Skopje, 2 August 2021 (MIA) – Freedom is the highest ideal and goal of a nation, which starts as an idea of a generation that wants to create its own future, President Stevo Pendarovski said in a video address on Ilinden (August 2). A generation of revolutionaries, he said, on Aug. 2, 1903 started the fight for freedom and amid the era of monarchies declared a democratic republic in which it decided to establish a coexistence of diversity in times of rising nationalism. Pendarovski in his address said that the fight for freedom was resumed by the generation of antifascists in 1944 uniting over the idea of free nation in a free country. “Once gained, freedom has to be fostered through dedication of every new generation,” President Pendarovski said recalling that this year marks the 30^th anniversary of the country’s independence. “Over the past 30 years, we have risen and he have fallen, we’ve had three decades of achievements alongside numerous external and internal temptations that triggered deep crises and division,” he stressed. In these times of uncertainty facing not only us but also the whole world, the President said, we have to once again rise above division inside and unite over the original ideals of Ilinden and ASNOM and we have to restore public trust in the country by strengthening democratic institutions and rule of law. “Freedom is conceived as an idea, secured through fight and maintained by every generation, by each and every one of us,” Pendarovski stressed in his video address.