BDI accuses the government: Albanians and the state’s strategic achievements were overlooked in the independence anniversary video

BDI reacted today to the video published by the government to mark the 35th anniversary of the country’s independence, saying that instead of reflecting the shared journey and representing all citizens, it presented only a Macedonian version.

According to the party, the material was produced solely in the Macedonian language, while the artists involved were also Macedonian. BDI stressed that Albanians are almost entirely absent from the narrative constructed by the government about the country’s 35 years.

The reaction points out that one of the central figures in the video is Igor Durlovski, whose name is directly linked to the events of April 27, 2017, when a crowd forcibly entered parliament following the election of the first Albanian speaker of parliament.

BDI described the selection of the historical episodes that the government chose not to include as even more alarming.

The video makes no mention of the Ohrid Agreement, the document that ended the 2001 conflict and laid the foundations for the country’s multiethnic character.

It also omits NATO membership, considered one of the country’s most important strategic achievements.

The First Intergovernmental Conference with the European Union was also left out of the material.

According to BDI, precisely those historic moments that transformed the country from an ethnic project into a common state, positioned it in NATO and opened the way toward the European Union were excluded.

The party described the video as the most faithful reflection of this government, which it called a government of exclusion.

The reaction says that Albanians may appear on the list of ministers, but they are not part of the state narrative. According to BDI, they are treated as decorative names and numbers, rather than as a real presence, an influence or a factor in decision-making.

“After two years of systematically dismantling the mechanisms of the Ohrid Agreement, an attempt is now being made to dismantle the memory of it as well. The 35th anniversary of independence should have been a moment to show what kind of state we have built together and where we want to take it,” BDI said.

“The government chose to show something else: its vision of a state in which Albanians are invisible,” BDI declared./Telegrafi/