Memorandum

 

To the present and future Central committee of MPO in USA and Canada

 

Over the last 10 years the Macedonian Patriotic Organization has fractured itself into tow branches a Canadian Branch and an American Branch. In addition membership in the organization and participation in the events have steadily been decreasing over the years. While the original organization was made up of immigrants from the Macedonian region of the Balkans, the organization has over the years stagnated and participation been made up mostly of the offspring of the first immigrants. Over each passing year the participation in the organization has been getting smaller and smaller as the youth lose their roots and loose interest in the MPO.

          In order to reverse this trend we, the members of the Canadian Chapter of the MPO (Luben Dimitrov) suggest a dramatic change in policy for the future of the MPO. We suggest that the MPO make real efforts to enlist the participation of new immigrants in the organization to help preserve and keep its Balkan roots alive. At present there are only 1,200,000 Macedono-Bulgarians in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Yet these individuals are both linguistically and culturally similar to their 8,000,000 brothers and sisters in the neighboring country of Bulgaria. All effort should be made to recruit these individuals into the organization in order to preserve its cultural identity and to promote growth in the organization. In order to do this we recommend the following changes in the organization: no fees for the first five years for new immigrants, guaranteed representation in the organizations central committee for the new immigrants and lastly that the organization change its name to a more open and sympathetic form to attract new members such as the Macedono-Bulgarian Patriotic Organization.

This would also create a unified pool of individuals familiar with the region with which the problems in the present FYROM could be discussed. At present over a quarter of Bulgarians are from or have roots from Macedonia. In order prevent another Macedono-Bulgarian Exodus to Bulgaria from the continual civil war in the FYROM both the European community and the United States need to have an organization to turn to which reflects the knowledge and concerns of the both the old generations and new immigrants, of both Bulgarian and Macedono-Bulgarian descent.

 

Yours truly:

 George Mladenoff

President of MPO Luben Dimitroff

27/08/2005

Toronto.