How important can the history of a country be for its citizens?
Well in Greece there is no limits to how important it is to protect the historical heritage.
Two weeks ago around 600.000 people gathered in Thessaloniki in Northern Greece to protest against the fact that neighbouring country F.Y.R.O.M. north of Greece uses the name Macedonia.
The Greeks believe that their neighbors are trying to steal a part of their national heritage in order to create a national identity. Furthermore they do believe that it is wrong that they neighbors calls themselves Macedonians since they arrived to the region around 800 years after Alexander the Great reigned the region.
For the story there is a statue of Alexander the Great both in Thessaloniki and in Skopije(the capital of F.Y.R.O.M.), since both countries claims that he belongs to their history.
The reason why the name conflict is experiencing a new tension is that F.Y.R.O.M. is in talks for a membership in NATO and in E.U. which is something that Greece is blocking only because of the name.
On the other side of the border, there is also a big part of the population that prefers to stay out of NATO and E.U. and instead keeping Macedonia as the name of their country.
Two weeks after the first demonstration around 2 million people participated today(4th of February) in the demonstration in Athens. As the first demonstration in Thessaloniki the Athenian demonstration has as target to demand that the name Macedonia is Greek and only can be used for the region Macedonia of Greece and not for the country that calls itself by the very same name.
What is your opinion about these two demonstrations? Can you understand the determination of the Greeks in protecting their historical heritage?