THE POPE FOR THE FIRST TIME, WHILE THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME GUESTS IN NORTH MACEDONIA

F2N2 ANALYSIS

The Pope for the first time, while the conspiracy theories for the umpteenth time guests in North Macedonia

In the wake of the visit of Pope Francis of the Republic of North Macedonia, scheduled for 7 May 2019, various conspiracy theories have been developed on the social media.

In a status by Boban Nonkovikj, the visit of Pope Francis is identified with the end of the Macedonian era and the erasing of the brand Macedonia.The author of this post writes that 7 May (the day when the visit is scheduled) is the 2000th anniversary of the first partition of Macedonia, as a consequence of the defeat in the Macedonian wars.

After more than 2 millennia, it is absolutely false to claim that the essential goal of the Macedonian wars, i.e. the destruction of Macedonia, will be completed in the 21st century with the visit of the Pope.

The post was shared by Milenko Nedelkovski and on his post there are comments with hate and religious intolerance, which are not typical for people that declare themselves as Christians.

Until the moment when our article was published, the post on the two Facebook profiles was shared 339 times in total, which points out that the conspiracy theory reached to not so small number of Facebook users.

The visit has also got another dimension. Namely, on one of the internet portals there was an article whose headline points out that the reason for the visit of the Pope is to “enlighten” us to accept the refugees. In the very article they cite a tweet by Vladimir Panchevski. The title of the article and the comment by Panchevski in his post do not correspond with each other.

The video shared on Twitter was created by the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) and it is a promotion of the visit of the Pope of Bulgaria, informing that he will meet with migrants, religious leaders and others. What is the connection between the meeting of the Pope with the migrants in Bulgaria and the visit of North Macedonia, we do not know. What we do know is that this is a classic example of a conspiracy theory related to the migrants which does not go out of fashion and it is always present in the pre-election period. At the same time, this is also a click-bait whose aim is to draw readers’ attention, without taking proper care to correctly inform the public.

We can conclude that even the visit of the Pope can be used to create conspiracy theories that the world is against North Macedonia.

The historic first visit of a leader of the Roman Catholic Church of our country cannot be interpreted as an end of the Macedonian era, which is supported by the fact that the Pope will be welcomed with highest state honors by the President, the Prime Minister and other representatives of the political leadership.

The team of F2N2 believes that because of the rules, agenda and the special traffic and pedestrian regime that will be in force during the visit, the citizens should be correctly informed. That is why we advise you to visit the official web-page papa.mk.