CAN WE GAMBLE OUR NATION FOR THE POLITICAL AGENDA OF THE FEW?

By Sami Gjoka

In response to some suggestions of supporting Kerry at the Bush’s expense.


Albanians as citizens and Albanians as a community, facing hard choices and taking wrong turns many times in their history are once more confused in the cross roads of the American politics.
It is an unfortunate way of life that the small and the weak in this animal kingdom of mankind, has to always trust its inner instincts, selecting to bribe the perceived stronger ones, hopping to get an appreciation smile in return (from the rulers to be of our society) that makes them (the small and the weak) feel a little bit more secure for a very short time.
As small and weak, (in fact the smallest and the weakest in the whole world we are, if we keep in mind our geo-politics surroundings), being the fastest distinguishing nation in the world, once spread from Aegean Sea to north of Danube and now squeezed under the slavo-greeko pliers, in the verge of our own death, and while being diminished and degraded every day not by the cruel world that we love to blame but by our own misdeeds, our eyes are looking for help far far west where this great country of America stands.
Albanians are a nation without friends.  No body can gain from us anything.  If someone chooses to be our national friend we are for sure going to become their unnecessary burden.  No mutual benefit that we can think of.  What do we have to offer except our empty extended hands that seek help?
Such we cannot risk spoiling what we are getting with so much effort.  We do not have to listen to individual judgments that always have had irrevocable and disastrous consequences in our being as a nation.
We do not go to a family we like while there is fight among themselves to pick sides like some of our â€Å“great minds” are suggesting to support Kerry at the Bush’s expense, just because Kerry has confirmed a true fact that Albanians are the most pro-American nation in the world.
We as Albanians are touched to be informed that senator Kerry has stated "The people of Kosovo must be able to determine their own future, including how they want to be governed."  I only hope this statement is not simply made in front of some Albanian groups, worst even than that I hope it is not extracted from Kerry by some Albanian interviewers because if that is so, it is simply a cheap talk to reap only a few more votes, from largë Albanian communities in a few major American cities.  Since many Albanians seem to resonate this promising stanza of the Presidential candidate, I believe that Kerry made this statement, perhaps talking about his foreign policy in front of mainly non-Albanian audience, even though I did not hear it, nor did I hear any of his political agenda of foreign policy mentioning Balkans let alone Albania, while he gave that brilliant speech of his, at the Boston Convention.  Well, I am not the most well informed where he said what have been said, but I must accept that it is strange for me trying to imagine the American voters worried and being influenced by what will their next American president intent to do about Albania or Greece or Bulgaria or Macedonia!!!
Said or not said, meant or not meant I only wish and hope that some Albanian individuals will not misuse this hopefully honest statement to force their political opinion and agenda to the Albanian community in the name of our future national interest.
While many nations look upon their leaders for guidance how to prosper it has come the time that the Albanians are struggling how to survive.
Albania, while it run to be among the first US allies in the war against terrorism, is now believed to give its only international airport to the Greek control for fear that the Albanian army and police can not secure or be trusted to secure a stop-arrests to the Terrorists with the confidence that the Greeks can (by the way, to add shame to this shameful Albanian decision, â€"Greece is not in the list of the wholeheartedly-contributing-nations in the fight against terrorism, like Albania is.  And, to add salt to this shameful injury of the Albanian pride by the government of Moisi Nano, let me remind this anti-Albanian government of Tirana that the country of Albania never had a terrorist action against any western countries while quite to the contrary it is Greece who always have embattled, terrorists and has been frequented by terrorist violence against western interests.
Yet we seem to continually make wrong choices as the one calling a nation with terrorist viruses in its veins like Greece in the name of securing us from being infected by the same virus; it is a choice of the Albanians themselves that invite the Greek foxes to tënd for the Albanian hens.
This is our long national history of making wrong international choices in many very difficult times.  It has started since the time of the recorded history and continues constantly day after day.  Based on some irrational decisions many times who have chosen to treat like friends people and nations who treated us back like enemies.  Wasn’t it like that with the Marco Bocaris of the Greek revolution, only a few decades ago?  Yes, it was like this for Albanians, time after time.
Wasn’t it our Illyrian ancestor’s wrong decision to ally with Greeks during the Greeko Persian war that sent King Dareo’s Army north to the Illyrians of Pannonia?  That was the only big resistance to the Persians until they reached Skithians north of Danube.  A fierce long battle where Illyrians got no support at all from the Greeks in return.  A wrong calculated Illyrian choice to assist militarily a neighbor who did not care to help back when the same help was needed from them that caused the very first forceful ethnic cleansing of our people, sending them as far east as the Caspian Sea where still a few remain un assimilated.
It was a bad choice of Alexander the first, Philip’s father and grandfather to Alexander the Great, who for the simple reason to participate in the Olympic games, restricted at that time only to the Greeks, decided to claim that he was not Illiro-Macedonian but a Greek descendant because, according to an ancient legend that he himself invented, his great ancestors had immigrated to Pale from Hellenic territories.  Yes, that choice made him able to participate in the Olympic games at the cost of speeding up what Herodotus will later call expansion of Greek family by assimilating northern non-Greek population and claiming their non-Greek territories.  
It was our ancestors wrong choice when the Balkans were eyed as the first step toward east expansion by Romans to time after time manifest to the roman fleet daring attacks that when Romans fed up with these attacks lunched in the Balkan shores, they destroyed everything Illyrian on the site while saving with a great care everything Greek, from whom they met no serious resistance.
As a result of that choice, a choice bolder than their might, Illyrians suffered the second recorded massive ethnic cleansing, this time not east but west.  Thousands and thousands of our people were expelled to central and southern Italy while Dardanians and Celts living among Dardanians at that time, were expelled in what is today northern Italy.  It was our bad choices to attack when it was time not to do so and resist when we were not able to, that headed us for distraction and disappearance for many centuries to come and that still is going on day after day.
And again when our people chose to finally befriend with the roman empire that bad choice çame with the consequence of surrounding to the Romans the Dardanian territories as a recruiting ground for the empire’s soldiers.  While they chose to be friend with occupiers in order to be treated by Romans no longer as enemies, their males started instead of dying defending their homeland as they had till now, they started to spell their blood to expend the empire at the cost of reducing their own territories.
It was the centuries long suffering and longing for the shrinking Illyrian population the fact that the Serb Slavic tribes crossing south of Danube River on the 11th century AD to the Illyrian territories were welcomed by the local remaining population, as way of balance.
History had to provë once more how much damage we have done to ourselves with such, at that time, appearing good decisions to welcome Serbs, mostly in the field of Kosova.  Today Serbs claim Kosova as their historical cradle, which of course it is, but in perverse way their claim hides the fact that such a small cradle was sheltered and rocked peacefully among our people and in our ancient land.
So if any and all aspects of our history will be analyzed, no matter what, it will resemble the fable of the wolf and the lam.
So it was fighting the ottomans alone betrayed by the other Balkan warlords that fled Kosova to the Bosnian Mountains with the death of the Serbian prince Lazar.  
This sole Balkan resistance to the ottomans when others had understood it was not time to waste their precious lives in vain, while the power of the invading army was still in the rise, caused the Albanians after Skenderbe’s death its third massive ethnic cleansing to the almost disappearing Illyrian traces of the southern Italy.
When finally the Albanians understood that their small population was no match for the Turks, under whose feet laid the whole Europe and started to convert to Islam to make peace with their enemy it was again an attempt in vain, a false hope; it was the time of the fading shine for an old empire now in decline; the ottoman caravan was all exhausted unable to defend itself from the revolts that the long-sleep-and-snorings had just now bring upon that slow dying horse, because those nations that had fallen asleep, now were waken; it was because those nations among the many choices, chose the better. They had known it was time like the snails to pull and hide and they knew when to come out of no where like an army of cicadas, and start to fight.  

 


This terrible choice of conversion left the Albanians to be portrayed by the world as collaborators with invaders and now they even shared the same religion with a dying old giant and with the Turkish retreat, the only country who fought the occupation while others gave up since the midst of the 13th century, or worst who massacred the neighboring people like Greece did against the Bulgarians under the protection of the â€Å“half moon”, was now made to pay for the invaders cruelty.  That gave birth to the massive fourth ethnic cleansing of more than a million Albanians from Sanxhak and Nish areas to Turkey and thousands and thousand of Cames from, then, southern Albania in and around Janina.
How many times did we mess up?  Why everything goes so wrong with us?
 While the only country under WWII occupation where not a single Jew was killed but to the contrary the Jewish community grew in numbers, Greeks and Serbs would accuse Albania as the German collaborators for the shear fact that the Albanians applauded the decision to reunite the ethnic Albanian territories, mostly given to the Former Yugoslavia, by decisions of Europe.  Yet while fighting the nazi occupation we made another very bad choice to embrace the communist ideas not that we hate communism as an ideology, as much as we hated the fact that communism became a Slavic issue, like some armature politicians want to make Albania a Kerry issue, and Slavs had only one interest in mind, that of wiping out Albania, giving access to the Adriatic sea only to their Slavic race.
And where is there a good choice that we made.  We çame to embrace the western values at the time when all the communist world was begging to Europe and no one even noticed us that we were coming to be part of Europe (again) in fact we never had been.  Yet our leaders with foolish hopes and shameful ideas pushed us once more to destroy whatever little we had accomplished in the name of throwing away the communism.  The Social-Communists were afraid they were losing power and desiring to see Democrats fail more than seeing the country prosper were only interested for distraction.  Democrats on the other hand afraid that socialist again might win elections, wanted everything destroyed so the socialists would had no grip in power, if they would win, and would be forced to turn the country to them, who in turn would get a lot of help from west as long as they were pro westerners.  And again we had to learn tragically what a disaster and childish choice that was.  It was wrong to come to the west with an empty plate in one hand and with the spoon on the other while we had missed the boat only a few years before, when Alia was presented that chance. Unfortunately there had arrived others of more interest than us to Europe begging for Europe’s help.  And it was even a worst decision to go to the Islamic world to secure some help when we were trying to convince the world we do not feet where we had gone.
And that’s why we are left alone in our poverty and confusion because of our own miscalculated choices that brings us back to the American elections of 2004.
I am not in position to influence any one to the Albanian Community. I am no body to the Albanian decision-makings.  My pessimist believe is that a country that is not able to feed itself can not be expected to fight famine in other parts of the world, a country who has never shown to the world any ability to vote for their right people with heart and logic, but votes instead with narrow mind and closed eyes to simply please a cousin who has a low paying government job that he still intents to keep if the new election cause no major changes, to my pessimist believe it is laughable for such a country and such a people to whom I belong to indicate and promote the elections of other countries.
This said, I think any one can promote any candidate he likes, but in no way shall it become and Albanian community decision.   That is gambling with your country and no one shall have that right to gamble in the name of a country in the elections of other nations.
We Albanians who for about 40 years called the Asian of China our brothers while calling Albanians of Kosova our friends, can not be expected to clear-see who will next American president be.
Therefore to make such instructive statements that Albanians must vote Democratic is a bad idea that means in other words- Albanian community against the Republicans- that in turn translates â€" against the current American Government.
Albanians as US citizens can vote even for Ralf Nader if they so desire, but not as a community.  The open call even in the public media of some, that the Albanian community must vote for Kerry, risk turning Albania in a Democratic issue, and as such it is a rushed decision, that must immediately, without delay be taken back, even more when it is made by people who only wants the best for Albania and work for the good of our country.