– Gjon Bruçi –
Excerpt from “Gazeta SOT,” February 12, 2021
For the most suitable figure to confront our current politicians and authorities, I chose Haxhi Qamili, the leader of the Peasant Uprising of Central Albania in 1914.
The biography of this leader included his valour, being a former simple soldier under the Ottoman Empire, and a bravery medal given by the Turkish commander Hasan Riza Pasha, during the defence of Shkodra, where Haxhi Qamili had gone as a volunteer.
The peasant uprising of Central Albania erupted against oppression and exploitation by feudal lords; against the traitors of the caliber of Esat Toptani, who opposed the independence and the newly-declared government by Ismail Qemali in Vlora; against the partitioning of Albania by European chancelleries and the plans to seize our lands by neighboring chauvinists. Of course, a peasant uprising, without political direction and with a semi-literate commander like Haxhi Qamili, could not escape manipulation and use for certain interests. However, despite this, the uprising in question had more of a class character than a religious or regional character, as yesterday’s feudal lords and their modern offspring try to distort. This is evidenced by the fact that the peasant rebels, in their armed attacks, did not touch the property of any ordinary pesant or citizen; on the contrary, they confiscated the properties of feudal lords and distributed them to the poor peasants, and burned down the mansions of the likes of Esat Toptani in Tirana.
A parallel: Centuries ago, England had a Robin Hood, who, like our Haxhi Qamili, seized the riches of the wealthy and distributed them to his peasants. But the English did not ignore Robin Hood; on the contrary, they have their hero. Similarly, the Czech people centuries ago had two figures like “Robin Hood” or “Haxhi Qamil”: Jan Hus and Jan Žižka, who in their time were persecuted by the church and ruling classes, but the new era placed them on the pedestal of the people’s heroes.
With the arguments I presented, known to every high school student, I am fully justified in considering Haxhi Qamili a positive figure, a figure who essentially represents the people of the early 20th century. Histories and folk tales of nations, as we all know, when they want to centre on the people, use “Qeros,” “Nastradin,” “Quasimodo” and even “Chimpanzee,” our distant cousin.
Let us now come to the current situation of our country, which I claim is similar, and even surpasses, the moral, political and socio-economic misery of the years 1913-15 of Haxhi Qamili’s time:
If we were to ascend to a high platform, from where the entire territory of Albania is visible, and focus our minds on everything that has happened in these three decades of the so-called “bourgeois democracy” on this land with a modest area of only 28,000 square kilometers, we would observe immeasurable damages caused to the country in all fields and parameters of life by the current political class, or the modern-day feudal lords of the “Toptani” type and their companions. The “deeds” of the politicians and authorities who have governed and are governing us in these past three decades are tens and hundreds of times darker than the deeds of all the Turkish feudal lords who ruled the four divided Albanian vilayets for four and a half centuries of Ottoman occupation.
Our current feudal lords, just like their predecessors of 1914, accuse and denigrate Haxhi Qamili, alleging that he burned, confiscated and distributed the wealth of the feudal lords and landowners to the poor, who for centuries had been bled dry by the feudal lords and impoverished citizens. On the other hand, in the role of a “modern Haxhi Qamili,” in the three transitional decades of the so-called “democratic” era, they burned, destroyed and plundered the wealth of an entire people, raised with sweat and toil during half a century of socialist rule.
Our modern-day feudal lords, just like their brothers of 1914, accuse and denigrate Haxhi Qamili, a man without any formal education or knowledge of his nation’s history, because he raised the half-moon flag of Turkey and shouted the slogan — “We love Baba” — the only flag and the only king he knew in his life.
Our modern-day feudal lords, with a diploma of ignorance hanging over their heads, who are very familiar with the flag and history of their nation, carry all kinds of flags in their pockets, especially those with the colour of the dollar and euro. And furthermore: While they prattle day and night about Europe and the “West,” they head towards the “East,” already calling not for “Father Sultan,” but “Brother Erdogan,” the great-grandson of the first.
Furthermore: While Haxhi Qamili of 1914 tried to defend the lands being invaded by neighbouring chauvinists, our current feudal lords, on the contrary, smiled upon them as if they were brothers, and even opened the way to the sea for them, or gave away pieces of our land for their memorials and graves of their fallen in our land… to the “Eladha” and “Naçertanje”!
If our current feudal lords were to stop their plundering and degradation of the Homeland, return what they stole and step aside, opening the way for the country’s recovery, the issue could be closed with an amnesty, like that of 1997, because after all, our current feudal lords are part of our family, and within the family, we have no one to demand “blood” from. But “as it seems, Easter is far away,” our people paraphrase. The possibility of an “amnesty” has no chance of realization. Our modern-day feudal lords have a “blind eye” to their anti-people and anti-national deeds, so there is no other way but the “Qamili way,” certainly matured according to the rules and objective laws of the time.
Yes, can Haxhi Qamili and his uprising return today?
The cup of evil is full and overflowing, worse than in the dark years of the early 20th century, so the revolt of “Haxhi Qamili” may be and will be repeated. Certainly not like that of 1913-14, nor like that of 1997, a poor copy of the first, but a revolt of a powerful popular and democratic movement, which will be hundreds of times more organized, powerful and effective than any other movement in our people’s history.
Our modern-day feudal lords, who have been grazing and are grazing on the broken back of the people and the country, intoxicated by the “results” of their twisted and deceitful politics, often imagine the people as a herd, or even worse, a “flock of sheep” that they can lead forward with the shepherd’s crook. But they are gravely mistaken. The people are vast and wide like the sea. They are not a mountain stream, which gets angry and rushes headlong as soon as a downpour hits. The people, like the sea, swell and move slowly, and when the time comes, or when patience runs out, they explode with uncontrollable waves, sweeping away everything in their path.
Beware, you modern-day feudal lords, “servants of an insatiable belly,” mercenaries of an unjust and exploitative system, under the name of capitalism: The patience of the Albanians is running out. They will find their way and their true leader, and they will rise in explosive revolt. Woe unto you then, who have mocked and have been indulging in three decades of deceitful so-called democracy. When this happens, you will have no chance for amnesty, nor will you gain the status of political persecuted, as some of the feudal lords of the past did thanks to you.
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