Forumi Horizont (http://www.forumihorizont.com/index.php3)
- Gjuha Angleze (http://www.forumihorizont.com/forumdisplay.php3?forumid=165)
-- I tell you about Albania (http://www.forumihorizont.com/showthread.php3?threadid=17563)

I tell you about Albania

A journey in Albania with the eyes of foreign reporters, visitors and journalists. The real face of Albania, its paradoxes, its primitivity, its institutional corruption.

Take a look to this country and draw conclusions yourself. Those of you who are not Albanians will know better what albanians see every day. And those of you who are Albanians will have a look back to where they come from.

E kush e ka thene kete?
Qenka per ti qare hallin se nuk e di as vete se nga vjen.

Albania: a blood feud

A decade after the fall of Albania's ruthless communist regime, the country appears to have gone backwards.

Produced by ABC Australia 2001
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1aGqtBPLOs


P.s. Piktor, kjo eshte teme informative. Kush ka kurajo te shikoje njehere, pastaj vini ne pune mekanizmat e mbrojtjes. Le te dalin ne pah te mirat e te keqijat.

Shih se nuk shihet çfare ke postuar.
Linku po punon.


ps:Besoj se e di se ka gazetare qe per dy pare bejne reportazhe speciale varet nga gazetaret psh mesa di une ne australi ka shume italiane etj etj.

Po po, si perhere shqiptaret jane gjynaf, te tjeret i bien ne qafe kot.

Video do rregullohet tani besoj.

Justifikimi.

Pse nuk jep asnje filmim nga periudha e para 90' qe ta krahasoje? meqe keshtu titullohet.

Sold Children

Since the 1990s, an average of one child a week has vanished in Albania. Locals suspect the children are being sold abroad. There are even claims they’re being abducted for their organs.

“The danger of abduction is always there”, laments a school warden. He takes the threat so seriously, the school gates are manned at all times. Nasim Greka sold newborn babies for adoption in Greece. “We made maybe 20 or 30 deals”.

Journeyman pictures, October 2006

Sworn Virgins

They're living life as men, but they are neither transsexual nor gay. These Albanian women have chosen to live as sworn virgins.

Researchers of american universities attribute this phenomena to machism, whereby men can freely participate in public life while women are constrained to stay at home. In this context becoming a sworn virgin is a way to gain freedom from in men's ruling society.

Produced by National Geographic

Again, blood

... a country where taking revenge is a duty...


National Geographic, 2008

Sinqerisht, gazetaria eshte kot sepse varet ne elementin magjepses, ne kete rast, ne primitivitetin e zonave te thella rurale shqiptare. Une nuk njihja ndonje sworn virgin ne Shqiperi, nuk kisha shoke klase ne shkolle qe ishin detyruar te rrinin brenda per shkak te hasmit. Te marresh keto dhe te thuash pa frike "the real face of Albania" eshte sikur te besh nje dokumentar per mormons te Utah te Amerikes qe jetojne neper komunitete te cuditshme e meshkujt martohen me me shume se nje grua, dhe te thuash "the real face of America" ose me mire, "the real face of Utah."
Keto fenomene jane aq revoltuese sa dhe anomali per shqiptarin "mesatar."

Nuk mendoj se mud te kesh shoke klase ne hasem, sepse rrine mbyllur dhe nuk shkojne as ne shkolle.

Mund te argumentohet se kjo nuk eshte "face of Albania" por nuk e luan as topi qe eshte "real". Aq sa jam kurioz cfare behet ne Kiras gjate ketyre permbytjeve, ku dihet se jetojne te ngujuarit.

Edhe njehere realiteti eshte aty, por shqiptaret nuk duan ta shikojne me pretendimin se mesatarja nuk jeton ne ngujim. E pra, te ngujuarit e kane origjinen tek shqiptari mesatar, sepse ngujimi (e thone dokumentaret) tregon se nuk ka shtet. Mungesa e shtetit nuk fillon e mbaron tek gjakmarrja. Perkundrazi eshte njeriu mesatar, shoky yt i klases, ne mos ti vete, qe nuk di te ndertoje shtet dhe detyron format e gjakmarrjes te zevendesojne shtetin.

Ne kete kontekst gjakmarrja tregon tamam "real face of Albania", sepse sado te mbyllen syte per te pare gardhin personal, Shqiperia fillon tek korrupsioni i policit ne Tirane, tek kalimi i semaforit me te kuq, dhe mbaron tek format e gjakmarrjes. E gjitha eshte Shqiperia dhe mentaliteti qe nuk pranon (ose nuk meriton) te kete shtet. Shqiptaret jane njerezit e klaneve, oligarkive, korrupsionit. Te gjitha keto i mbajne dhe justifikojne me pretendimin se dhe bota eshte e korruptuar, me klane, me oligarki. Kaq u mjafton te vazhdojne ne kushtet qe jane.

P.s. This thread would have been better to discuss in english, so we don't talk like "insiders" and let the world understand our points.

UNCOVERED: Drug Lords rampant in Albania

Albanian authorities are battling criminal gangs producing and smuggling drugs - a trade which has surged since the end of decades of communism.
But a TV reporter has put himself in the front-line uncovering and filming illicit drug plantations - helping police target the drugs gangs.

Produced by Russia Today, 2009, based on Albanian TV program "Xhungel".

P.s. This reportage investigates drug trafficking at a broad view. Yet no albanian or foreign TV have investigated the big guys of drug business. Their names are highly secret, even traffickers themself don't know who is the big boss. It's easy to imagine that the boss stays in Tirana, driving extremely expensive cars. They can be friends with ministers, senators and often finance electoral campaigns for some political party.

Citim:

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Po citoj ato që tha Fajtori
Nuk mendoj se mud te kesh shoke klase ne hasem, sepse rrine mbyllur dhe nuk shkojne as ne shkolle.

Mund te argumentohet se kjo nuk eshte "face of Albania" por nuk e luan as topi qe eshte "real". Aq sa jam kurioz cfare behet ne Kiras gjate ketyre permbytjeve, ku dihet se jetojne te ngujuarit.

Edhe njehere realiteti eshte aty, por shqiptaret nuk duan ta shikojne me pretendimin se mesatarja nuk jeton ne ngujim. E pra, te ngujuarit e kane origjinen tek shqiptari mesatar, sepse ngujimi (e thone dokumentaret) tregon se nuk ka shtet. Mungesa e shtetit nuk fillon e mbaron tek gjakmarrja. Perkundrazi eshte njeriu mesatar, shoky yt i klases, ne mos ti vete, qe nuk di te ndertoje shtet dhe detyron format e gjakmarrjes te zevendesojne shtetin.

Ne kete kontekst gjakmarrja tregon tamam "real face of Albania", sepse sado te mbyllen syte per te pare gardhin personal, Shqiperia fillon tek korrupsioni i policit ne Tirane, tek kalimi i semaforit me te kuq, dhe mbaron tek format e gjakmarrjes. E gjitha eshte Shqiperia dhe mentaliteti qe nuk pranon (ose nuk meriton) te kete shtet. Shqiptaret jane njerezit e klaneve, oligarkive, korrupsionit. Te gjitha keto i mbajne dhe justifikojne me pretendimin se dhe bota eshte e korruptuar, me klane, me oligarki. Kaq u mjafton te vazhdojne ne kushtet qe jane.

P.s. This thread would have been better to discuss in english, so we don't talk like "insiders" and let the world understand our points.

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Dmth shqiptaret kane qe ne kohen e Ilirive ne tranzicion?

Ky eshte justifikimi i fundit?

Ahhh, jo qe atehere? Qe kur pra? Kur i ka filluar tranzicioni dhe sa do zgjaska kur kane kaluar 20 vjet nga ndryshimet komuniste?

Evidenca e krimit nuk eshte turp per shqiptaret. Eshte thjesht tranzicion i bekuar, right ?

Tranzicion nga romaket, otomanet, komunistet, amerikanet... ahhh keta fajtore qe si gjejme kurre mes nesh ditet e sotme.

Citim:

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Po citoj ato që tha Fajtori
Nuk mendoj se mud te kesh shoke klase ne hasem, sepse rrine mbyllur dhe nuk shkojne as ne shkolle.

Mund te argumentohet se kjo nuk eshte "face of Albania" por nuk e luan as topi qe eshte "real". Aq sa jam kurioz cfare behet ne Kiras gjate ketyre permbytjeve, ku dihet se jetojne te ngujuarit.

Edhe njehere realiteti eshte aty, por shqiptaret nuk duan ta shikojne me pretendimin se mesatarja nuk jeton ne ngujim. E pra, te ngujuarit e kane origjinen tek shqiptari mesatar, sepse ngujimi (e thone dokumentaret) tregon se nuk ka shtet. Mungesa e shtetit nuk fillon e mbaron tek gjakmarrja. Perkundrazi eshte njeriu mesatar, shoky yt i klases, ne mos ti vete, qe nuk di te ndertoje shtet dhe detyron format e gjakmarrjes te zevendesojne shtetin.

Ne kete kontekst gjakmarrja tregon tamam "real face of Albania", sepse sado te mbyllen syte per te pare gardhin personal, Shqiperia fillon tek korrupsioni i policit ne Tirane, tek kalimi i semaforit me te kuq, dhe mbaron tek format e gjakmarrjes. E gjitha eshte Shqiperia dhe mentaliteti qe nuk pranon (ose nuk meriton) te kete shtet. Shqiptaret jane njerezit e klaneve, oligarkive, korrupsionit. Te gjitha keto i mbajne dhe justifikojne me pretendimin se dhe bota eshte e korruptuar, me klane, me oligarki. Kaq u mjafton te vazhdojne ne kushtet qe jane.

P.s. This thread would have been better to discuss in english, so we don't talk like "insiders" and let the world understand our points.

---

I have a Slovak friend and actually I got drunk one night and actually listened to what he had to say about his country. After that I made some research of my own. Guess what, they just got their independence in 1993 and their history is worst then ours, full of foreign invasions. First the Hungarians and then the Ottomans and then the Austro-Hungarians and so on. I bet this was not easy for them but it looks like they are doing not so bad.

I was watching the videos and reading the comments and I found myself scratching from the embarrassment. I believe that its true what Balerina says about those being a minor part of our country, but I feel like the majority doesnt give a damn about this problems or simply pretends that those have nothing to do with them. Making up excuses or closing an eye wont make this things disappear. It takes a strong will to admit mistakes and actually do smth to change them. I think we have what we got.

Te pranosh qe ke te meta eshte normale por qe te evidentosh ato nje nga nje ku jane e ku nuk jane dhe ti bashkojme te gjitha sebashku e te themi se ky eshte realiteti, kjo nuk eshte e drejte.
Ne kete pike jam dakort me Balerinen edhe ingmetaboy.
Kush mund ta mohoje qe eshte bere progres. Sot kemi me mijra djem e vajza qe studiojne neper universitete te fameshme ose jo neper bote.
Kemi me mijra emigrante qe ndertojne jeten neper shtetet ku jetojne.
Video e pare thote se 10 demokraci e ne jemi kthyer mbrapa por nuk paraqet aspak realitetin , mjaftonte te na jepte ndonje imazh nga periudha komuniste ose para saj qe te kuptohet ku ishim dhe ku jemi.
Ajo puna e femijve eshte si puna e Aids qe kur bota lengonte ne ishim "imune" Aids na e solli bota bashke me ate lloj tregtie te flliqur.
Gjakmarrja dhe ajo puna e burrneshave eshte nje gje qe nuk i perket tere Shqiperise por as mund te thuash as zonave sepse dhe andej ka tendence te zhduket.

Ok guys.

Definitely you are right, Albania is not only bad things. Nice things should be shown too. I'll put some other videos later. They will show some picturesque fotos of places in Albania. But I invite you from now to make the difference between those videos and the real documentaries which are already in this thread. And probably wonder ourselves if albanians' pride can rely on something that nature gave them, not they constructed.

On my research for documentaries I couldn't find any talking about progress in Albania. In today's newspapers we find mostly foreign journalists traumatized: from the street traffic, from people selling their children, from sworn virgins, from blood feuds, etc. On the first documentary you could see a crowd of tourists looking to a cow eating trash in the street. This is Albania to the eyes of foreigners. And albanians should see with their eyes to understand how far from civilization they are.

Albanians students studying abroad mean nothing. There are three simple reasons for that:

First, Albania doesn't offer a normal enviroment so these professionals can go back and help building Albania. There can be even some jealousy from those living in Albania, which doesn't like students from abroad come back and take good positions in the job market (normal logic). The truth is that Albania doesn't even want emigrants to vote. Last time one of my friends said "can you imagine if emigrants could vote, can you imagine what a mess would become Albania, even more of jpw is already messed up?".

Second, professionals are simply not appreciated in Albania. One of the theorists of the Venus Project (see Zeitgeist movie) dissociate between politicians and professionals and posits that politicians shouldn't exist at all. They know to do nothing. They just want to manage countries and get power on their hands. Back to Albania, you can understand how this is true. Albania is a mass of people going after politics and politicians. People like Ilir Meta know nothing on any specific field and govern whatever ministry they want. These people use the power to help their side of oligarchy and have more power in the future. It's just a matter of power. A student educated abroad is a professional which simply is NOT appreciated in Albania. The only way Albania appreciate you is by entering politics (like Gerti Bogdani). And professionally speaking Albania offers... nothing. No big university, just corrupt professors, no big company to get some experience, no scientific research, nothing that albanians can create alone, without help from abroad.

Third, having albanian students going abroad to study shouldn't be of any pride, because demonstrates that Albania doesn't even offer good education.

------------------------
After all, we should start to think if our culture has basically failed. And the word "culture" really says it all: the mentality that rules Albania today and constrain honest people to leave the country. Because the logic is simple like that, if honest people is forced to leave and the state is governed by an oligarchy raised on corruption, personal power, and disrespect, how can you even think that Albania can get (or is getting) better. The truth is that nearly all institutions have failed. Education is poor and often based on corruption. The police is there to respect the oligarchy and to find small thieves and unprotected normal people. Whoever wins the elections becomes untouchable, the laws become relative and his side of oligarchy will start to proliferate. The business of opposing side will be fought, etc. Normal people is ignorant (and maschilist), and they have to make justice on their own. The oligarchy is trying hard to keep them ignorant. Religions, on the other side, are trying to exploit their ignorance and get more fans.

This is Albania my friends, you can see it every day on the news... if you are able to read through the corrupted albanian news, which continue to work exactly like in the communist era, telling part of the truth, going after politics and only barely touching the real need for change in Albania.

E si paska deshtuar kur nuk ka trasheguar.
Me duket se jemi kontradiktore ketu Fajtor.
Qe te kesh falimentuar do te thote te kesh pasur diçka, çfare trasheguam qe falimentuam.
Trashegojme sundimin e te hujave dhe me pas komunizmin dhe tani qe po ngrihemi ne kembe paskemi falimentuar.

Im with you Fajtor. I completely understand and agree with most of your observations, but only acting as the prophet of the dooms day doesnt help much. You cant say that our culture has "failed". That is just giving up. We can't give up on who we are, but what we can do is use the best of what we got and turn things around. I believe that we can all agree that our strongest characteristic is pride. That can be our salvation or our death (as we all know). Call me a dreamer or whatever you want but I believe that we can use that to do better. But first we need to want to be better. Thats what is missing or lost or stolen.

Ok before we proceed with films, a small reply on the discussion.

Piktor says we didn't inherit anything from the past, so we don't have anything now.

What are we supposed to inherit from the past?

We have a language of our own. It is one of the most original in Europe, demonstrating that we didn't descend recently from some neighbor country.

We have a state of our own. We have a name and a flag since 1912. We have not been invaded since world war II.

What are we supposed to have more than freedom to create a state? Still we are only 3 milion with the tendency to leave albania more and more and more and more. People leaving Albania is not just without resources. There is plenty of rich people that still say that leaving Albania is a good option. On the contrary, Izrael is a new country, born from a war and living in terror. Still hebrew are going there instead of leaving the country. don't you think there is a reason for this?

The big question remains: has Albanian culture failed?

Take a moment to think about your own life. Most of us don't even think to return in Albania. Furthermore, emigrants are happy if another state is giving them nationality. Two weeks ago greek parliament was about to pass a low on giving greek nationality to albanian children. If you could hear the interviews, albanian emigrants were happy and would love to have also themselves greek nationality (not only the children). Does all of this make sense? Is there a reason to be proud of a country which didn't care about you in the past, doesn't care now, and is failing repeatedly to create a modern state?

P.s. One hidden mark: Albania is kept in chaos on purpose from the actual oligarchy. Next time I tell you why.

City of Kruja - Highlights

P.s. This is the first video when you search "albania" on youtube. Biggest pride? The past.
Type of presentation? Some footage with a song on it.

Stroll through Kruja, the main tourist side 47km north of Tirana. Tour the 5th century citadel, the Gjergj Kastrioti Museum which was built to honour Albania's national hero Skanderbeg who fought the Ottomans from this mountain fortress.
Just outside the citadel is the old bazaar selling lots of Albanian souvenirs such as flags, T-shirts, folk costumes and the traditional felt hats.

Citim:

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Po citoj ato që tha ingmetalboy
Im with you Fajtor. I completely understand and agree with most of your observations, but only acting as the prophet of the dooms day doesnt help much. You cant say that our culture has "failed". That is just giving up. We can't give up on who we are, but what we can do is use the best of what we got and turn things around. I believe that we can all agree that our strongest characteristic is pride. That can be our salvation or our death (as we all know). Call me a dreamer or whatever you want but I believe that we can use that to do better. But first we need to want to be better. Thats what is missing or lost or stolen.

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And what is everybody of you doing for your country?

P.s. Kennedy said that the day he became president. Nano relaunched the same phrase as a prime minister. And? What does all that have to do with emigrants living abroad? Is that an invitation to work harder abroad?

So it's not our culture that has failed us, it's our generous oligarchy. I tried to search for "albania" on youtube and I found this which has a more optimistic approach on the talk about 'discovering Albania".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYTtny0OP2k

Kjo eshte video qe thote ingmetal, pak me e zgjeruar me duket

Citim:

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Po citoj ato që tha Fajtori
And what is everybody of you doing for your country?

P.s. Kennedy said that the day he became president. Nano relaunched the same phrase as a prime minister. And? What does all that have to do with emigrants living abroad? Is that an invitation to work harder abroad?

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the above doc.

It is not a documentary, it is a piloted film that purposely hides all the other truths of Albania. Probably has been created by some government agencies only for promotion abroad. That is far from being a real journalist documentary.

Some obscured points.

1. Building industry is shown as growing at 10%. Instead building industry is in a deep crisis since many months. Moreover the beautiful building they show in the film is constructed by Tan Dulaku, accused by the prime minister publicly (not legally) to be part of the mafia.

2. Oil industry is also in deep crisis. Sometime ago a news was spread that the state oil company is shutting down extraction sites due to poor working conditions. Also, the state company was sold to Rezart Taçi, a businessman near to the prime minister.

No mention is made to Gerdec, to albanian mafia, etc. It's just propaganda to hide the dirty side of Albania.

Same aspects seen from real journalists

This film is edited by some albanian political fan. It is biased to blame Edi Rama, but listen what the journalist say about the same building industry in Albania...

Citim:

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Po citoj ato që tha Fajtori
Ok guys.

Definitely you are right, Albania is not only bad things. Nice things should be shown too.

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Citim:

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Po citoj ato që tha Fajtori

On my research for documentaries I couldn't find any talking about progress in Albania.

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the funny thing about this, is that my girfriend blond hair blue eyes born and raise in california that im with now showed me this article
and everybody she has asked about albanians has only heard bad things
i head to spank her for reading crap....literally:p



An article about Albania was published
in the Sunday Times Magazine on 23 July, 2006:

The land that time forgot
Author: AA Gill

It was a communist state for nearly half a a century. Now it has organised crime and the worst-dressed teenagers in Europe. Will the world ever take Albania seriously?

In the unlikely event of your ever needing to know, Tirana’s international airport is called Mother Teresa. It is grimly typical that the Albanians named their runway to the world after a woman who devoted herself to helping people die; and after a Catholic from a country that’s 70% Muslim. Mother Teresa is the only internationally famous Albanian; all the rest are infamous.

As you walk across the tarmac, you might notice a couple of planes from Albatros Airways – there is, again, an Albanian inevitability in naming your planes after the only bird that is an international synonym for bad luck, and which doesn’t fly anywhere near the Adriatic anyway.

Any sentence with Albania in it is likely to get a laugh. Albania is funny. It’s a punchline, a Gilbert and Sullivan country, a Ruritania of brigands and vendettas and pantomime royalty.

It is a tragic place. But just at the point in the story where you should be sobbing, you can barely restrain the sniggers. After all, Albania’s favourite comedian is Norman Wisdom, and that’s the place all over. It’s funny because it’s not funny. The capital, Tirana, is a rare place, blessed with both fascist and communist architecture. The competing totalitarian buildings strut cheek by cheek down the potholed roads, like an authoritarian tango in marble and concrete.

The Italians, who had the most sympathetic fascist architecture, built the futuristically classical university art school and government buildings, while the communists made the thudding celebrations of workers’ triumph and the grim warrens of piss-stained grey boxes for housing the triumphant workers in.

Parts of Tirana look like small southern Italian industrial towns, tree-dappled, lots of cafes, while other bits look like Gaza, ripped up and smashed stretches of urban exhaustion and collapse.

But none of that is what you notice first. The thing that catches your eye and holds it in a sticky grasp, like a child with a humbug, is the colour. The grim apartments and public housing projects have been painted with broad swathes of livid decoration. They look like a giant installation of West Indian scatter cushions.

The multicoloured building was the very, very bright idea of Tirana’s mayor. A man who the locals seem to think is suicidal and inspired in equal measure. When Albania’s peculiar version of hermetic communism finally collapsed, in 1992, the new man said that, though there was no money to change anything, seeing as they’d been living in monotone grindstone misery for 50 years, they might brighten the place up with a lick of paint. Apparently, they got a job lot of all the colours Homebase couldn’t sell in Cheshire and sploshed away. The result is both inspired and ridiculous, and very Albanian. Like a clown’s make-up, it draws attention to the crumbling, gritty face underneath.

In the span of one long lifetime, Albania has been dealt a full house of political, social and economic experiments. It started the 20th century as a subservient state of the Ottoman empire, then it became a playground for every Balkan and Adriatic neighbour. At one time or another, Albania had seven competing armies trying to grab lumps of it. Briefly it was an imposed German monarchy, then an ineffective Austrian protectorate. In 1913 the Treaty of London drew its borders to suit the conflicting demands of Serbia, Greece, Italy, Austria and Russia, which left over half of all Albanians living outside their own country, principally in Kosovo.

At the Treaty of Versailles, the Albanian throne was absurdly offered to C B Fry, an English cricketer who was supposed to be such a paragon of masculinity that he was photographed naked and flexing at Oxford, and ended up running a naval prep school of exemplary cruelty with a dykey, sadistic wife. And then they got King Zog.

You really couldn’t make up Albania’s history. Zog was Europe’s last self-made monarch, and a man who made Charlie Chaplin look serious. He favoured light operetta, white hussars’ uniforms and waxed moustaches, and cut a mean tango; he encouraged the Italians to come and build things like roads and cafes. The bad news was, the Italians were Mussolini, so Zog had to make a dash for it and ruled in the Palm Court at the Ritz.

Then the Italians lost the war and the partisans took over; which might have been a good thing, except they turned out to be run by Enver Hoxha, the weirdest of all cold-war communist dictators, a man of stern cruelty and fathomless paranoia, who decided that the only two allies he could trust should be at the opposite ends of the world. Albania’s only mates were China and Cuba, and it became proudly the only Maoist state in Europe.

Finally, long after everyone else had got a credit card and a mobile phone, Hoxha got cancer and died, and his unique chronic communism died with him. So Albania was welcomed out of the cold into the warm embrace of the free market. That should have been the good news, but of course it wasn’t.

There’s a park in the centre of Tirana that was built by the workers for themselves. They dug a great lake, built an amphitheatre, made a little zoo with a mad bear. You get in by walking through a homeless incontinent’s toilet, past the busts of madly furrowed Albanian heroes and the small, neat British war cemetery.

In shady meadows, men cut grass for hay and young men sit on tree stumps staring at nothing. Around the lake, men fish without anticipation; behind them, other men squat and watch. Fishermen-stalking is a feature of former communist countries. As a displacement activity, it’s about as complete a waste of a day as you can come up with. Old men sit in the sun and play dominoes. Their peanut-butter-tanned bodies are wrinkled and polished like old brogues. They sit on cardboard boxes in those distressingly skimpy second scrotums that the communist world still clings to as attractive swimwear; they grin through bomb-damaged teeth.

These are the flotsam and detritus of the train wreck of a command economy, their jobs and pensions just another cracking Albanian joke. A man who was once a history professor looks out across the water at the speculative illegal palaces being built in the people’s park and tells me how the good news of capitalism came to Albania. “We didn’t know anything about markets or money. Suddenly it was all new, all opportunity, all confusion. And then there comes pyramid scheme. You’ve heard of this ‘pyramid’? We put money in. They give you back many times more. You put that money back and much more comes. It was brilliant, this capitalism. Magic. Everyone did it. Maybe 70-80% of the country. People gave up their work to live on marvellous pyramid money. This was best two years of Albania’s life. Drink and food and laughing; everyone is happy. Everyone has cash and hope.” He stops and looks at the fishermen. “But it’s fraud. Everyone loses everything, not just their savings but their homes and farms, and they borrow and there’s no state to help. We have less than nothing; I lose my savings and my job. I don’t understand.

“You laugh. We were fools, yes, but what do we know of capitalism? It was a fairy story. And when it’s gone, people kill themselves, go mad, fight, scream and cry and want revenge. You understand Albanians have very, very… ” (he searches for the words) “… strong emotion.”

Albania was a nation of dupes waiting to be taken and they didn’t take it well. Everything you understand or think you know about Albania and Albanians needs to be seen in relation to how they got the way they are. After the pyramid scam, Albania sold the only thing it had left: its people. They handed out passports and waited. There are 4m Albanian citizens in the world – fewer than there are Scots. Three million of them live at home, the fourth quarter work abroad, and what they do is mostly illegal. Albania is the hub of the European sex trade, smuggling and pimping girls from Moldova and the Ukraine into the West.

It’s said they also run most of the illegal arms trade, the cheapest Kalashnikovs you can buy. They’re the Asda of mayhem. After years of being bullied, invaded, ripped off and lied to, the Albanians have grown very good at being frightening. They’re not subtle, they don’t deal in proportionate responses, controlled aggression or veiled threats. Albanians, I’m told, have taken over the crime in Milan – exporting organised crime to Italy beats selling fridges to Eskimos or sand to Arabs.

In the centre of Tirana there’s an area known as the Block. Under Hoxha this was the closed, salubrious preserve of party members, patrolled by soldiers, forbidden to all ordinary Albanians. Now it’s grown into the all-night trendy reserve of the young: cafes, bars and clubs have sprouted back to back along the crowded streets.

In parts it looks like sunny-holiday Europe, but then you turn a corner into grim, hunkered, crumbling commie squalor, with kids kicking balls and toothless ancients sitting like lonely loonies on benches, staring at the angry graffiti.

The number and proportion of young people in Tirana is a shock, compared with northern Europe. This is a young person’s country; they have large families here who all continue to live at home, so they need to get out.

The cafes on the Block are thick with teenagers, collectively called “students”, though this is a title rather than a vocation – there’s precious little work for them to study for. The streets are a slow crawl of large cars: BMWs, Porsche Cayennes, blacked-out Range Rovers, Humvees and the ubiquitous tribe of Benzes – all stolen, of course, from Germany and Italy.

The young lounge and practise their impenetrably tough looks; the boys play-fight. The difference between these kids and their neighbours in Italy and Greece is how they look. With effortless élan, Albanian students are without peer the worst-dressed kids in the western world. They are obsessed with labels and designers, but all they can afford are the chronically laughable rip-offs and fakes in the markets. Shops here are full of absurdly repellent, tatty clobber with oversized logos stencilled on, and the kids wear this stuff with a flashy insouciance, all looking like characters in search of a comic-sketch show.

Albanians are naturally quite modest people. You still see old women in peasant headdresses and men wearing traditional white fezzes, but the youth are desperate to be European, and that means sexy. There are girls with bad peroxide jobs, and minute skirts, and tits-out-for-the-boys tops. They play at being gangster bitches, but it all looks much more like a drama-school production of Guys and Dolls.

The men have a strange – and, it must be said, deeply unattractive – habit of rolling up their T-shirts so that they look like bikini tops. The Albanians are short and ferret-faced, with the unisex stumpy, slightly bowed legs of shetland ponies. My favourite fashion moment was a middle-aged man with a Village People moustache and a Hobbit’s swagger in a T-shirt that declared in huge letters: Big Balls.

Albanian is one of those languages that have no known relative, just an extra half a dozen letters. They say it’s impossible to learn after the age of two. They say it with very thick accents. The fact that nobody else can speak it makes it a ready-made code for criminals, but in a typically unintentional way it’s also pathetically, phonetically funny. The word for “for sale”, for instance, is shitet; carp, the national fish, is krap.

I went to a tiny basement bar that specialised in death-metal music. This, finally, is a look that even Albanians can get right. I found a seat next to the drummer’s mother, a beamingly proud peasant woman watching her son epileptically thrash our eardrums with his group Clockwork Psycho Sodomy Gore.

Groovy Tirana troops into a nightclub with a self-conscious bravado and sips cocktails politely, while the naffest barman in the free world goes through his Tom Cruise bottle-juggling routine, shaking passé drinks and presenting the bill stuffed into the top of his stonewashed hipsters to groups of giggling top-heavy girls.

All this imitation, this desperate wannabe youth culture, is being paid for by cash sent home from abroad. Albania’s economy runs courtesy of Western Union and wads of red-light cash stuffed under the seats of hot-wired Audis. Much of it is criminal, but there is also a lot that is the bitter fruit of lonely, uncertain, menial jobs in rich Europe done by invisibly despised immigrants on the black economy. However it’s gleaned, this is the hardest-earned money in Europe.

I was constantly told to be careful of pickpockets and muggers in rough areas. Over the years, I’ve developed a bat-eared coward’s sixth sense for the merest whisper of trouble, but Tirana felt like a very safe place playing tough. There is very little drunkenness on the street, though they drink copiously. The only drugs seem to be a bit of home-grown grass and, given that this is the vice-export capital of the West, there were no lap-dancing clubs or pornography shops. You can’t even find a prostitute on the street in Tirana. It’s like trying to find lobsters in Scotland: they’ve all gone for export.

Albania has by far and away the worst traffic record of any western country, and no Albanian would conceivably wear a seatbelt, considering it the first symptom of passive homosexuality. Driving north out of Tirana along the pitted roads, you see an insatiable orgy of construction with barely a nod to need, purpose or planning permission. The outskirts are being covered in country bars and restaurants without customers, and capacious country houses without sewerage, water, electricity or inhabitants. The biggest single industry in Albania is money-laundering, and construction is the easiest and quickest way to turn vice into virtue. There are thousands of buildings without roofs or windows flying an ironic Albanian flag, which, appropriately, is the double-headed eagle looking both ways at once.

The mountains are a landscape of terraces and forests sparsely populated by peasants who still cut hay with scythes, where men turn rotated strips with wooden ploughs behind bony mares as their wives sow seeds from baskets, looking like the posters for a Bertolt Brecht revival.

Tiny villages lurk in high valleys; extended families live on the first floor of stone-and-mud-plaster houses. On the ground floor live the cattle and plough horses. Vines climb the walls; chickens and infants scratch in the dirt; dogs are chained in wicker kennels; hens nest under the sweet hayricks; women bake bread in wood ovens. We’re given a lunch of grilled lamb, fizzing sheep’s cheese, tomatoes and cherries fresh from the tree. The fields all around are choked with wild flowers; songbirds and turtledoves clamour for attention; tortoises shuffle in the stubble; donkeys moan operatically to each other.

It is as close as any of us will get to seeing what life across Europe was like in the 16th century, but living a 16th-century life in the 21st century is not a smart option. Even 16th-century people know that. So the country is emptying, and the peasants trudge to the city to try and lay their hands on a little second-hand vice money.

All across Albania there are decrepit concrete bunkers, thick beehive constructions that smell of mould and foxes. They run in little redoubts up hills, along coverts and through gardens. There are millions of them. Hoxha started building bunkers at the end of the war, and they became a lifelong paranoid obsession that cost a hubristic amount of Albania’s wealth. The bunkers follow no coherent battle plan. There would never have been enough soldiers to man them; they are simply the solid pustules of mistrust and fear. Albania has always been surrounded by enemies, but it has also been divided against itself.

There is no trust in this landscape: it is the place of vendetta and vengeance. There are still families here where the fearful men never leave their windowless homes, where male babies are born to die. The rules of being “in blood” were laid down in the 15th century in the Canon of Lekë, an ancient murderer’s handbook. That is one of the reasons Albanians are so good at organised crime. The distinctions of religion are nothing compared with the ancient honour of families; everything is secondary to family honour and to making money. Everything is excusable to sustain those.

There is also a divide between north and south Albania. The north is called Gheg, the south Tosk. Gheg is tough, uncouth, aggressive; the south, educated, civilised, Italianate. It’s a bit like England.

On the Adriatic coast, in Durres, which was once a seaside capital, the beach is a muddy grey, a coarse sand of cigarette ends, bottle tops and those blue plastic bags that are the world’s tumbleweed. The smelly, tideless Adriatic limply washes nameless slurry onto the shore, and children build sand villas while their parents roast. Albanians have surprisingly fair skins and they cook to a lovely livid puce. A man calls me over. He’s angry. “American?” No, English. “Tell them, tell Europe, we don’t have tails. You see, we are not apes. We’re not another species. Durres is going to be the new Croatia.” There’s a thought.

“Norman Wisdom – what do you think of him?” I asked. “He’s very ’90s. Now top best comic is definitely Mr Bean.”

What a laugh This was better than a stand up comedy.

Anyway, he exaggerates but there is plenty of truth also. Apparently this guy writes funny/bad stuff for all countries. This should neither invalidate his article, nor justify albanian mentality today... because... its true in some basic parts (family and money?!!).

This article received a reply from Genci Kojdheli, an activist of G99 group. He tried to recover the national pride. Whoever finds his reply post it here.

But, overall, be constructive people, dont blame Gill for that paper. Try to take the true parts out of it. And you will understand how we can become quite ridiculous.

Up to now, no foreign report has been posted about the "presumed" progress in Albania.


P.s. Balerina, is trying to enter NATO and EU that provides a positive insight of Albania? That is exactly what is ridiculed by Gill. To tell the truth, albanians want to enter Europe to gain advantages from that, to feel assured that they'll be governed by more trustful EU politicians rather than albanian corrupt politicians. There is nothing positive in this, because it's more important to find a national identity and development, than trying to find the solutions by entering EU.

Art for Politics Sake

People & Power reports on the re-vamping of Albania's capital city by its artistic mayor.

Produceer: Al Jazeera, March 2008

P.s. You will find the other view on Tirana's facades painted by Edi Rama (what Gill calls a clown make-up) .

Fajtor, to be honest, way before i read the article of Gill, I was critical so much of the same stuff of my own country which so many times i have expressed in this forum, but when you read it from an outsider, it hurts a little

btw, I would like to read the reply from Genci Kojdheli if u can find it and bring it

the reply i think should have been/be insulting and funny towards this individual Gill and his country.

if he is english we should start by the ugly teeth the english people r known for, and we should go on pointing out how impotent english men really are when in fact all women of england seem to prefer only black men, this observation is not racialy motivated, but only facts i have notice from one year of living in england.

then we should analyse the motives of the author, and analyse his pathetic existence.
why should a pervert potentially a pedophile from rotten old cultures of europe is chekin out teenagers of albania?!

why a pervert from europe is diapontment that he couldn't find a prostitute in the streets of tirana, now he has to talk shit about it, because he assumed we manufacture only prostitutes in this country?!

so maybe he had to jerk off all the time he was in albaina, cause no albanian woman wanted to sleep with an ugly teeth and impotent english man.

or maybe, just maybe, Gill is an english faggot, and he assumed from the lack of style that so many albanian men dress like gay dudes without knowing, and naive to the analytical eyes of the gay europe, and walk around free dressed a litle fruty with to many colors faggot Gill thought was in haven, but was dissapointment once more!

so then Gill sat down and wrote about albania and the albanians, with bitterness, trying to be articulate and show us what we should and shouldn't laugh at! an english man, trying to teach us humor!
when one thinks of english people, last thing that comes to mind is their humor
and in comparison albanians are much more funny, sense of humor its in our genes unlike the cold english
we albanians can make a women laugh, no matter how primitive or olequent or witty or silly we come across

and, as all Women from any place on earth wil tell you, make a woman laugh and they will give you anything.

next trip for Gill must be Thailand, where he will be happy sorrounded with
cheap yong prostitutes, even teens as yong as this pediphile likes them, and im sure Gill will have nothing bad to say about that country, even though they eat dogs.

Religious Conquests

Or how religions tried to get new fans in Albania the first years of democracy.



Guitar strumming, voices singing, helicopter whirring: the evangelists are preparing for a mission. One last prayer and the group leader yells, “Let’s go tell the world about God!” Until recently, this was the world’s first atheist state. Albania’s ex-communist dictator, Enver Hoxha banned all types of religion. Bibles and Korans were chucked into a national bonfire and houses of worship destroyed. Catholic priest, Father Pllumi, endured 26 years of torture before his release in 1990 when the Democrats finally ousted the Communists. Now there is a rush to reclaim the faithful. But some Albanians dread another Bosnian bloodbath. In particular, Greek Orthodox Archbishop, Anastassios Yanoulatos, worries that the sudden influx of missionaries might upset Albania’s fine religious balance. Undeterred, our American evangelists head up North by jeep to the Catholic heartland. Their aim is to entice villagers to a showing of their film on Jesus Christ. As the projector is set up, the crowd is buzzing for a free night at the movies. But afterwards, converts are scarce. Neither 500 years of Islamic Ottoman rule nor Communism could shake these people’s beliefs.

Producer: ABC Australia, November 1996





P.s. Sorry kurt, but to my opinion your reply is too weak and offensive to even get considered by Gill. If there is something English are famous for is just their humor.
The reply from Kojdheli is only in Albanian:
http://arkivi.peshkupauje.com/skoci...lle/2006/08/09/

I could have killed this motherf.... if i had a chance , what did he get out of this article anyway ?

I read what Kojtheli wrote about Scotland and its all true , I've lived there.

Re: Religious Conquests

P.s. Sorry kurt, but to my opinion your reply is too weak and offensive to even get considered by Gill. If there is something English are famous for is just their humor.
The reply from Kojdheli is only in Albanian:
http://arkivi.peshkupauje.com/skoci...lle/2006/08/09/ [/B][/QUOTE]

mos ja fut kot fajtor!D
btw thanks for bringing the article from genti
first of all, when have you met an english person that you thought was funny?!
when anyone of you met or gotten to know an enlglish person that you thought was funny?!

second, my reply was a ten minute thing from the heart without any research dedication, and ultimately the best reply its to tell gill and whoever to go and fuck himself.

i have known some english people, for a long time too, and i cant thing or imagine them to even be considered funny or pleasant to be around, and this is not just my opinion, but also the opinion of mutual american friends.

im not talking about big name comedians or writers which infact "the office" is one of my favorite comedy shows of all time.

in comparison im willing to bet that if an american as come to know close up an albanian and an english! i will most certainly guaranty you that they will have nicer things to say about the albanians...
so fuck europe and the europians...

Albanian mafia (my illustration)

It is since the fall of communism that a new mentality took place in Albania: money making. Soon, inside and outside of the country a set of albanians learned to deal with ways of making money illegally in order to become rich quickly. In the massive rush for money, nobody wondered about the cultural and national repercussions of all this criminality. Albanian government 92-96 reinforced the criminal mentality by tacitly accepting the flush of money from abroad, and making people believe in a prosperity of Albania. Slowly but inevitably albanian crime organized in an emerging network around Europe. By dealing between each other, albanians were able to complete all the passages of drug smuggling, weapon trafficking, prostitution organization, women selling, etc. A MAFIA started to emerge and today "albanian mafia" is one of the keywords producing the largest youtube results.

The London Press, Daily News and Interpool recently confirmed the Albanian Mafia was #9 in the world.

1- Russia
2-Italy

8-Serbian
9-Albanian

IN 2007, Interpol destroyed an international heroin & cocaine-smuggling network shipping the drug to Italy and other western European countries via Albania.
Police arrested about 20 traffickers and seized eight tonnes of heroin and cocaine (13 were Turkish, 6 Albanian & 1 Bosnian). The operation involved the joint efforts of drug squads of seven south American countries and several European states, including Italy and Greece.

The Interpol Report stated:

"the quantities of drugs being moved through Albania are much greater than the amounts seized by the police.
The most powerful groups operate in Tirana, Fieri, south of Tirana, Durres in the northwest, in Vlora and Korca in the south and in Shkoder, in the north.In these cities, drug money is recycled in the building industry and in tourism. The authorities lack the means of financial control to stamp out the money-laundering"

As it is well understandable, albanian criminality has moved from an amateurish job in foreign countries to organized crime based in Albania itself (see Interpol statement above). While the world is worried about albanian criminality, there are no big investigations in Albania, which could lead to dismantling of big criminal groups. Conversely, the nearby italian state confiscates each year hundreds of millions of euros from mafia dirty jobs. This fact raises the question whether there is any real border between politics and mafia in Albania.

Worst of all, albanians fake all this doesn't exist. TV news about albanian organized crime are taken with indifference. At the same time albanians are sensible to any greek brutality, italian istitutions, serbs in kosovo, etc., but not to home-made organized crime. They seem to ignore what are they famous for in the world and tend to victimize themselves by telling that foreigners told them how to be criminals. The very contrast between blaming neighboring countries and ignoring social issues of albanian criminality suggest the existence of relative moral values. Moreover, there are albanians proud of albanian mafia as "the greatest n the world" (see comments on other YT videos). While it is hard to find any italian proud of their powerful secret mafia, it is interesting to note that some albanians doesn't even keep secret their will to become a powerful mafia.

There is not so much footage from mafia inside Albania, but here is the introduction of an american reportage on albanian mafia in US.



Other videos you can find about drug smuggling in Italy, pictures taken by a journalist featuring various albanian gangsters and their illegal activities, the set of new and luxury cars in a country considered one of the poorest in Europe, and a whole Discovery investigation between the albanians of Kosovo (6 parts). Try to remember that the existence of all this criminal activity should have it's counterparts in Albania (or Kosovo), which have not come out yet.

Well I guess if you don't like yourself who's going to like you? I think no publicity its bad publicity so I dont consider any of that extremely hurtful to us. And by the way kurt is right when talking about the "English humor". The whole world knows that British people are just... not funny.

Citim:

---

Po citoj ato që tha ingmetalboy
I think no publicity its bad publicity so I dont consider any of that extremely hurtful to us.

---

Citim:

---

Po citoj ato që tha Fajtori


It is again the "making money" logic-like. It is not important how you make money. It is not important how the world knows albanians. But at the end albanians complain because the world looks at them like criminals.

Populations are like individuals. The most clever adjusts his personality for what is blamed by the others. Thats why bad publicity is not just publicity. An idiot maybe famous, but is still is an idiot. Accepting criminality as publicity is like laughing at yourself and setting the beginning of historical repercussions which your (or our) generation egoistically pushes to the next one.

---

what do you expect fajtor?!

we dont have an army or government to win a war against serbia over kosovo!

we have a government that keeps bending over and kissing ass te europe showing inferiority and lack of character in front of these lame Europeans.

so, we dont have anything working for us!!
Thank God we have individuals that strive for somthing in their own expense whether that is morally right or wrong it shows that we have people in our nation that are not willing to wait for the mercy of the fucking europe and hold their breath to be accepted by these societies that are in the brink of extinction anyway!

would you rather have europians feel sorry for you, or hate you??
cause europians have never felt sorry for us, as history has shown! so fuck them, and fuck albanian goverment that doesn't open its borders and let chaos fload europe, then, then you will see how fast europe is willing to eccept us, when we become their problem!

Confirming (as you say) that we are individuals... not a nation...

How sorry should we be... for ourself?

Keeping America Company

The Zallheer regiment is at the forefront of protecting Albania’s young democracy and, along with politicians from both main parties, have what they see as an important role in helping other troubled nations achieve freedom.

Producer: Gerbil Films, Journeyman Pictures

February 2008




What the documentary doesn't tell you:

This reportage pictures integrated Albania military troops fighting against dictators in the world. Both political parties justify the presence in Iraq as a consequence of the trauma of past albanian dictatorship. Oh my God, now Albania hates so much dicators that wants to remove them by sending troops.

One month after these interviews a huge blast near Tirana shocked the capital. Twenty people were killed and Fatmir Mediu (interviewed here) is claimed to be the major responsible for outsourcing weapon dismantling. The explosion uncovered a business of weapons and explosives between Albania and CIA agents, who sold them in Afghanistan. The other politician interviewed here, Edi Rama, is currently considered (by the prime minister) as the head of the albanian mafia, while Rama considers the prime minister as a dictator himself. The prime minsiter, Sali Berisha, is the same that brought the country to civil war in 1997. These people now claim that Albania is fighting dictators. "Keeping America Company" may hide political and economical interests other than the integration of Albania in the international community. Also because (as the doc states) only 4 countries participate in Iraq war, not the international comunity. As many US satellite countries, Albania may be ruled by corrupt politicians who follow US in exchange for White House blessing.

Famous Albanians

A collection of albanian people becoming successful mainly abroad. Note that some of them are considered traitors by albanian nationalists.

P.s. It's a bit off topic because is about albanians (out of country) and not about Albania (the country).

Albania 2009

A set of high quality pictures from cities and touristic places in Albania.

I remember the AA Gill article very well. It made a "boom" online in 2006 and frankly, only a person who has an agenda writes something like that. The article had a lot of emotions, which tampers with objectivity and gives the opposite result of what respectable journalists try to achieve. Belittling a poor peasant family's attempt to welcome him with the grilled lamb? He looked down upon that person because he was poor, didn't he? Well, excuse my french but f*** him! How can ridicule someone based on how much they have? I would rather be Albanian and know this right from the wrong.
Nevertheless, here is a response of an Albanian girl named Juliana whom I don't know, in an open letter to him:

Dear Mr. AA GILL,

I wish I could write this letter and say all I have in Albanian, but unfortunately all you understand from my language is “shitet” and “crap” so maybe that’s also the reason why it sounds harsh and pathetic to you. It would sound English language the same to me if all I knew was “car” or “curve” (I still remember the laughing in the classroom while the teacher was trying to explain their meaning in English).

The reason I’m writing this open letter is not trying to convince you that Mother Theresa is not the only famous Albanian, and it seems really infantile to measure the personality of a country by the number of its famous people (nonetheless you should have heard of course about Karl Gega – the great Architect, Pope Clement XI, Belushi brothers –the famous actors, Ismail Kadare – The Nobel Prize candidate writer, Inva Mula – the famous soprano singing in many international stages, Ibrahim Kodra –the famous painter who has joint expositions with Picasso in his carrier, Ana Oxa – one of the best singers in Italy etc. all originally Albanians); nor it’s my intention to convince you that the Albanian teenagers are not the worst dressed in Europe (I’ve seen in Europe, as you have of course, much worse and unfortunately for them with a lot more problems); it is not at all my intention to persuade you that most of the 1 million (a figure which I’m sure is much more) of Albanians living abroad do not make their earnings through illegal affairs (Of course you know there are hundreds of thousands Albanians living honestly abroad paying taxes and giving their contribution to the society as many other European citizens); I’ll not try to convince you that Albanian people invest a lot in education and there are many Albanian students excelling not only in Albania but also in many well recognized European and US universities; it would be silly to try convincing you that being poor or living like in the 16th century is not an option Mr. AA GILL, but a fact of life (even though you should know that the grilled lamb that the poor peasant offered you might have been the 1 week food for his large number family, but one of the most respected Albanian traditions is to honour you guest and give him all you have, but of course this was not the focus of your article). I have to stop here though and recall an Albanian expression so appropriate for this case saying “never split over the bread you just ate” and maybe that’s why the two-headed eagle in our honourable flag looks both ways, to watch behind for people like you hitting on our back;

I’ll not try to convince you that you cannot blame Albania for each enemy that invaded it and each injustice it suffered (ironically the most regrettable one happening in London); nor to convince you that the religious harmony existing in Albania is one of the things we go proud for, even though I don’t know for what reason you want to make it look foolish; don’t want to convince you that Albanians do have watches (even though not all of them Rolexes) and do appreciate time and it is really disappointing that it took you one hour to reach to such a conclusion.

No Mr. AA GILL I won’t try to convince you about any of the above. It would be silly, childish and useless, because I’m sure that you already know most of it. It is so obvious that you are serving to somebody/something else, have sold yourself to fit to somebody’s else agenda (and I want to believe that is only a coincidence that this attempt for degradation of Alban

And another reply. Sorry, for the choppiness of the first one but that's all I could find online:

One can only assume that this article was written out of hatred and jealousy and I am forced to ask myself why? Why is it that such a reporter who should be a well-educated and intelligent man would write in such a shameful manner about a country that he knows nothing about? Why now that Albania is growing and its young generation is blossoming? The answer is clear of course. POLITICS!!

It amazes me how in the opening paragraph of your article you have spoken in the words of a true racist “It is grimly typical that the Albanians named their runway to the world after a woman who devoted herself to helping people die; and after a Catholic from a country that’s 70% Muslim”. And these words coming from an Englishman, making it clear whom time really forgot.

When writing an article one commences with research and only after knowing all there is to know about the subject, he/she begins to write. It is evident that AA Gill knows nothing about the actual reality of Albania. To begin with, I owe it to myself to TEACH you something about Albania and its people in this letter. Assuming that you do actually live in the real world and have read a little in your life you should have heard of course about Karl Gega who was a great Architect, Pope Clement XI, Belushi brothers who are famous actors. Inva Mula who is a well-known soprano singer, Ibrahim Kodra, a well known painter who has joint expositions with Picasso and one of our famous writers, Ismail Kadare who won a Nobel Prize for his excellent writing. Many of his books were transelated in the English language, I am almost certain that you would have read a few.

An albatross is bad luck? Or could it possibly be that an albatross is a sign of good luck but only when you harm it, it becomes bad luck. Hence, the reason why Albanians cherish their name and are so very proud of who they are. But you didn’t need Albanians telling you that, in ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ are exactly what Coleridge writes about. I suggest you take some time off and read that too, it would be very beneficial to you.

As for the architecture I shall not comment much on that since it is the opinion of an unknown journalist who cannot and doesn’t know how to appriciate the beauty of art.

In your article you spoke of prostitution, drug-dealing, crime and you stated that Albania was the main country for it, but I assure you there aren’t half as much brothels in the whole of Albania than there are in the city of London. You criticize the way some of the Albanians dress with which you’re also criticizing their culture, could it possibly be because you do not have traditional clothing, traditional dancing and touching stories to pass onto your future generations?

You also told of the foolishness of the Albanian youth, but you forgot to mention that it is that same Albanian youth that are studying in some of the best universities in the world, including Oxford, Cambridge and LSE (where I plan to go this September). It is also that same Albanian youth that is getting an education and as well as helping themselves they are helping their fellow countrymen, which shows patriotism, love and their humane nature. But I am sure you knew this, in fact you know the majority of the these beautiful traditions and amazing culture of the Albanian community and you went and picked its faults, no matter their size and exaggerated them in order to have an article to publish. This is evident because you have not quoted anyone, thus showing this article for what it truly is, a plain and unworthy opinion of a reporter who cannot do his job properly.

I have tried to keep this letter short as I did not want to go into the history of Albania where you have blamed Albania for each enemy that invaded it and each injustice, one of which as I recall took place in London.

An Albanian student
London, England
July 2006

The second is surprisingly picking on the same arguments as the first. Even the list of famous people has the same order. Either the two repliers connected with telepathy or this is a curious coincidence... with some sentences more.