Through these popular pearls, the rulers have created the right environment for their philosophy of action that “if you don’t steal, they call you incompetent” and if you get caught with leeks in your hands “it’s not the end of the world, everyone does it”. . This perfidious normalization makes us all complicit because not only have we elevated thieves to the pedestal of society, leaving our fate and that of our children in their hands, but we have also often turned them into models of success, symbols of social achievement and examples that must be followed. And now, it’s normal that they don’t even blink or blush when they tell us with their mouths full that “the government’s priority is the fight against corruption” because their irony is the result of stuffed peppers, honey, standards and expectations our for those who serve us
Author: Sefer Selimi Jr.
Politics in developing or fragile democracies often works more as perception than as concrete action, coordinated and with strategies based on well-thought-out policies and with clear indicators for measuring success in real life for citizens. Thus, the politicians of these states, including North Macedonia, base their political action mainly on political rhetoric and party demagoguery, camouflaged to serve the expectation trend of citizens and international partners, with the aim of influence and create the perception that things are moving towards that expectation.
For how many years now in North Macedonia, among many problems, systemic and systematic failures in the state apparatus for the provision of public services, with a lot of turbulence in the strategic determination of the geo-political orientation and with a lot of social-economic challenges, the main culprit is where all these come from. corruption has been determined, distributed at all levels of government and almost in every pore of society. A part of this corruption has become the modus operandi and almost no one sees it as something illegal or criminal anymore, or even perceives it as such. In conversations, I often encounter it as the highest point of desperation summed up in the phrase: “let them steal but at least let them work”, and in the ongoing debate with the users of this phrase, I always remember a joke “I I tell him that your wife cheats on you, he tells me: yes, but you don’t know how good dolmas (stuffed peppers) make him.
This mentality has been invested for years by all governments, and part of the belief has been inherited from the previous system and has been perfected by the current one, not only by politicians and government officials, but also by the citizens themselves. Here too, “popular proverbs” pave the way for the normalization of thieves and theft through the expression “being close to honey and not sucking your fingers is stupid”, turning into automasochists who forget that honey comes from their hive. And so, between generations, the public service works with the mantra “Take what you can take”, and it doesn’t matter if you are capable of the position to be trusted, you don’t need adequate qualification nor experience, but the bigger the budget, the better. better position.
Of course, through these popular pearls, the rulers have created the right environment for their philosophy of action that “if you don’t steal, they call you incompetent” and if you get caught with leeks in your hands, “it’s not the end of the world, everyone does it.” ”. This perfidious normalization makes us all complicit because not only have we elevated thieves to the pedestal of society, leaving our fate and that of our children in their hands, but we have also often turned them into models of success, symbols of social achievement and examples that must be followed. And now, it’s normal that they don’t even blink or blush when they tell us with their mouths full that “the government’s priority is the fight against corruption” because their irony is the result of stuffed peppers, honey, standards and expectations our for those who serve us.
In North Macedonia, as in other surrounding countries, the authorities will continue to “fight corruption” for a long time, giving meaning to the story when the thief was the first and loudest of all to call “catch the thief” as long as time that we, as citizens, will keep to our heart and will inherit the “folk proverbs” that pass the modern kachaks.