Last Prayer of My Body
Your wind is black and white is the night,
and every vein is swollen and ripe.
In this avenue of bodies, stand straight as a sword
before you collapse, blinded by white.
But the dance even then will continue as ever,
with the same mystery, with the same innocence.
And when those grasses cover you in darkness,
the blaze of your thirst will burn them away.
Aco Šopov, Not-Being, 1963 (Translated by Rawley Grau and Christina E. Kramer, The Long Coming of the Fire, Deep Vellum, 2023)
I decided to keep silent. Not to “piffle.” Not to ruffle feathers. To close myself at home, to lock the door, to turn off the lights and not to talk to anyone. To prevent myself from saying something wrong, otherwise they might drag me by the ears from my home.
I decided not to disturb the public with our reporting. To refrain from transmitting emotions. To not make noise. To not make photographs. To not record videos. To avoid “emotionally charged narratives.” To transmit only the official announcements by the authorities. Because the government knows best what ethical journalism is.
I also decided not to ask questions. Why ask questions, why show interest. All the questions have been answered. No need to think. There’s someone assigned to do the thinking for us.
I also decided to not read too much news, to prevent harming my mental health. Especially by some so called media outlets which are not media outlets, and by journalists which are not journalists. No need to stop watching TV now, because I’ve done that a long time ago.
I decided not to call for citizen gatherings against the system, because the system already declared that it fights against the system. The corrupt system. Successfully. If someone else calls for a rally, I should not go. In order to avoid to create crowding, as the police is more needed elsewhere.
I decided to bury in deep silence that “thing unspoken that I carry,” a thing that weighs on me and pains me, and wait for “the silence itself will say it.” I await resignations in silence.
Subtle pressure for all-encompassing self censorship
The use of irony in this text is not a sign of disrespect of the families of the victims and injured in the tragedy in the improvised discotheque Club Pulse in Kočani. On the contrary, the goal is to point out to uninhibited attempts for censorship by the government against the independent and critical media, at the attempts to take control of the narrative and to divert public attention.
Since March 17, 2025 Macedonian authorities showed their true authoritarian and censorious face. Especially on the day of the funeral. The government, the regulatory bodies, the associations bombarded the media with announcements trying to prevent publishing anything that might be disliked by the political parties in power. Under the guise of defending professional conduct, hidden among well known standards, that are followed by any professional media anyway, the government educated the journalists what they should and what they shouldn’t photograph, what kind of video recordings they should or shouldn’t make, what kind of headlines to put, whether to have emotions or just copy their stark announcements and speeches. Under the guise of countering disinformation, an obstacle to information was erected. In effect we got the result akin to those used by authoritarian regimes attempting to suppress freedom of speech.
This led to situation of extremely high level of self-censorship among the Macedonian media. You would be hard pressed to find reporting on the lives of the victims, about their families, relatives, no stories of the common people, about the loss, about the successes, about the hopes and potentials, about their influence on their communities in most Macedonian media. You will not see the sorrow or hear the wailing. Because, you know, that would be too emotional.
Journalism has rules on how to interview families of victims of huge tragedies and the experienced journalists know these rules. They treat them with dignity and respect, with sensitivity and knowledge what kind of questions are appropriate, and also when to back down. Professional photojournalists also have their own special approach, which is also unobtrusive and respectful. However, the fact remains that it is extremely important to document such tragedies, to create public record that would remain in media archives, to leave a trace written in the collective memory.
Unconcealed attempt to control the students
A Meta.mk journalist suffered a brutal attack on social media spreading vicious defamatory accusation that he is organizer of student gatherings. His photograph was posted in tens of Facebook and Twitter posts alongside calls for his arrest or physical assault on him. The case was reported to authorities, which have not reacted in any way [so far].
The assault campaign took place because of publishing of social media recording of the government Minister of Education and Science Vesna Janevska and her speech in front of the students on the campus of University Sts. Cyril and Methodius (UKIM), when they booed her. Several thousands of university students and high school pupils gathered to pay respect to the victims of Kočani tragedy on March 17. However, instead of student gathering, the event turned into a badly managed PR event which spun out of control.
Only one TV station and just several online media outlets published the news that the students booed the minister. Meanwhile, the reactions on social media were a different story. The video clip was published on social media and soon become viral. That evening a network of political party trolls (called “bots” in the Balkans) activated and started a witch-hunt via anonymous profiles and groups.
Four days later, when the minister finally appeared in public again, not one journalist, not one media outlet asked her how come she appeared at the podium together with the Rector to hold speeches at a student gathering, instead of the students. Nobody asked her if she would submit her resignation due to disrespect shown to the students at the moment of their grief for their deceased colleagues, for the tens of young people who lost their lives and the hundreds of injured who still struggle to survive in the foreign hospitals.
In her speech, the minister said many things, and also recited the lyrics from the poem “In Silence” by Aco Šopov. Yes, it is true that silence can sometimes can be louder than words in pointing the truth. But when the government is calling upon the students to keep silent, one can suspect that this is about singing a completely different kind of song.
The ministers’ speechwriter could have chosen some other poem by Šopov, something more appropriate for a student gathering about the biggest tragedy that has struck the youth of this country. “The last prayer for my body” from the poetry collection Not-Being from 1963 would have sounded more realistic on the UKIM plateau that day. But not with the voice of the minister, but with the voices of the students.
Goran Rizaov
