By Armir Shkurti
Almost half of Albanian population has said that Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship was a good system but its implementation had many mistakes! This poll was conducted by the OSCE! It will not be a surprise that after a while the results of the same poll will differ, turning this opinion into a majority. Because – even without a poll – what we call ‘democracy’ is also a good system but is poorly implemented. It has even reached a point where communism is a joke compared to our way of democracy.
However both systems have a commonality: that is the class struggle! Edi Rama’s renaissance government is the continuation of Class Struggle with a staunch commitment that was started by Enver Hoxha, but equipped, varnished with other methods. Obviously he is not the only one. In a quarter of a century of democratic transition almost all leaders of Albania have done their best to have such a transition become the shift of the inherited power from the elderly communist leaders to their sons and daughters, even genetically, at the helm of Albanian Government we have the sons, daughters and nephews of those who established the Class Struggle: Sulejman Bushati, Llambi Gegprifti, Spiro Koleka, Rrapo Dervishi, Lenka Çuko, Babë Myslymi and many others.
Their presence is not only in the Executive Government but also in the Judicial Branch and International Institutions. They had the power and were educated abroad at a time when thousands of their countrymen, with their parents educated in the west, were brewing their talent and knowledge in the brutal camps of internment.
Such a fatality was accepted by all of those that were prosecuted by communists, just like many other Albanian’s who escaped from their punishment on internment camps and become tortured in the notorious communist jails, while trying to comply with the Class Struggle. However, the sons and daughters of these communist leaders who are in power today have never pardoned the rest of Albanian population!
Today Edi Rama’s ‘renaissance’ is at the peak of Class Struggle Implementation, obviously in a more undisclosed shape. The new nomenclature, selected carefully by the early communist elite, have established and deeply rooted their network. Such a nomenclature, within three years, has managed to turn the economic policies upside down.
Through “reforms”, “state establishment”, “formal economy”, Mr. Rama has exerted a systematic pressure through his inspectors and innumerable agencies, while using words such as ‘jail’ and ‘punishment’ as a corner stone concept, while pressuring many businesses to change ownership or accept new share holders that are the emissaries of the ‘renaissance movement’. There have been taken over many real estate properties in the name of ‘public interest’.
Private property has not been neglected this much and abused upon even in Enver Hoxha’s time.
The human freedoms have been confined and abandoned dramatically. Today to own a brand new car purchased with the money from your savings or decent salary, it seems that you are entering the Ministry of Interior with an illegal gun in your belt. Massive Confiscations! Ticket! Jail! Are the potential consequences expected by Edi Rama’s Government in Office.
Such threats, such a red terror, equal to the early dictatorship, have created a climate of Class Struggle, since it is selectively applied in order to attack political enemies. The freedom of expression has been heavily hijacked. Communications Media is under government control and they have become propaganda agencies on behalf of the government; meanwhile there are attempts to take under control social media through blackmail and jail punishment.
After 25 years of students’ aspirations, degrees of Albanian students are not recognized in the world. The kids of the new ruling class are studying abroad; meanwhile Edi Rama has attacked fiercely the national universities and prioritized professional training! Those who were politically prosecuted and all Albanians that are not part of this new political class, which is the continuation of the communist regime of the early 1980s, in addition to economic struggles, they are punished to have a rotten education system and consequently it would be very hard for them to participate in the future governments ladder.
This is just an idea.
The anti-communists and political prisoners were unable to recover and become fully integrated after the 1990s. An overwhelming majority left their country immediately after the fall of Ramiz Alia’s rule. Others continued to struggle in Albania with high hopes that the government will reimburse, pay back their suffering and remunerate their unfair time in jail as well as barbarian punishments during the communist reign.
Almost one third of the population, torn apart by poverty and ruined by Albanian dictatorship, was continuously divided and held in poverty, without having a possibility to organize themselves and without a real weight in Albanian political landscape.
“Chicken hunters” as it is stated by Edi Rama in reference to the National Front fighters of World War Two, and his mockery with the blood of National Front members executed by Mehmet Shehu in the province of Myzeqe, the appearance of large portraits of Enver Hoxha in every official celebration organized by the government, the close connection of Class Struggle with Enver Hoxha and communism by Edi Rama’s ‘renaissance’ there is no doubt that: Class struggle is at the peak of its implementation with a new shape and form.
Until now, it has been successfully installed and operates very smoothly. The silence of the opposition and a ‘smiling’ distance maintained by the Democratic Party in relation to the current political blackmail is helping at a greater length. Today this is understood and felt in Albania; however there is no political formation that could handle with every cost such a restoration of the communist elite.
The Class Struggle demands a serious reply. Edi Rama’s regime has no pity and obviously they deserve an equal response. There are two options to face such a neo-communist threat: 1. have one of the political parties that has traditionally denounced communist crimes and class struggle to become more effective; 2.to establish a new political front that must consider its war against neo-communists as its main struggle.
National matters, the sanctity of private property, state of justice instead of arrogant state of law, a high quality education at every level; condemnation of communist crimes as well as the drafting of a national strategy to root out communist ideology, similar to McCarthyism in the United States, must be the main columns of priorities.
There must be no compassion for those who have never felt such a compassion for others who are becoming as cruel as their forefathers while fighting fiercely against every political enemy with bloody handcuffs, implantation of misery and chronic hunger.
Translated from Albanian by Peter Tase
