Original title: Zeynula to the Macedonians: You will kill each other, the Albanians will take over your country
On June 23, the portal expres.mk published an article entitled Zeynula to the Macedonians: You will kill each other, the Albanians will take over your country.
The content of the article states that “a certain Rean Zeynula had the most impressive comment yesterday during the TV duel between Radmila Seqerinska and Aleksandar Nikolovski on “Samo Vistina” on Kanal 5. At the fierce clash between the two guests, Zeynula commented that they, i.e. the Macedonians will kill each other and the country will be taken by the Albanians.”
You can find the link to the original article here.
It is a comment of a viewer of the TV duel, a certain Rean Zeynula. Namely, if we omit the spelling mistakes that are made, his comment reads: “you will kill each other, the Albanians will take over your country”. The Facebook comment is visible on the TV screens duringof the entire show. So, the portal used it to create a headline with an alleged message from Zeynula to the Macedonians: You will kill ach other, the Albanians will take your country.
The viewer’s comment is nothing less than hate speech, which is actually a kind of expression designed to promote hatred, in this case, of ethnicity and national origin.
Although the person/viewer who wrote the comment is unknown to the public, it is by no means justified or permissible to spread hate speech. His comment is gaining additional “strength” and significance as the portal has highlighted it as a headline in the text, and the fact that it is emerging before the start of the political campaign for the 2020 early parliamentary elections gives it additional significance.
Although at the end of the text the author writes that this is a harsh remark directed against both Macedonians and Albanians that caused reactions on social networks, so far there has been no reaction to this event, or similar comments that increase tensions, especially before the elections. However, his presenting of the news with such a sensational title is by no means justified.
Therefore, we can conclude that his intention is the same as that of the unknown viewer – by playing with national feelings, to create a feeling of anxiety and to create discord among citizens. The presentation of this comment to the general public further expands and encourages hate speech and increases tensions in this pre-election period.
The only conclusion is that this is one of the examples of how to encourage ethnic intolerance and inflame ethnic passions, which aims at undermining the common coexistence between Macedonians and Albanians.
