subject of these researches is “casus belli” (cause of war) through the prism of conquest of foreign territories, seizure of productive resources, civilizational differences. But none of these reasons fully illuminates man’s animalistic urge to devise a way to destroy his “neighbor.” That is how the gruesome genocide that was carried out in the concentration camps, or rather the death camps, remained unresolved, unexplained.
The Nuremberg trials were intended to convict the criminals and expose the “casus belli” as a historical lesson for future generations or, as I called it in the last column, historical “case law.” What directed researchers to turn their eyes to the “dark side of the moon” was the statement of the commander of the death camp in Treblinka, where more than 750 thousand Jews, Roma and other victims of the Holocaust were killed. He did not feel guilty because he diligently fulfilled the duties he received. Later these “arguments”, for his innocence, were repeated by Adolf Eichmann at the trial in Israel. It was these statements that “made” the researchers to look for the reasons for the self-destruction of humanity in the human psyche.
Obedience is the sin that is the cause of all the horrors that man commits against his kind. Blind obedience to the authority above oneself, to the leader, makes a person act illogically, unwisely in “benefit of his own damage”. Before continuing to elaborate on the “phenomenology of obedience” I must emphasize the clear distinction from obedience in monastic asceticism, which is something completely different.
Obedience to the leader, by the managers and guards in the concentration camps, led to countless millions of victims (about 7 million) of innocent people, women and children, whose only sin was that they were not a part, according to the “Lord of the war” leader- Führer Hitler, from the “god-anointed Aryan race”. In love with his leader, Goebbels proved his obedience by committing suicide, but before that he killed his six children and his wife. In the middle of the last century, the henchmen of a drug addict, a self-styled messiah, committed collective suicide. Following the messiah leader, 906 women, children and men committed suicide by consuming juice laced with cyanide. World history “owns” many more examples of obedience as the greatest evil of man, but let us return to our followers and the damage of their blind following of the leader. Namely, the national disaster, caused by obstructing the Euro integration processes, which, for very certain, will be experienced by the Macedonian nation, is the product of the henchmen, MPs from “my” VMRO-DPMNE. Perhaps one day we will hear, from the VMRO-DPMNE henchmen in the parliament, that they only diligently performed the tasks given to them by their leader, Führer and messiah!
The reasons for obedience can be very different from the preservation of conformity, fear of punishment and repression to unreasonable infatuation with the leader and his wisdom. The common denominator is living with “Eyes wide shut”, that is, avoiding seeing that “the king is naked”, schizophrenic and insane. What is striking about “our” henchmen is that they are “henchmen of the henchman” who pursues interests contrary to his own and to the interests of his henchmen. The fear of the henchmen seeing the moral misery of the leader and his obedience to centers that do not serve Macedonia well, make the self-inaugurated leader and messiah H.M. take repressive measures to preserve obedience. Namely, the possibility that at a given moment the MPs of VMRO-DPMNE will start to think sanely and obey their conscience and reason, is not excluded. For these reasons, the “absolute authority and infallible leader”, in order to preserve the vow of obedience to his mentors, takes terrible measures of coercion, threats and sanctions against the henchmen so that they do not accidentally oppose the “infallible wise thoughts” of the leader. Because of this are those notarized certificates of obedience to the leader, in the background are annexes that lose certain properties of the henchmen, if they do not meet the requirements of H.M. But precisely those daily public statements about the monolithic nature of the obedient, their vow of obedience, which they repeat and reaffirm every day, are a dissonance that “pears the ears of the public”. The question inevitably arises – Is it the leader who is not sure of his authority or is he suspicious of his followers? Obviously, the leader is not sure of his authority over the henchmen, so he tries to stigmatize their disobedient behavior in advance. The hope that certain henchmen will not fulfill the “vow to the leader”, that is, following their own mind and heart, will show disobedience is our hope that the Macedonian people will not rush into insane collective suicide. Reversing the process for constitutional reforms and thus preventing the start of accession negotiations with the EU is suicide of the Macedonian people, the Macedonian nation and state. However, knowing them personally and communicating regularly with certain “our” members of parliament, I recognize in many of them common sense, love and concern not to cause harm to their own people. I expect these dear friends and fellow political party members to cross their docile “moral Rubicon” and stand on the right side of history, leaving the “greatest henchman among henchmen” to wallow alone in the excrement of his moral cacophony, the fruit of the “covenant” given to his Masters.
What “Grande henchman” Mickoski does to his followers and their obedience to him reminds me very much of the absurdity with which Emir Kusturica laughs in the face of henchmen in the movie “Underground”. For the purposes of this column, I would use the second title under which this film is known, “Once upon a time there was a country”, which corresponds to what Hristijan Mickoski is currently doing to Macedonia with his narrative. Namely, exactly like the hostages from the basement of Kusturica, who could not get any information that the war is over, is the narrative used by Mickoski towards his henchmen from his closest environment, but he tries to impose it on the rest of the membership and the public. Mickoski’s anachronistic statements are based somewhere in the middle of the 19th century, a period diametrically different from the beginning of the 21st century, during the national revival of the Macedonian people. To remind Mickoski and his henchmen, the Macedonian people today, with their culture, language, education, Macedonian institutions, theaters, film, music, universities, literature, MANU, Autocephality of the MOC and almost 80 years of statehood have completed the process of their formation. It remains to be included in the great world civilizational processes. But the henchman Mickoski is only interested in how to fulfill the promises made to his mentors, who filled his bank accounts well. So he holds Macedonia, with his henchmen, hostage just like those unfortunates of Emir Kusturica from “Once upon a time there was a country” (Underground). Mickoski is the biggest confirmation of Cibra’s prophetic words from Goran Stefanovski’s “Tattooed Souls” – “The future will never come, the past will never go, and we are acting the present here.” The only culprit for this “limbo” state of the Macedonian citizen is the pathological liar, the henchman Mickoski and his 40 or so henchmen!
Finally, another historical “judicial practice”, about the place of henchmen in Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno”. For those who have forgotten it, I would recommend re-reading this work, perhaps they will find enough associations for our current troubles and misfortunes.
In the vestibule of “Inferno”, Dante encounters a large group of people, much larger than those who pass through Hell, Heaven and Purgatory. Astonished, he asks his teacher, leader and master Vergillius who those people are, what evil they have done when they are not allowed to enter either hell or heaven or purgatory. Vergillius replies that they are the most troublesome, it was the indecisive, the henchmen, the greatest evil of mankind. For the henchmen, it was forbidden to enter hell, because with their obedience they would cause those in hell to find justification for their sins. Obedience is perhaps the eighth deadly sin without which part of the seven deadly sins could not have been committed!

Oliver Andonov