– Gjon Bruçi –
I chose from my book The Torn Facade of Bourgeois Democracy an article published in the newspaper SOT on February 6, 2011, which I am posting with some small temporal changes because the issue discussed there has not moved an inch.
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“Europe, you old whore…!” This is how Father Gjergj Fishta wrote about it a century ago. And not by chance. Nor in a moment of nervousness and immediate dissatisfaction, but convinced of this definition for the old continent. Moreover, to concretize this definition, he added another verse: “That betrayed the faith and the Lord.” But which time was Fishta referring to? Only to the year 1913, when Europe curtailed and dismembered us almost to elimination as a state and nation? No, our great poet referred to many eras. Indeed, to all the eras of European history. And here, it is not about the European people, but about its politicians and chancellors.
Father Fishta’s accuracy in this definition is absolute. Throughout its history, the Europe of state and political chancellors has played the “whore” in its relations with small neighbours, especially with our Albania. For 25 years, our hero Gjergj Kastrioti-Skanderbeg and his indomitable Albanians served as Europe’s shield against the Ottoman onslaught. But Europe, after our leader’s death, even though it had called him “the Knight of Christ,” forgot his comrades, the Albanians, for a full five centuries under the Ottoman Empire’s heel. Worse still, when the latter began to “shake off,” treacherous Europe, with the Treaty of San Stefano and the Congress of Berlin, planned the dissolution of the “Albanian shepherds” of the Balkans, a plan realized in 1913 when the Homeland of the “Knight of Christ” was reduced to one-third of its ethnic territories.
In the ’60s of the 20th century, it would again be the land of Kastrioti that, by driving the Russian military base out of Vlora, created free breathing space for southern Europe. And yet, the latter did not deign to move, not even with a resolution or a supportive and encouraging speech.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, and all other walls that had separated them from the continent of origin, opened a new and hopeful era for Albania and the Albanians for the so-called “western democracy.” But during the 34 years of applying this democracy, the hopes of Albanians for genuine democracy have remained a dream in the drawer. And this happened and is happening because European state and political chancellors, in many points, have remained on the same “tracks” as those of Bismarck’s time.
For three and a half decades, Albania has been rotating around its axis, striving to find the path to integration into the European Union, where the chancellors of this grand institution invite it with diplomatic smiles. But from this “rotation,” it has only deepened its “hole,” the hole of moral and social crisis, without managing to reach any station of benefit. And while Albania does this “rotation” around itself, Europe watches from afar, throwing phrases and speeches similar to smoke bombs used by military units in training exercises. In these three and a half decades of applying western democracy, Albania has often found itself on the brink of the abyss, on the edge of catastrophe. And only at the last moments, when the “Albanian danger” touched its interests, Europe and its transatlantic brothers intervened — not to provide a complete solution to the problems, the crisis or the collapse, but only to convey it to the next station of “stalemate” or crisis.
What prevents the institutions of Europe and the USA from intervening to end these 34-year permanent deadlocks of ours? The obligation not to interfere “in the internal affairs of Albania,” as their representatives claim?!! Nonsense!
If Europe’s and the USA’s interests were touched, they would intervene not only with their chancellors and diplomacies but also with NATO’s military muscles. Wasn’t it the European chancellors, together with the USA, who left no stone unturned until they overthrew the socialist system in Albania and brought their model of western “democracy” here? If the “Euro-Atlantic friends” saw any danger from Berisha’s and Rama’s regime, 24 hours would be enough to change the situation. Especially today, when the Albanian state and the “banana” Republic of Albania have no way to resist even the ultimatum of a simple international diplomat. Then what?
As everyone knows, the Euro-Atlantic friends need a calm Albania, with a democratic facade and usable for any need of theirs on the Adriatic shores and in the Balkan region. For this purpose, they have chosen and selected the most suitable Albanian “leaders,” who, after placing them at the helm, corrupt them with fat salaries and privileges (secured from the Albanian people’s taxes) and demand a tribute for their strategic plans. On the other hand, our leaders, by using their cunning and with national assets “left by their father,” have each seized, according to their colours, the respective representatives in the large Euro-Atlantic stable, with whom they take and secure power. The work has entangled in such a way that the knot of confusion is hard to untangle, except when the thread breaks. And the “thread” always breaks on the people’s backs.
This situation reminded us of Gjergj Fishta’s famous saying: “Europe…” Which tells us that state and political Europe, but also the imperialism beyond the Atlantic, will never solve our problems with honesty and genuine democracy. Because these two parameters are missing from them, regardless of the many white stars on their flags.
We must solve our problems ourselves. But can we do it with these morally consumed leaders? The hope is very slim, not to say it doesn’t exist at all. Our political class, with their neo-Ballist and neo-fascist parties, are actually out of the game. The 34-year galloping corruption has turned them into clans, and as such, they do not represent any class or social stratum to rely on. And clans with only clan support cannot build either a state or democracy but only autocracy, which ends in a dictatorial junta. The current political class is in opposition to the people and their interests. Under these conditions, it either needs to “change” the people or leave the political scene. The first is impossible, so the only option remains the second.
And the people have this in their hands if they come to understand their power.
(Translated from the Albanian original)
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