By Hysen Kica
– Communist meeting –
Memorie.al / In the course of the Professional Unions there was an earthquake. They all shuddered when the instructor of the Party Committee arrived, for a serious moral problem. Lessons were interrupted and everyone gathered in the cafeteria. The secretary of the party organization in the course made a long introduction and read parts of Enver Hoxha’s works about “the high values of communist morality and the danger of bourgeois-revisionist degeneration”. He emphasized, raising his voice, that: “The party wants us to always keep up the revolutionary vigilance against the internal enemy.
– The party in the circle – said the instructor – without moving from the chair where he was sitting, – between the secretary and the director of the course, – friend Dhori himself, has remarks for you. A degenerate and very dangerous element has penetrated your collective”.
No one dared to look from the side because most of them had made secret friendships with their classmates and hid behind the pine trees in the evenings. No one knew to whom he had “sang laraska” at the window. There was silence. The eyes of the instructor looked like cyclops eyes behind the lenses of the optical glasses and instilled terror.
– Will you continue fellow instructor? – asked the secretary.
– Of course! He said. – The party gave them its warm hand. In general, you knew how to appreciate it and the party thanks you, but one of you…! Who is Sami Lumi?
Sami was taken to his feet, as if a knife had been stuck in him, while the others wanted to calm down.
– Look at Sami Lumi! – continued the instructor. – He tried to rape the daughter of a respected communist family in our city. He tarnished your team with shame because you respected him as a friend. He deceived the party organization at the base, which trusted him and brought him to the course.
He thought that, after the loss of Comrade Enver, they will roam here without panties, pigs with sows, but… Comrade Enver left us a strong Party. Our party is destroying the entire bourgeois-revisionist world, it is holding up the banner of its Marxist-Leninist ideology. Our party is positioned on the front line of the war waged by the entire world proletariat…!
– Reflect – said the secretary – after he was convinced that the instructor had finished. – Evaluate the situation and give your opinions. Who loves the word?
No one was talking.
– What are you going to say to the Party, you Sami Lumi! – The secretary spoke again.
– You must do self-criticism in front of the team – said the director.
– Apologize! – Some of his friends spoke softly.
– Speak! – The secretary raised his voice.
– I have not done anything – said Sami.
– What are you saying? – asked the instructor as if he hadn’t heard.
– This is your self-criticism?! – the secretary spoke harshly. – The very fact that you have disturbed the main leadership of the Party in the district means that you have seriously violated communist morality and the Party demands that you be held accountable.
– I neither know nor understand what you are accusing me of – said Sami.
– It seems to me that you are making fun of us – the secretary continued.
– I am very sorry – said Sami. – I…!
– The lack of self-criticism shows that you acted with full conscience to degenerate a communist family – said the secretary.
– Maybe you think of hiding behind the fact that the Party, wanting to protect the family, cannot mention the girl’s name. You are wrong. Our party is very strong. Our party has eliminated much better men than you. All enemies have broken their heads when they collided with the iron wall of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That’s how you will break it too.
– Why don’t you do self-criticism? – said the director. – The party highly values sincerity and forgives those who realize the mistake.
– Because I didn’t do anything – Sami insisted.
– You are very brave, but… – said the secretary, – there are no brave people against the Party.
– I don’t know more – said Sami.
– Your ignorant attitude will burden you even more – said the instructor standing up. – You know very well the girl who accuses you. You also know the girl’s parents who have begged them to leave their daughter alone. You know very well that they are an honest and respected family here in Durrës.
Why, ask to mention their name in front of your team? Do not insist on deceiving the Party and the collective. The problem is as serious as it is subtle. The party protects honest families and does not allow you to hide behind its good intentions. The party is vigilant and knows everything. Speak up!
– That girl’s parents have accused me in vain – Samiu said.
(The iron fist of the dictatorship of the proletariat…!)
No! It was the instructor’s fist that hit the table.
– Can the teammates also speak? – asked the secretary.
– Definitely – said the instructor and sat down.
– Then speak – said the secretary. – Who wants the word?
– With permission! – spoke one of the trainees, sitting in the first row of chairs and went to his feet.
– Order! – said the secretary. – speak!
– We are always loyal soldiers of our beloved Party – he said.
– The party is our dear mother, the vanguard of our working class and the inspiration of the world proletariat. The party pays us the full salary to maintain the high economic level of our families. The great appreciation that the party has given us burdens us with great duties and responsibilities, not only as an agitator of its Marxist-Leninist line, but also as an example of a pure moral figure. Today we are feeling very bad.
We are feeling cheated and offended, that one of the members of our team has violated the honor of a communist family. Surprisingly, he does not self-criticize and ask for mercy, but he tries to cast aspersions on the Party and the collective. I, as a party member and a member of this collective, feel very outraged. The honor and dignity of the Party is being tarnished. Our communist morality is being tarnished. This degenerate man must be excommunicated by our collective.
“Eh! What a dear collective! What a warm collective! People feel themselves very well in the bosom of the socialist collective. The party and the collective love you very much and trample on you. The party always loves its beloved sons very much”, Samiu thought. Nothing else. Not even the fly dared to move.
– The rest of you speak too – said the party secretary.
– We should all support the right proposal of our friend. The party teaches us that we must listen to the revolutionary voice of the collective and carry this spirit forward. Who loves the word?
Everyone hung their heads.
– What is your opinion? – addressed the instructor, another trainee, who was sitting in the first row.
– Me! – said the trainee as if taken by surprise and stood up.
– Speak openly – continued the instructor. – Say your opinion.
– I also agree with the opinion of my friends – continued the trainee.
– To be honest, I am not very clear. Until now, I have known Sami Lum as one of the best classmates. It would be good if he would clarify the issue himself, so that we too would know what to talk about. The purpose of the Party is always to save a person and not to lose him. I am convinced that our team has the strength to save Sami Lumi. Then…, we do not quite understand the problem.
– The problem was clarified by the Party – said the secretary.
– Don’t have any misunderstanding, fellow secretary! Sami is really a good man and we take him in vain!
– Are you okay! – the instructor raised his voice. – How dare you question the words of the Party?!
– I am very sorry, fellow instructor. I…!
– Enough! – shouted the instructor. – Shut up and don’t talk nonsense. Later we will look at your attitude that you are not in order.
– Is there anyone else to discuss? – asked the secretary.
(Who cares to discuss…!)
– As far as I understand – said the director. – There are no more discussions.
– Then we close it – said the secretary. – What do you say, fellow instructor?
– If there are no more discussions, we will close it.
The secretary was led to his feet again.
– We thank the Party Committee, in the district, which takes care of our education with the norms of high communist morality – he said. – On the other hand, we apologize for the inconvenience we have caused. I also agree with the collective’s revolutionary opinion to exclude Sami Lumi from our course. I’m sorry that you stained us because this stain will always remain a mark of shame. From our side, it will turn into a great lesson to increase revolutionary vigilance, against degenerate elements. With that, we are closing the meeting.
Awaiting death!
I felt so devastated and thirsty for a drop of water but I had no right. I was an arrestee. First, they put me in a room where two civilians were waiting for me who interrogated me, using all the methods that had given them results “in their noble work”. They asked me questions and punched me in the stomach. I bent over in pain but the other lifted my hands tied behind me with Spanish handcuffs.
Those handcuffs had the property that, if you moved them, they would tighten even more and their metal teeth would sink into my flesh. I straightened my body and again they punched me in the stomach. I don’t remember how many times they repeated this ritual, but I remember that I couldn’t feel my hands anymore and I was lying on the ground. Later, two policemen came and grabbed me by the arms, lifted me up and almost dragged me away. They had taken me to the dungeon.
– Please bring me some water! – I said before they put me inside.
While they were checking me, a policeman brought me water. He had in his hand a jar with some water and stained with blood.
– Drink! – He shouted at me and gave me the jar.
Involuntarily I also looked at my shirt where the blood flowing from the head had left a scar of dried blood. A policeman had hit me on the head with the metal body of his pistol, but no one cared about the wound on my head and the blood that was flowing from me. I could not drink the water, although I was very thirsty.
– Drink! – the police shouted at me again, but I was saved by a strong kick from behind.
A policeman had hit me and I was lying on the ground, escaped from my hands and was spilled on the cement, the jar filled with water mixed with human blood. The policeman put his foot on my neck, exerted all his brute force on me and screamed again.
– Despicable enemy. You will lick up the water you spill-.
I escaped only when they locked me in the cell. The handcuffs had been removed from my hands and they had thrown me on a blanket so dirty it had become skin. I tried to rub my hands together and forgot to think. I was lying on that stinking dirt. Suddenly the cover of the small window, which had the door to the dungeon, was opened.
– Get up! Despicable enemy, – shouted the policeman across the door.
So I started living in the dungeon and little by little, I started to get used to this new way. It seems that I became very careful about everything and, apart from spending time thinking about my loved ones, I also thought about the problems that had brought me here. One day I noticed in the dungeon room that, in the old boards of the door frame, there seemed to be a corner of paper.
I tried to pull it out but I couldn’t catch it. I needed something sharp, a knife tip, a needle or… maybe even a thin sliver. That corner of the paper made me so curious that several times I forgot my troubles thinking how I could get it out. I tried to pry a thin sliver out of my dungeon door frame but it wouldn’t come out with a fingernail.
One day the policeman gave me a piece of a razor blade to cut my nails with, and I was able to prepare a small shaving with a sharp point before the policeman took the piece of rusty razor from me.
Who is Hysen Kica who was imprisoned after trying to escape in ’87?
Hysen Kica was born in 1947, in a village near the city of Bulqiza. After finishing the 7-year school in his hometown, he then completed the general secondary school in the city of Durrës and the higher Pedagogical education in Shkodër. After completing his studies, he was appointed as a mathematics teacher in the villages of the Bulqiza area. The deep poverty in the village, the injustices of the system and the impressions created about the life that took place outside the borders of Albania, which he followed through foreign televisions, motivate him to try to escape to Italy in 1987. Together with his brother, tried to cross the border of Shkodra, but unable to cross, on the way back he was caught by the police forces and sent to the investigator, in the city of Shkodra. During the search after the arrest, they found some diaries and letters which added the charge of “Agitation and propaganda”, ultimately sentencing him to 14 years in prison, namely: 6 years for the charge “Agitation and propaganda” and 8 years for the charge “Escape attempt”. Hysen Kica served 3 years and 7 months of imprisonment in Qafë Barit prison, until he was released with the fall of the communist regime at the end of 1990. After the 90s, in addition to other commitments, Hysen devoted himself to his passion early, literature and artistic writings, such as the writing “Communist Gathering”, which is based on an event lived by the author himself. Memorie.al
