Nr. 129 / 21 qershor 2009

There’s no natural tendency toward conflict, it is built

By 1920, three American women and a 12 years old Albanian Muslim, went deep in the mountains of the North. There they found shelter in the house of a Catholic with the confidence in the traditional welcome of the region. Yet, there’s something going wrong. The guests were waiting and the dinner wasn’t coming. At two o’clock in the morning “the dinner” was served, at last. The explanation for the unusual delay was that they had nothing else to offer but pig meat, knowing that the Muslim boy couldn’t eat it, so they had sent someone by the other side of the mountain to look for food. This was the reason of that delay. This episode was described as a personal experience by the well-known liberal writer, Rose Wilder Lane, and is taken from the book of her journey in Albania. The symbolic happening gets its meaning from a code that is about man, honor and hospitality. This code is not about Catholics, Muslims or others. The division of the Albanians in these categories is traditionally used by the foreigners, not by themselves. A lot has changes in our days: the communism fell, churches and mosques were destroyed and rebuilt, people witnessed September 11th in TV, and some of them turned to Samuel Huntington to find signs of explanation about the mess around us. Yet, something didn’t change: the Code. In Albania, we talk about poor and rich, abused citizens and corrupted politicians, Madonna’s latest album and the last football match of our national team. But, we don’t talk about Muslims, Catholics, Orthodoxies or others. Many Albanians do not even know the religion of their friend or colleague, except for those whose names are clearly religious. The common feature of the two chronological phases is the way we use the language. The limits of our language are also the limits of our world. We build the world around us through the language. Something that is not formulated by the language, simply doesn’t exist. That’s why a vocabulary that doesn’t produce antagonist terms doesn’t produce conflicts either. There is only one way to make up religious conflicts through language means: the manipulation of the communication code and the making of a dominating position for a certain discussion, or in other words: the monopolization of the language and the exclusion of the others. Otherwise, there are two central ways to prevent conflicts: avoid or destroy religious terms, or make legitimate conditions to pluralize them. The Albanian National Renaissance avoided the religious language to avoid inducing the centrifugal forces, the communist regime destroyed that to freeze the ideological competition and lastly, the democratic transition encouraged pluralism in order to have freedom and stability. Let us concentrate on this last one. Today we have all the necessary religious freedom by Constitution. This is sufficient for Albania, but not for other countries that, likewise Albania are composed by various religious communities. Does it mean that we, somehow, have the secret of religious harmony? Many have the tendency to give a pretty sure “Yes!”. I don’t have it. Albanian and foreign authors have emphasized the so called “Albanian model of religious harmony”. However, we should be careful with the word play. The model of cohabitation is totally different from the model of explanation of cohabitation. The second, not the first, better explains the situation of Albania. A model of cohabitation supposes the existence of a premeditated strategic project meant to provide cohabitation. We in Albania didn’t need to wait for democracy in order to cohabitate peacefully with each other. We did it even during regimes like that of the Ottoman Empire, or the regime of the King Zog. There have been various explanations to prove what was called “a model of cohabitation”. All of them attempted to determine what was done to avoid conflict. Very few have found what indeed… wasn’t done. Personally, I think that what was not done explains better the religious cohabitation in Albania. What wasn’t done is just unilateral edging of the political language. The language gives us a shape as soon as we say the words. The discussion on religious conflicts in the Albanian case is the best illustration for this. While we speak about the ways to avoid conflicts, we make up an idea of them. We make up the idea that conflict is almost the natural situation of religious relationships. This would amaze the Albanian mountaineers who welcomed Rose Wilder Lane and her Albanian Muslim interpreter. There were no laws or police officers to respect the law in that house on the mountain. Yet this wasn’t a motive to kill the other. There’s no natural tendency toward conflict. Conflict is built. In other words, a conflict is written or read so that it might be read or heard. In Albania there is no conflict, because nobody writes or speaks about conflict, and by the logic of the political trade, none will read or listen. Yet, the lack of conflict is not a result of a strategic project or a model the we might copy in situations of conflict. In these circumstances, the conflict was spoken and written, and the language was violated in meantime, polarized and monopolized by each community or group involved in the conflict. Each side is speaking his language and holds its truth. Only here we can think about a model of cohabitation as an answer to a circumstance of conflict. This model would demand the creation or return to a common language of pluralism and the discharge of the Truth. In a democratic peaceful society, the religious Truth is a viewpoint and everyone has the basic right to believe in it without excluding the Truth of the other.

The Albanian case gives two pre-conditions for a peaceful and natural cohabitation:

First, a clear division of politics from religion. Behind religious conflicts there usually are political motives, because religious differences are strong determiners.

Second, the liberalization of the language and the legitimate involvement of all the dictionaries in social debates, except racists and discriminating ones.

The most important feature of the Albanian political way of working is the exclusion of the religious vocabulary from the party ideologies. One of the primary reasons was the inability to reach the vote of the Muslim majority (which, actually is a virtual majority lacking the religious practicing) in the only country of the Balkans that supports at the same time the USA and EU policy. Likewise in the nearby Kosovo, religious parties are insignificant on the electoral point of view. However, the basic condition for a peaceful cohabitation remains the exclusion of the unilateral religious language from the political confrontation and the public debate spaces. From this point of view, the attempts to interpret the Albanian history or the religious tradition as connected to some particular religious identities are much more dangerous than any other banal conflict.

The author is a docent of the European University of Tirana. The essay is a speech in the symposium: “Strengthening and promotion of religious coexistence and tolerance for a greater security in the Balkans and beyond” organized by NATO. The material of this activity will be collected in the book “New religious realities in Balkan”, cured by Mentor Nazarko and professor James Pettifer.

By Ermal Hasimja

The campaign toughens: Keka was killed, Jahja leaves Albania

After a week the Albanians will vote for the election of the new parliament. The campaign degraded in evident violence, even with victims. According to the leader of the Albanian Demochristians, Nard Ndoka, the murder of the head of the Demochristian Party for Malësi e Madhe, Aleksandër Keka, has a clear political background. He accused the President of Parliament, Jozefina Topalli and the Police for hiding behind this murder. He made his report and the justice has already accepted the accusation made by “Freedom Pole” (“Poli i Lirisë”), against Mrs. Topalli and the Police. The political group “Freedom Pole”, led by the former Prime Minister Aleksandër Meksi, the Demochristian Party, led by the former Health Minister, Nard Ndoka and the SMI (the Socialist Movement for Integration), led by the former Prime Minister, Ilir Meta, are showing themselves as a true opposition and are being struck really hard by the two main parties, DP and SP. This group is expecting very much from these elections, that’s why they’re being struck so hard. Likewise Aleksandër Keka, even Agim Jahja, another exponent of this political group, received serious threats. Agim Jahja, former leader of the SMI for Shkodra, since 2004 until 2008, actually member of the General Assembly of the SMI of Albania, is one of the closest teammates of Ilir Meta, and along with the murdered Aleksandër Keka, have shown a true political potential with the group of “Freedom Pole” in North of Albania. The campaign deteriorated at the point that the member of the General Assembly of SMI, Agim Jahja, is forced to leave the political front and Albania. The violence is out of control and life quite unsafe. May not the day of elections turn into a day of barbarity. We wish everything might be done peacefully and the result be acknowledged by everyone.

Sokol Pepushaj