The illusion of progress

Last Thursday, I had the honor of being awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite by the French Republic. I received this recognition for my contribution to media pluralism, the fight against disinformation, and my commitment to responsible digital transformation. At the moment when the medal was placed on my chest, I thought about everything we have achieved together with my colleagues. I reflected on our successes. But once the ceremony ended, the emotions settled, and I returned to work, reading the day’s news. And suddenly I found myself asking: how much has North Macedonia really changed over the past thirty years?

It seems that, at times, we have learned to confuse simply moving forward with true progress. Access to the internet, new platforms and applications, various digital tools, artificial intelligence, and the smartphones we use every day are often presented as proof that we are advancing. Yet everyday experience tells a different story. Our so-called digital transformation still appears incomplete, fragile, and often deeply disappointing. Basic e-services remain slow, fragmented, and unnecessarily difficult to use. In technology, progress is not defined solely by the speed of development and innovation, but by whether these inventions are applied in a meaningful way, so that they truly improve people’s everyday lives.

When the rest of the world is moving at an exceptional pace, standing still and calling it gradual progress is not enough. In such a world, moving very slowly can mean falling behind. But the problem goes beyond technology. What concerns me even more is the state of our social fabric. Social cohesion in North Macedonia appears increasingly fragile. Hate speech is no longer a marginal, occasional phenomenon or something hidden at the edges of public discourse. It has become almost normalized, woven into everyday communication, especially online. Hate speech and other social and interethnic tensions not only remain present, but are often further amplified by disinformation, which fuels fear, prejudice, and division. At the same time, we are witnessing the slow and steady erosion of the spirit of the Ohrid Framework Agreement. The principles that were meant to ensure stability, coexistence, and dignity in a multiethnic democracy are too often treated as negotiable, as uncomfortable to address, or simply as secondary concerns.

Perhaps what hurts the most is the fact that our political discourse remains trapped in the same old patterns. We still hear versions of the same tiresome narrative: “Albanians demand, Macedonians refuse.” This is not democratic dialogue. It is a political deadlock. This approach reduces rights to mere transactions, equality to bargaining, and citizenship to a contest with no meaningful outcome. Too often, instead of responding to legitimate democratic demands, political actors hide behind legalistic maneuvers, seeking procedural justifications for inaction. There is a certain kind of creativity in this avoidance, but it is not the creativity of democratic leadership. It is the creativity of evading responsibility.

That is why the current situation weighs so heavily on me. Today, on 6 April 2026, students will once again take to the streets. They are demanding that the judicial exam be available in the Albanian language, something that is not outside the law, not contrary to the Constitution, nor some radical invention. They are asking for a right that already has a legal and constitutional basis. And yet, once again, the response from the institutions does not appear to be about making that right a reality, but rather about postponing, limiting, or denying it through bureaucratic loopholes.

For anyone who remembers, this is deeply troubling. It echoes moments we should never have to relive. It recalls the brutal police intervention against the University of Tetovo in 1994. It recalls the student protests in Pristina in 1997, when young people, expelled from the university by the then-repressive regime in Serbia, demanded to return. It also recalls the 1997 protests by Macedonian students against Albanian-language instruction at the Pedagogical Academy. Fortunately, today we are not living under the dark circumstances of that time. But it remains alarming that we are still confronted with the same mindset that once produced those conflicts. And for a society that claims to have progressed, the fact that these issues continue to resurface, even in a form far less dangerous than in the 1990s, should be seen as a sign of regression, not as an insignificant deviation. It is now 2026. The very fact that students still have to protest for rights already embedded in our legal order should concern us all. It should make us understand that democracy does not become real simply because we declare it, believe in it, celebrate it, or write it into law.

There is another worrying tendency that should be clearly highlighted. Some try to devalue democratic demands by arguing that this is an old problem, that it was not resolved by previous governments, or that it has existed for too long to be considered urgent today. This logic reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how states evolve. Institutions carry unresolved tensions for years. Systems accumulate pressure. What may once have seemed like a distant or difficult aspiration can, over time, become an undeniable structural necessity, as laws mature, institutions develop, and public demands and expectations grow. A society does not stand still, even when politics tries to freeze it in place.

In that sense, the fact that this issue was not resolved ten years ago does not make it outdated. It makes it overdue. The Law on the Use of Languages, along with the broader constitutional and legal framework, has already changed the terrain. And society has changed as well. Today’s students are not asking history for a favour. They are affirming a legal and democratic reality whose time has fully come. Political progress often works precisely in this way. For a long time it may appear invisible, even frozen, and then suddenly a turning point is reached, and what once seemed optional becomes a matter of legitimacy. No one would oppose the use of a new medicine simply because the illness is old and has gone untreated for a long time. In the same way, today’s democratic demand should not be discredited simply because the system has taken too long to become ready to meet it.

That is why I support the students who will protest today. I support them not only because of the specific issue they are raising, but because they represent something larger and profoundly important. They represent a generation that still believes it has the right to demand accountability, justice, and equal treatment. They remind us that democracy does not depend solely on institutions, but also on citizens who are willing to speak up when silence would be easier.

Democracy cannot function if it is treated as a purely legalistic exercise. It cannot work if those in power see the implementation of laws as an obstacle course to be bypassed rather than an obligation to be fulfilled. It only works when leaders are willing to listen, to understand, and to serve. It works when the majority does not seek to dominate the minority. It works when the rights of one community are not treated as a loss for another. It works when disagreement is met with dialogue rather than suspicion, and when young people who raise their voices are not immediately dismissed, labelled, or portrayed as instruments of someone else’s agenda.

The spiral of silence is one of the greatest dangers any society can face. The moment people begin to feel that speaking out is pointless, dangerous, or isolating, the space for democracy starts to shrink. My colleagues and I at Metamorphosis have spent decades trying to push back against this spiral of silence. It is not easy work. It is often exhausting. But it is necessary, and we will not give up. 

Receiving this order from France was an exceptional honor for me. But awards also deepen a sense of responsibility. They make you reflect not only on what has been achieved, but also on what still lies ahead. And when I look at the country I live in, I cannot afford the comfort of illusion. Progress must be real in the lives of citizens. It must be felt in institutions, in rights, in dignity, and in the everyday experience of justice. Otherwise, it remains nothing more than an illusion, and is not progress at all.