Part Two
Memorie.al / Forgive me for my boldness: I wish to tackle the most delicate issue in Albanian life. Who would have believed it?.. Religious antagonism raised its head and cruelly entered even among the atheists of the day. The atrocities committed in the South, among Albanian youth, simply because they were Muslims and Christians, are facts that cannot be dismissed, but they are terrible proofs of our religious, social, and national life. As far as I know to this day, this issue has never been addressed clearly and properly; whenever it has flared up, it has immediately been covered over like embers under ash. Let whoever wants take offense, I want to state my opinion openly: by and large, the Albanian Muslim is fanatical, the Orthodox is fanatical, and the Catholic is fanatical – not because of faith, but out of spite and partisanship. During the most difficult moments of our national life, it is true that we preserved forms of social unity and tranquility among the elements, but in the end, a leaven remained, a foundation of current and party, enough to frighten and demoralize.
Continued from the previous issue
OBSTACLES TO BE OVERCOME
Enough with theory. Whoever gets it, has understood with this much; whoever doesn’t, never will. Now let’s come to practice. And the practice is this: Nothing can be done with the Muslims, the Orthodox are Grecomans, the Catholics are Italophiles. So no one remains Albanian, nor does any hope remain for Albania; thus, neither Ismail Qemali nor Bajram Curri are good for Albania, because they are Muslims; nor Gërmenji nor Negovani, because they are Orthodox; nor Gurakuqi nor Ded Gjo’ Luli, because they are Catholics; thus we have arrived at ridiculous conclusions and will come to ruinous consequences!
To live brotherly, we Albanians, we said, must uphold certain conditions, establish certain principles, but also remove certain obstacles.
- The first obstacle, for healing this terrible wound that troubles life among Albanians, is the great mistake of some leaders who want to cover up and deny the wound, which, alas, exists and will become gangrenous if not healed by the hand of a capable and conscientious surgeon. Whatever is a mistake and rottenness, fanaticism and hatred, vice and weakness, let it be brought out into the open, let it be said clearly, without regard to anyone’s feelings.
Why should we deny it? A good number, Muslims or Christians, Orthodox and Catholics, do not look upon each other favorably; a social antagonism stands between them; they have not yet managed to regulate the religious, social, and civil relations they are to have.
We must affirm publicly that it is because of lack of culture that we are here. This will be the first step toward improvement: to recognize and feel this Albanian wound as we should.
- Looking closely, where Muslims and Christians appear to clash, dogmatic principles are not at play; the people do not know them, nor do they care much about them; certainly, neither for the sake of Christ nor for the sake of Muhammad does anyone today take sides or stir up trouble.
The first cause must be sought in historical factors, in inherited traditions of hostility among the elements; we have inherited exaltations, contempt, prejudices, and angers toward one another; with these we are born, with these we grow, with these we die. Only time and culture can uproot them.
Another generation will have to pass so that the Muslim may forget the tradition of his forefathers, completely erase the idea of “infidel” (kaurr); just as the Christian of today and tomorrow, for any matter that does not suit him, will remember and complain: “I am being wronged because I am Orthodox, because I am Catholic.” To the extent that we acquire culture of the spirit and remove the causes and pretexts, to that extent these poisonous clouds will also disperse.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTOR
- The psychological factor also has much to do with this spiritual discord. The Albanian as a type is grand. He feels for himself beyond what is necessary. However, this instinctive quality that in past times helped greatly to preserve our spirit, language, customs, and traditions – if it was a great fortune then, today, for our national life, it can become the primary danger.
I see every day even educated Albanians who are unable to shed their own self; they know very well what common life and individual life mean, they clearly understand the contrasts and sacrifices required to grasp true social life, nevertheless, willy-nilly, they want to do things their own way; they alone want to be the clever ones, the roosters that crow.
And if they find ignoramuses, blockheads, hypocrites, serviles, fanatics, even people who are well-meaning and without malice, well, they exploit them without pain, without soul, and they rise up as bosses, leaders, pioneers, or whatever I know. And thus the clans, the parties from which discords and social contrasts arise: the troubles of Albanians.
These trustworthy people, afterwards, once they have gained a bit of position with truly diabolical tactics, whenever needed, just by touching or pressing the spring of faith, a whole crowd is ready to follow them; and behold, suddenly the issue of faith among Albanians raises its head with hatred, slander, discord, quarrels, and fights.
Where is the fault? Certainly it is not the zeal of faith, but the cunning of egoism. In the end, I do not blame the Muslim or the Christian at all for being fanatical; at least he is sincere; the first fault for the Albanian remaining fanatical lies with the hodja, the priest, or the pope – these, if they do not themselves have enough human and religious culture to stand on their own and give to others, they should have their right to teach removed.
But the fault for the religious practicing fanaticism lies with that university liberal who, like cat and dog, believes neither in Christ nor in Muhammad, but forms clans for Religion as for the Faith of Christ, not because he cares about Religion or Faith, but because in that way – he finds followers so that he may be at the head. Until these dangerous people are exposed and brought out into the open, there will be no peace in Albania!
COWARDLY INTELLECTUALS
- Again I am speaking of the half-hearted, the cowardly intellectuals; the issue of faith among us is not studied as it should be and as much as it should be. With an unconscious ease, they trample all over it, kick it about, mock and debase one faith or another. If you do not want, do not know, or do not have the time to thoroughly study the issue of faith, you have no right to speak or to pass judgment. If you speak in this case, you have sown the leaven of disturbance, you are an assassin of brotherhood, dangerous to faith and to the state; just as I would be cruel if I gave medical prescriptions just because I had read something somewhere or seen it in advertisements.
- The environment, the inherited atavistic dispositions, the refractory spirit, the narrow worldview, the family upbringing within a circle full of prejudices, and many other such causes, make it so that, generally, the Albanian Muslim somehow feels himself closer to the Muslim, likewise the Orthodox gravitates toward the Orthodox, the Catholic toward the Catholic; he sees and knows his own more than the other, while he holds the other as a stranger. It is not faith that forces this behavior, but the unformed, anti-social clan spirit that drives him to live with his brothers as with strangers.
The fact is that we are formed this way; the duty of each one is to rise above himself and above the clan of his circle and to grasp true social life. Let no one tell me it’s not true, that I am exaggerating; go and enter private homes, into intellectual circles, and day by day you will find that precisely in this manner and with these dispositions, heartfelt gatherings are held, clans are formed, matters of importance are decided – I will not go on further so as not to reveal all the poverty of our limited spirit.
- Let us not praise one another for patriotism, for culture and contributions, nor put a lantern to the lacks and weaknesses of one element or another, because each element has its own contributions and also its weaknesses among its believers; let no one boast that as an element he is more Albanian than the other! The superiority of believers, even in the patriotic-cultural field, will be shown through nobility of feeling, through the height of life, through a broad heart and the ability to overcome evil with good.
It is not numbers or wealth that makes cultural and national superiority, but the personalities who, with their high moral qualities and scholarly abilities, are the ones who form the center of gravity in a people. As long as there are those who think that Albanian Muslims are Albania, or that only Christians are the true nationalists, we have no national unity, no brotherly life; we are knife and razor.
- History is history, and will remain history! The life of Christ and the work of Christianity, as well as the life of Muhammad and the work of Muhammadanism, is documented publicly. We Albanians can neither diminish nor add light or shadows to the two faiths. Likewise, the history of Orthodoxy and of Catholicism has not remained only with us Albanians. Therefore, let history either not be touched at all, or no one has the right to falsify or fabricate it on his own, without causing angers, disturbances, and polemics that do not build but destroy and ruin.
- Let us not spend our time counting and emphasizing what differentiates us, but rather raise up what unites us: We have in common one God in whom we believe, we have the Ten Commandments that He has set for us, we have common moral, state, and national duties, we have history, we have ideas, feelings, way of life, customs, songs, festivals, hope, spirit, interests, language, and other treasures and needs, through which we are inseparably one. Instead of looking at where and in what we clash, we should look carefully and incline toward what we strive for. Much good would be done, much peace would be enjoyed!
Can we not refrain from putting into action that oppositional spirit we have in our marrow and skin? Let us oppose terrorism, immorality, luxury and alcohol, vice, violence, unjust wealth, etc., and not cling to matters of religion. Let it be well understood that just as the Muslims are not guilty for being the majority in Albania, so the Christians have no less right simply because their number is smaller.
FOREIGNERS NEVER WANTED OUR UNITY
- Foreigners have never truly wanted the unity of Albanians; they, once and always, have acted to create and maintain a chaotic state of divisions and discords in Albania, so that they might conclude that Albanians lack a common consciousness of nationhood and state, that they are not one people, that they do not feel enough the need for social solidarity!
With various methods and tactics, for this purpose they have repeatedly employed and used religious influences as well. Only the intimate conviction of the entire Albanian people in a single direction, rising above all our internal sorrows and difficulties – only this noble step will be able to sufficiently confront this assault and this danger.
- This life contrast among us is also greatly nourished by the heterogeneity of the Albanian family. As long as the mother herself is raised with an anti-social mentality and raises her children only within the four walls of the house, as long as the Albanian family is not itself inspired by taking in the poetry and grandeur of life, and as long as the woman has not formed a consciousness of the high mission she has in the family and in society, Albanians will never have elements capable of common life – not because of faith, but because without family education in the true sense of the word, we cannot live as befits us, either as individuals or as a collective.
Believers, of whatever faith you may be, in the name of your faith I say to you: Close ranks, for a great mission lies before you. By duty and conscience and by the command of that God in whom you believe, you must save Albania, showing yourselves truly brothers, not with forms and for appearances, but with conviction and feeling, with sacrifices and with a life laid down at the foundation of truly brotherly efforts.
Do we want an Albania with all Albanians? Let an end be put once and for all to words and phrases: Refractory Muslims! Anti-Albanian Catholics! Grecoman Orthodox! We have had, alas, weak Muslims, Orthodox, and Catholics, and we have had and still have Muslims, Orthodox, and Catholics who are truly Albanian, true and great, but neither does the Muslim have reason to stand arrogantly, nor will the Christian consider himself trampled upon.
With their own blood, the Catholic, the Orthodox, and the Muslim consecrated the Altar of the Fatherland: Gjeçovi and Gurakuqi, Çerçiz Topulli and Bajram Curri, Gërmenji and Negovani – they have no difference, but are one in thought and one in decision, in deed and in death. They fulfilled their duty, sealing with blood what we are: Brothers of one blood! The Mirditas and the Dukagjinas, the Kosovar and the Dibran, the Kurveleshian and the Kolonjar, for years and years endured hardship to preserve the same language, the same spirit, the same Albanian customs, because they were one in sacrifice and in direction; thanks to them we inherited our national treasures.
We have been satiated with division by blood. We have also experienced what the foreign claw is. We are now ripe with all the proofs of individual and collective egoism of parties, and we have seen and touched with our own hands that a people divided by internal quarrels is doomed to perish. The danger that hangs over our heads of losing Albania, the ideals and interests that lie before us, the laments of the Albanian spirit and the aspirations of all for everything good and right, value and honor for the people and the nation, for the history inherited by Albanian generations – these are reasons and causes that compel us to unite and hold together as one steeled front without distinction of faith, party, region, or privilege. It would be a high treason to our generation if we were to throw the bomb of discord, with the spark of religious divisions, into this cemented block.
God forbid that our faithful and noble people, because of religious faith, should no longer have social trust in one another; instead of uniting as one, they should divide into three; no, may God not permit that Albanian believers, instead of being brought closer by love, should be divided by hatred, and that the very thing that should bring us closer – faith in one true God – should incite quarrels and enmity among us; no, let us never live to see that day when, because of discords, we melt like salt in water and the Albanian Hearth disappears from the face of the earth, the voice of the Arbënorë no longer echoes among nations.
LET US RID OURSELVES OF EVERY RUST OF THE HEART
Today, in this terrible crisis, it falls upon the believers of all three elements, for the sake of God and of Albania, to remove every rust from the heart, to give a hand to one another and become brothers in that God we believe in and in that Albania we love with all our heart.
And if believers have a duty once, then the Albanian clergy – Muslim, Orthodox, and Catholic – have a duty ten times more to close ranks hand in hand and without delay to enter the field of struggle to save for the Albanian faith in one God, hope in one Albania. Today or never, let us mobilize for Faith and Fatherland! Behold, this is the faith and this is the Albania that is slipping from our hands.
The union of the three clergy in this direction and action is the most powerful lever to secure unity and salvation. Today, the Mosque cannot be saved without the Church, nor the Church without the Mosque, but neither one nor the other without Albania. Let us rise to our feet! For one true God, for one happy Albania, we are brothers!” Memorie.al
Korçë, July 1944.
