Blogger: "violence in name of Christianity"

Blogger H. Schenker goes beyond a mere report and asks about the future impact of the event (full text here):

"Many nations base their mythology on battles, lost or won. It will be interesting to see, how 28 March 2009 will be seen in the future of Macedonian national mythology. For me it will be remembered as the day of national defloration. The young nation has lost its virginity, a taboo has been broken. On this sunny Saturday, a group of young urbanites was prevented from expressing two of their fundamental rights: the one to gather in peaceful protest, the other to freely express their opinion. And to make it worse - they were ”prevented” by blank violence, exercised by a bunch of hooded hooligans - in the name of the church, in the name of Christianity ... The manifestation was registered with the relevant authorities ... The “spontaneous” and thus not registered counter-protest featured church flags, printed banners, a priest and a lot of people, who have no connection whatsoever to urban Skopje, but who were bussed in from rural areas to fight the Anti-Christ. [T]hen a group of violent hooligans appeared out of nowhere. They started shouting racist slogans, calling the demonstrators traitors and – worse in their little fascist universe - Albanians. It was very obvious that the bunch of young men, displaying a behaviour denoting the average IQ of a lamp-post was lead by a few elder men. These were clearly directing the event, steering the aggression and channelling it. Interestingly enough, some of them were bold enough to wear orange shirts, the colour of the ruling party ... The heated up hooligans attacked individual participants in the protest, using the only intellectual arguments accessible to them – fists and legs ... All this was happening under the eyes of a stunningly passive police force, which was obviously not able to cope with the events. So they did the obvious – they turned against the protesters. These are now under investigation for not having provided adequate security to their manifestation. No, this is not some sick joke. It is true. As for Skopje, the attempt to silence the urban, individualist, liberal stream of consciousness, as small as it may be, will not pay off in the long run. It has resisted all kinds of totalitarian challenges, and will hopefully continue to do so. And it deserves our support. Unconditionally."