Albania will sign an accession protocol with NATO on Wednesday. The Albanian writer and former dissident Fatos Lubonja says NATO is signing a pact with "a country lacking moral leadership". He describes Albania as a traumatised childish society and adds: "The old communist rulers are still in charge."
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Fatos Lubonja
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Fatos Lubonja was a 23-year-old physics graduate when he was arrested in 1974 on suspicion of agitating Enver Hoxha's communist regime. Mr Lubonja says:
"When the West was celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall, I was still doing forced labour in an Albanian mine" After his release in 1991, he became an outspoken critic of the country and authored several novels describing his experiences in the country's work camps. However, he didn't receive much attention from his fellow Albanians:
"the Albanians are being manipulated again but this time it's the 'get rich quick' myth."Isolation ends
17 years after the end of the terror, Mr Lubonja is in the Albanian capital Tirana, talking about the future and reflecting on the past. Albania is working hard towards achieving integration with Europe and the US. In 2006, this mountainous country (population: 3.2 million. Average income: 300 euros per month) took it's first step towards EU membership when it signed a stabilisation and association accord with the EU.
In the spring of this year, during the NATO summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest, Albania was officially invited to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Today, Wednesday 9 July 2008, Albania will sign the accession protocols at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Albanians see this as the end of their isolation in a forgotten backwater in southeast Europe.
However, the outside world still regards Albania as a transit point for drugs, weapons and human traffickers
and is deeply concerned about the way that Prime Minister Sali Berisha, a former close associate of the dictator Enver Hoxha, is consolidating power.
Economic chaos
After the fall of the Hoxha regime in 1991, some 200,000 political prisoners were freed. Nobody in present day Albania pays any attention to them. The population is far too busy trying to survive in the economic chaos that erupted after the fall of the communists. Just what sort of country has NATO signed a pact with? Mr Lubonja, who was in a work camp between 1974 and 1991, describes Albania as:
"A traumatised childish society, a nation without memories and lacking moral leadership. When the democratic party was founded - this so called anti-communist party, most of its leaders were communists. They do not have the sensitivity towards democracy and our past, and were mainly even responsible for what happened in the past".
Mr Lubonja adds that a society that is not prepared to deal with its past does not have a future:
"There's no time to deal with the traumas of the past. It's not a priority for the government".
The methods used during the Hoxha terror - described by Mr Lubonja as one of the worst communist dictators that Europe has ever known - were terrifying. If the head of a family was suspected of sabotage, punishment was meted out to second and third cousins as well. Punishment usually meant exclusion from all forms of education, deportation to a remote and inhospitable region and working in a mine for the rest of your life.
Campaign against liberal elements
Fatos Lubonja's nightmare began with the arrest of his father. Lubonja senior was head of the national radio and television services under the communist regime until his sudden fall from grace during a campaign against 'liberal elements'. He disappeared behind bars and his son Fatos was also dragged down by his fall. The police discovered critical comments in a diary kept by Fatos. He says:
"Of my 17 years in a work camp, 20 months were spent in an isolation cell".
At a rare exhibition about the 'communist genocide' in a museum in the centre of Tirana, Mr Lubonja finds himself staring at a relic from the past. A duplicate of an isolation cell has been constructed in the corner of one of the exhibition halls.
He explains:
"My cell looked pretty much like that. They (the prisoners) were forced to wear helmets and they were shackled in order not to be able to commit suicide. That made my life in prison, in total 17 years, some 20 months in this kind of isolation cell".
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Flags of NATO members
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Power struggle
NATO sees Albania as a strategic partner in the Balkans and regards the necessary social, political and economic reforms as purely an internal affair. Albania has also set its sights on joining the European Union but Brussels is taking a far tougher line and is deeply concerned about the destructive power struggle between Sali Berisha's Democratic party and the Socialists.
It's a fight that resembles a mediaeval battle between rival clans. Tirana is desperate for western investors but they are avoiding Albania like the plague. It's far too risky. Even McDonald's has yet to open a branch in Albania.
New rulers
According to Mr Lubonja, the ex-communists are the new rulers of present day Albania.
"They have divided the political, financial and media power between themselves. They are the new nomenklatura, but this time round without the prisons".
He adds:
"They are the new oligarchy, profiting from privatisation, using politics. With the illegal economy, drugs trafficking. People who became rich very quickly in such a small country".
A few years after his release, Mr Lubonja attended a convention where he met a Dutch psychiatrist with many years experience treating Jewish concentration camp survivors. Mr Lubonja says:
"The psychiatrist warned me that it is normal for a traumatic experience to suddenly come to the fore about 15 years after it actually occurred. It's happening to me now. After 15 years, the traumas started to... they do not cure because of time that passes, it's because of weakness of age....[that] they come out".
*RNW Translation (jirc)
Tags:
Albania,
Communist,
Europe,
Jewish concentration camp,
NATO,
political prisoners,
Tirana
Ermando Volaj,
17-10-2008
- United States of Albania
Good Article ! Congratulations . . .
But you must know that Albania is a Country with Memories ~
Goodbye Mr. Tijn Sadée _
Elona kemp,
11-07-2008
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Having read the article I can only conclude that the Albanians and the politicians of this country need to see this country as their home and not just a place where they happen to live, where every one thinks how to get rich quickly without working fairly and hard. Albania is a gracious country and has so much to offer to the outside world, but it can only achieve it if the Albanians all work together and stop trying to score points / cheat on each other. Being in isolation has had its consequences in the people's behaviour, but nevertheless they need to be able to learn from the past to make a better future for themselves as a nation and then they can make themselves proud as individuals.
Oni,
11-07-2008
- albania
This guy doesn't know anything. I can't believe you have this on Radio Netherlands. Get someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
Sam Skreli,
11-07-2008
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Lubonja makes some good points, although some of them are probably applicable to all governments and ruling classes anywhere in the world. Perhaps Albanian should face up with more courage to the horrors of the dictatorship, but at the same time, a new generation will soon take the reins from the first post-communist generation, and the past will fade away as it always does. A note of caution should also be considered in reference to a man who unfortunately spent his best years in gulag style prisons and work camps. While he should always be given a special place at the table, we must also recognize that he is perhaps permanently biased against his own people for the crimes perpetrated against him. As for decadence and get rich quick mentalities, these seem to be the characteristics of the emerging global popular culture. It is difficult to find a unique root in Albania for this increasingly common pattern which can be observed from China to India to Russia, etc.
Tim,
11-07-2008
- USA
I'm ALbanian, and very proud of my roots. But I totaly agree with Alfons.
Its all about so offs nothing more or less, its time that "we" realise that is OK to be midlle class, and not all Albanian will be wealthy.
and corruption is WRONG, as it has turned the way of life right now
We look to much to Europe/USA without thinking on how can we improve our conditions ourselves.
God bless Albanian the country that I love so much.
Agim Fusha,
11-07-2008
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I totaly agree with Mr Lubonja and I'm very disappointed when yesterday President of Albania decorated with a medal of honor "Naim Frasheri i Arte", Ms Fatmira Laskaj who signed a death penalty in '89 for innocent Albanians from Nela family in Kukes. Is really true that the communists continue to lead this people and persecuting continue. It's just a mess. Thanks to NATO interests the communists proudly are reaching everyday and the people is stolen from again. The international community has its responsibility for giving power this new nomenclatura. I'm really disappointed for what's hapenning now in Albania.
Afrim Reka,
10-07-2008
- London
In some aspects what is written here is true. However saying that the Albanian leaders are no good is also not very productive, more solutions should be given to a situation. Everyone knows that the current Albanian leaders are no good. Furthermore Albania is still going through a transition and this will not change for another 5-10 years. The powers need to be set, the poor and rich need to be identified more clearly and they need to accept their position in society. Currently everybody is still trying to become rich or in other terms survive. However, this brings very fast change and gives the country as a whole no time to stop and think. The road the whole of Europe has taken is a one-way system, Albania will have no choice but to conform as with good or bad leadership. The difference with good leadership would be that people would enjoy this transformation while today most people suffer. It is sad to read about Mr Lubonja but if he thinks he can run the country better why does he not give it a try and run in the next elections, I am not saying it will be easy to win but nothing is really impossible. If Albania is so important to some people then they should take matters into their own hands and change things at whatever cost.
alfons lentze,
10-07-2008
- Albania
As a foreigner working and living in Tirana, I see a country full of contradictions, full of extremes. People are kind, young people are eager to learn. Then, infrastructure is a mess, no sense of solidarity, no sense of mutual reconstruction. Western models/examples create people with the only interest to show off and not to share. Of course this is normal in developing countries or post communist societies. The question is how can we merge the good things happening with more solidarity in society?
Artur Kopani,
09-07-2008
- Albania
I hate arguing with Lubonja and I hate to ask Tijn Sadée if she(he) used the time spent in Albania to see what's going on. This information is too old. For example, Democratic Party and Socialist Party have around two years working close to speed up the reforms.
Today is a great joy for Albanians on cutting ties with old system and reaching closer to NATO's full membership. I can understand "the son of the father", but I'm not able to get the point of your radio. Please, bring somebody to find out my Albania and not only traums of Lubonja. Albania, it's not yet the best, but everyday we are seeing the best things happening and we are changing fast.
Artur Kopani,
09-07-2008
- Albania
I hate arguing with Lubonja and I hate to ask Tijn Sadée if he used the time spent in Albania to see what's going on. This information is too old. For example, Democratic Party and Socialist Party have around two years [been] working close to speed up the reforms.
Today is a great joy for Albanians on cutting ties with old system and reaching closer to NATO's full membership. I can understand "the son of the father", but I'm not able to get the point of your radio. Please, bring somebody to find out my Albania and not only traumas of Lubonja. Albania, it's not yet the best, but everyday we are seeing the best things happening and we are changing fast.
