ISLAMI SISTERS

Islami Sisters placed on administrative leave after 30 years working at the Voice Of America




By Mërgim Korça

The two legendary journalist sisters, Isabela (Islami) Çoçoli and her sister Zamira (Islami) Edwards, have been placed on Administrative Leave at the Voice of America. This announcement rightly spurred the Albanian press to very actively cover the topic for days. They worked there since 1985 and were singled out as outstanding employees during the VOA presentation by director Mr. David Ensor on December 18^th, 2013. It is not my intention to write in length about the escape from communist Albania by these two heroines and their late brother Klement, who was drawn along Corfu Canal as they swam 12 kilometers from Saranda to Corfu Island. The canal is known for the large numbers of sharks frequently passing through it. Therefore I wanted to first, briefly emphasize what links my family with the Islami family, from which the two heroines of this story descend.

After I expose the facts I know about the events that happened 30 years ago, it is important for the reader to evaluate the recent decision of the VOA to place the Islami sisters on administrative leave. This presentation of facts is also my family’s moral obligation to the uncle of these two heroines, the late Shazivar Islami, who died in a communist prison.

THE DESCENT OF THE ISLAMI SISTERS

On their mother’s side, the communist regime executed their grandfather, Maksut Selenica, and his brother. The late honorable Nadire (Selenica) Islami, their mother was imprisoned at a young age for her anti-communist beliefs. When she was released from prison, after 10-years of suffering, she married late Mr. Hajdar Islami, who had graduated from the Academy of Physical Education, “Farnesina,” in Rome. The two sisters and their late brother Klement were the fruit of this marriage. On their father’s side, their grandfather had studied theology as an ordained Imam. His name, Dervish, had nothing to do with the official name of the Bektashi sect. Late Dervish Islami carried the duties of the Vice Chair of the Albanian Muslim Community.

Their uncle, Shazivar, had studied in Florence and was appointed Chief of Staff to the Minister of Education, just when the late professor Xhevat Korça was the head of the ministry. After the arrest, Xhevat Korça was tried on the Special Trial of April 1945 in which prosecutor Bedri Spahiu with a great triumphant tone, thinking he nailed the defendant to the wall, charged the former Minister of Education with the embezzlement of the F.A.P.I. funds, finances made available that year to all institutions. However the prosecutor made the false accusation without knowing that Shazivar Islami had released the original document in which the Minister ordered the fund to be distributed in the form of a monthly pay as a supplementary bonus for all teachers in Albania and Kosova! Faced with the unpredicted situation, the prosecutor addressed the jury, with the pretense: “the defendant gave out supplementary wages to the teachers to make them pro-fascists!” Then the former minister addressed the court, headed by Koçi Xoxe, saying, “If an Albanian teacher trades his patriotic ideals for a wage, then I’ll admit, my intention was so!”

To the account of the Islami sisters’ lineage, the heroines we are focused on, I will briefly add two of my memories that have remained with me of honorable Hajdar Islami. On one occasion Hajdar told me about his last meeting with his brother. Shazivar had fallen ill while he was in prison, and was sent to the prison hospital. A few days later and with much difficulty, Hajdar was permitted to see his brother. After he asked one prison guard, then another, where his brother was, none of them directed him to the room. He walked by a bed entirely covered with a sheet, which looked like someone was concealed beneath it. Hajdar, involuntarily, pulled up the sheet, and what did he see? His brother Shazivar…lifeless. Hajdar held strong. Reason conquered his feelings by preventing him from giving the guards the pleasure of seeing him broken. He kissed his brother’s forehead and pulled the sheet over him. Then he left the prison hospital.  This event details his character and explains his display of unshakable confidence when he parted from his three children on the day the three got in the back of a pick-up truck which took them away from Çerma internment camp forever. He bid farewell to them without shedding a tear.      

The second event was when one day Hajdar and I came upon each other in front of the Post Office in Lushnja city. As we embraced he said to me:  “We both know the bond between us, but don’t risk meeting with me because you will have to pay for it dearly!” That was the last time I saw Hajdar Islami!  Like on that occasion, having been in a similar situation which left deep traces in my memory, I can’t help but praise the gracious approach towards me of my high school and military service (labour unit) friend, Kastriot Bajraktari, who was interned in Lushnja, the son of Mul Delí Bajraktari (offspring of the legendary family of Çun Mula of Hoti), academic officer and fearless defender of the Albanian borders, as well as a well-known thinker and orator. Thus as a common rule, parents are the cornerstones of lineage and as a conclusion, I’ll parallel the demeanor of Hajdar and Kastriot with the proverb - the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Consequently, the Islami sisters with their courage and the personality they established whilst in internal exile or in their work at VOA Albanian Service, are inspiring examples that the apple indeed does not fall far from the tree!

ALBANIA, A COUNTRY BESEIGED BY FEAR AND POVERTY

Thousands of pages have been written on factual testimonies about that tyrannical period. If summing up those pages in a few lines, no one can challenge the fact that we lived in a country surrounded by electric current barbed wire as well as a land planted with mines in the zone before the barbed wire was reached. Those who oppose are free to openly do so, but…they cannot even deceive themselves, for today they are free to travel in any of the EU member countries without a visa, and they can travel to other countries by obtaining visas from their respective diplomatic missions without the intervention of the Albanian government. Furthermore the fact cannot be negated that within this huge concentration camp called Communist Albania, the prosperity of the system hyped for half a century by the communist dictatorship propaganda machine, was enjoyed by the people on ration stamps and bread queues.

The persecuted people and their families were the first who experienced the violence and cruelty, and then they were followed by a great number of families of former communist leaders whom the dictator targeted. Oh, how the communists felt when the state security vehicle stopped in front of their house, for not only were they 100% sure they had not acted against the government, but they also had never dreamt of speaking out thoughts on the poor quality of the bread (which if expressed…were reason enough to be officially sentenced to ten years of loss of freedom), and surely they did not dare to judge how the government was run.  So the country lived with unfounded and seemingly sustainable fear on one end, and extreme poverty on the other.  The dictator himself called it the dictatorship of the proletariat while disguising it as the most democratic country in the world. What a paradox that in such a democratic country, the Islami family was interned to Çerma concentration camp in Lushnja only because Klement (at that time only 17 years old) was brought to an interrogation office on the account he had alluded against the government and later was locked in the Elbasan Psychiatric Hospital, where he underwent depersonalization through drugs administered by the doctors. This treatment towards the Islami family under the devilish class struggle was the main motivation that drove Klement, when he rejoined his family in the internment camp, to persuade his sisters to flee the country by endangering their lives and leaving their parents behind.

Let us continue and broaden the focus of our objective, while shedding light on some new facts. Mr. Arben Xhixho worked at the foreign section of Radio Tirana Service in Communist Albania from 1986 to 1992. Whoever has lived through the communist dictatorship period in Albania thoroughly understands that without being a person with certain political assurances one could not hold a position in the field of communist propaganda! However in the coming years, after the crumbling of the communist dictatorship, the stratagem for carefully choosing and appointing former communists at the head of every department required the manipulation of the public opinion. Mr. Arben Xhixho was one of them. He paved his way to US and got hired by the VOA Albanian Service in the distant year of 1992, initially as journalist, and then as the Chief of Service.

At his heels was Mr. Ilir Ikonomi, who also came to US and was hired by VOA Albanian Service in 1992. He, too, had worked in the section of Chinese propaganda at Radio Tirana Service of Communist Albania.  

The infiltration of the scions of communist families into the VOA Albanian Service will not end here. At the end of 1998 the Voice of America hired the high-ranking communist leader Drago Siliqi’s daughter, Laura Konda, an ex-employee of the Voice of the Albanian Communist Youth having worked there from 1984 to 1991. In brief all these appointments can no longer be seen as accidental without further wide-ranging deliberation. There is one particular moment I want to emphasize which will allow us to generalize all that has been written up till now. The fact that Mr. Arben Xhixho started working for the VOA as a journalist was known to me since 1993 or 1994, for I have known well his father, Jani, a staunch communist with deep communist convictions. He was the secretary of the communist party of the Agriculture Mechanization Station in Tirana and directed the communist educational meetings at which he never missed out on a chance to quote Enver Hoxha, mostly citing his book, “When Laying the Foundations” in which Hoxha denounced “the class enemy.” Furthermore he was so dogmatic that one time a communist Xhavit Çalliku caused an incident by saying, “enough with this, or you will make me leave the meeting.” However it never had crossed my mind to raise my voice against employment of a son of a communist in one of the services at the VOA.  Logically the question arises, why? Well, as long as I considered entirely wrong both “the class struggle” and its devilish and condemned tool, “the class enemy,” which was so intensely ill-used by the communist dictatorship in Albania, then I should by no means let myself look from the same angle the collaboration of Mr. Arben Xhixho with the VOA. And now, the following question comes up: why did I decide to speak up and expose his actions today? It is because they are identical to the directives given out by Ramiz Alia when he predicted the communists would morph into capitalists.  To this day I believe Mr. Arben Xhixho conformed his stance at every opportunity to condemn the communist dictatorship to its core, just as Ramiz Alia directed when the communist dictatorship crumbled. It is clear to the eye, he did it only to be trusted by his VOA superiors. Today, as the chief of the Albanian service of VOA, he turns back to “the class struggle” and plays it out on the two sisters, who were extremely persecuted by the communist dictatorship, by placing them on administrative leave after their thirty years of work at the VOA Albanian service. So it is his deceitful approach that makes me fill with disgust, for I see their placement on administrative leave as an extension of “the class struggle,” a creed that nurtured Mr. Arben Xhixho from his very young age.

IN PLACE OF THE EPILOGUE

It is not effective to discuss supposed directives given by the last Albanian communist dictator Ramiz Alia to appoint communists or their scions at the head of every political pluralistic institution in Albania’s democratic foundations, but it is essential to analyze the aftermath of the events, from the time when the communist dictatorial system crumbled. The placement on administrative leave of the two heroines is a flagrant act of “the class struggle” mentality, which occurred not in Albania but in the US, at the Albanian Service of the Voice of America. Inevitably, supported by the course of factual events, it is crucial to make inferences and draw conclusions.

AAFH Translation

NO JUSTICE YET

by Mustafa Xhepa

As the Holocaust continues to capture the minds and the imaginations of writers and movie directors of the entire civilized world, the Red Holocaust, more horrific than the first one, has been in the shadows and its story remains almost untold. Should the silence be broken? Is the time ripe for a discussion and exposure of what happened and why? Rightly so, voices rise in objection to the West for cultivating a memorial culture, only for the Holocaust, and turning a blind eye to what happened in the Communist hell, the Red Holocaust. I think the reason for this asymmetry is closely related to the historical reality: the survivors of the communist genocide have not yet created a collective memory in the West. They still have to fully illuminate their painful, but heroic life stories. When justice is not served, memory assumes the function of the law...


Klement Islami

Tirana, 1975. At the entrance of Petro Nini Luarasi High School two grey suits flanked Klement. The cruel faces told him they wanted to clarify something at the Principal’s office. In the office, Communist Party Secretary, Vasilika waited for him, along with two of his friends, the informers. She told him he was expelled from school for agitation and propaganda against the people’s power. “Silence is suicide,” Klement had said. “One day we will feel guilty, if today we shut our eyes to evil... Whoever despises the inhumane reality must oppose it.” Right after he was informed of being expelled from school, the two interrogators grabbed him from his arms and dragged him out. “I looked at the second floor window and visually calculated the distance. I wanted to jump out the window, headfirst, to end my life before I ended up in their hands, but the hyenas sensed my thinking and clenched my arms even tighter. ‘It is still too early, first you must go through our bench plane,’ they said and dragged me out.” The State Security vehicle was waiting for him inside the schoolyard. The same day, his parents, two sisters and grandmother were forcefully sent to internal exile in one of the death camps in the south of the country, Çerma.

Inside the steel doors of the special interrogation cell in Tirana, communist terrorists used the most macabre torture on his young body. They burnt his flesh with cigarette ember. They used electric shock on his ears and genitals. For days they handcuffed his hands tight onto his back and kept him in shackles until he fell, fainting. They demanded he collaborate with them. Klement did not succumb. He was nourished by the blood and spirit of an anti-Communist family. His father, one of the few intellectuals that had graduated from the Physical Academy in Italy, was a staunch anti-Communist, while his uncle had died in prison as an enemy of the Communist regime. At the same time in the next jail cell, Viktor Martini, a political prisoner, was being tortured.

For a whole month they left Klement in solitary confinement, a concrete, windowless, complete dark prison cell. Even when they moved him into a cell with other prisoners, his assigned prison mate, a red army officer, howled: “Don’t give bread to the enemy of the Party! Let him die! He does not deserve the care of the Party! Long live the Party!” The communist officer, a Party loyal, was in prison because he had stolen from the unit where he had served.

June 1984. I met with Klement near Kristoforidhi Statue in Elbasan city. His suffering in Çerma labor camp, in Lushnja, had stolen his youth. His yellow, curly hair had grown long and was damaged from working long hours in the fields under the sun. He asked me about my family and repeated his advice to not trust anyone easily, so I would not end up like him. “The psychological torture used by anti-humans,” he said, “aims to make you lose trust in the person closest to you. To imprison you, they make use of your acquaintances, friends, family members, girlfriend, and even the person dearest to you, whom you most trust and love.”

It was noontime. I invited him to lunch. The Director of Elbasan Psychiatric Hospital passed by. In that hospital, Klement was tortured for some time in a special ward, where political dissidents were kept in isolation. Klement's whole body shivered with revolt. We sat at a table in the back of the restaurant.

“Muçi,” he said, “I am sure one day we’ll see the anti-humans brought to justice. He (the hospital director) is one of them. He allowed his doctors cause skin abscesses on my leg.”
***
The psychiatric hospital was widely known by locals for the hidden mission it served. Hundreds of political prisoners were forcibly brought there and would never leave.

Abscess was known among political prisoners as a torture caused by the injection of the pine tree resin in different parts of the body, most commonly in the leg. The injected bacteria caused massive infections, which would often result in leg amputation.

Behind the hospital was Kolonia. There, surrounded by barbed wires, the dissidents were kept until they were physically and mentally degraded, from the drugs forcefully administered by doctors and nurses, who were cautiously selected as tools of oppression by the State Security, Sigurimi.

After calming down, Klement began to analyze the days in captivity, “the oppression of the human by the anti-human,” as he called the communist oppression. He spoke of the horrors in internment: the strenuous manual labor and the hard life full of suffering, searches and endless interrogations. “Nazism,” he told me, “built concentration camps to exterminate the human races they did not want to exist. Communism has turned the extermination camps into the backbone of ‘industrialization of the country,’ the foundation of the system based on the slave labor that digs canals, dries marshes and builds factories. Then he described in detail the small ‘lake’ he created near his cottage and his long political talks with his sisters, Isabela and Zamira. As he was talking, he pointed out the other side of the street, where his relatives lived. “Even they, just like the anti-humans, denounced my family,” he said. We were quiet for a while. Then Klement broke the silence.

“Let’s go!” He said. “I want to see her, who knows when we will meet each other again.” We went to building 41. His girlfriend lived there. We sat on the sidewalk and waited. She came shortly, and in my presence, she begged him not to see her again. She had been threatened to lose her job, because of her relations with him. Klement did not say a word, but I could see the pain in his eyes.

It was almost six o’clock. He had to catch the train back to Lushnja. “Let’s go!” he said. We walked to the station in silence. It was the last time I saw him.
***
1994. In Washington in one of the halls of the US Congress, I met with Zamira, Klement’s youngest sister, who currently works in the free world with her sister Isabella for the Voice of America. After we greeted each other and Elez Biberaj, who was with her, left, our conversation quickly turned to Klement. Zamira described her last moments with him. “We waited for the night to fall,” She said. “Then we got in the water. Klement asked us to swim ahead, while he followed from behind. We swam throughout the night, encouraging each other, ‘Just a little further! Don’t give up! We are close to freedom!’ Time and again, the border guards’ searchlight fell on us. At dawn we were tired. I started to fall asleep. Isabela was stronger. An Italian tourist’s yacht saw her and picked her up. They found me. We searched and searched for Klement...” She choked up and could not continue. With her head bent down she sat on the shining marble floor. While I, deeply touched, recalled Klement’s words: “Muçi, I am sure one day we’ll see the anti-humans brought to justice …”



One summer morning in 1984, after saying ‘good bye’ to his dear parents, Klement along with his sisters, Isabela and Zamira, traveled toward Saranda. They used their annual leave as reason for vacation in the coastal city, and they stayed at the worker’s resting home. The following evening, they, positioned behind a big rock, waited for a few minutes and went into the water to swim towards freedom, towards the West. After hours of tiresome swimming, just when they thought they reached freedom, Klement noticed the border guards patrolling the area. Trying not to attract his sisters’ attention, he encouraged them to swim faster, while he himself stayed behind.

To save his sisters, he changed direction. He swam south. As he distanced himself from his dear sisters, the motorboat of the red criminals was getting closer to him. He tried several times to dive deeper in attempt to escape the guards on the lookout, but the criminals were so close and had spotted him.

They yelled at him to surrender. They hit him with the bow of the motorboat, but Klement did not give in. Deep in the sea he was swimming to freedom.

They searched for him in the dark abyss. They tied him with ropes and pulled him to the waters of the Communist prison. Hog-tied, they dragged him along Saranda Bay to terrorize the citizens. But the martyr, though dead, radiated freedom, love and heroism.

AAFH Translation

Communist Prosecutor

By Visar Zhiti




Extract from the book “Trails of Hell”



The prosecutor seemed notoriously oppressive and thick-skinned. In his heavy coat and bushy animal skin collar, he looked like a wild beast. Well, I guess spring hasn’t arrived yet. At first I thought they had brought policeman Marku to confront me in case I had broken a rule in the prison cell. I feel bad I was dubious about Marku, but…

“This is the district prosecutor, comrade Avdi Gashi,” said the interrogator.

“Explain yourself clearly, or I’ll rip off your pants!” brayed the prosecutor. I did not understand what was wrong with him. “They even requested you to be a writer in Tirana,” he let out a loud bray like a burp. His cheeks and trachea must have hurt from it. “But we turned them down. And we were right. How could we let an enemy go there? Is he going to explain himself, or should we charge him with an additional crime,” he turned his head toward the interrogator, “let’s add…?”

“He will talk. He has no way out,” the interrogator assured him.

What further accusation is the prosecutor so easily charging me with, as if he is simply adding another ladle of soup in my bowl?

“What did you want with ‘rakatakia,’* who you got involved with?” The prosecutor asked with contempt. “Eh?”

Even the interrogator got confused. He asked him in a whisper:

“What do you mean by that, comrade Prosecutor?”

“I don’t know! He knows who ‘rakatakia’ is… the Japanese one.”

(Do they want to accuse me of being a Japanese spy?)

“Aha, you are right,” the interrogator chuckled. “What is the name of the Japanese poet you translated; since you couldn’t stay out of it?” Irritated, he turned towards me, “Eh, ‘Taketukia?’* Ah! What did you want do with him?”

When I was a student, I couldn’t stand reading passages of Enver Hoxha’s speeches in Russian, which sounded mediocre, gorarçe* translated, and boring, so I found a Japanese poet to read outside of class, Isikava Takuboku. (Did I need to report this to my killers as well?) My friend from Korça, Skënder Rusi, and I decided not to waste our time terribly in vain and chose to translate a poet who would be permitted for exams. We picked a far, far-off Japanese poet who had a lesser known biography. Frankly, he was all we could find. H. Leka from Shkodra lent us the book from his personal library. He was our professor and our friend. We translated the whole book from Russian. But in his notebook Skënder interpreted the tanks more imaginatively and I, perhaps, a little more ironically.

“Talk to us! Why don’t you speak? Vermin! Who gave you rakatakia and taketukia, and why?”

I perceived senseless mumbling sounds.

“What were your relations with critic Xhezair Abazi?” The interrogator asked me abruptly.

“Same as with the others,” I said.

“Is he talking about Xhambazi”* Howled the prosecutor.

Then they were chatting over something, but the prosecutor could not lower his voice; he would find it easier to unload a heavy bundle of oak twigs from his back than bring down his voice. What? Sparks? What are they informing each other about? What is this Golden Pen…?

“But they also asked you to be a writer, you renegade!” Despite his old age, the prosecutor charged towards me, but the interrogator held him back.

“Wait, don’t you worry about it, I will fix him.”



Translated from The Albanian by Hilda Xhepa

___________________________________________________________________________

* Rakatakia in Albanian slang is a child’s rattle toy.

* Taketukia in Albanian slang means ashtray.

* Gorarçe in Albanian means grammatically incorrect.

* The prosecutor mispronounced his name; Xhambazi in Albanian means swindler.

Time to Switch Places

(Extract from the book Torn Hell by Visar Zhiti)

New prisoners were pouring in, yet we were still unacquainted with each other: becoming so was even forbidden. Without others, there is no self. An entire impoverished population, vaguely identically dressed, sheared, famished--so much so that he appears to be you, and you resemble another. No self exists, but a translucent emptiness, copied into 1000 living multiples, 2000, one million, millions… in ancient slavery, you were a slave of 3000 years ago, so long had you served prison time. Among us it was said that astronauts from the depth of the cosmos, from the moon perhaps, were able to distinguish our prisons, caverns, rows of prisoners, a long chain, longer than rivers.  There were prisons nowhere else.

Among the new prisoners unloaded from the next prison truck was a young man with a very whitish face, paler than those of people coming from interrogation cells. A black jacket was still on him, tossed across his shoulders, a blazer with double vents. Maybe it was a sign of the fashion outside…

Take it to the clothing depot, they said, and you will get it back upon release, if … [rotten.] Leave your shoes and pants and put on the prison uniform.

Having done so, he emerged from the mass of surfaced newcomers, silent and slow, with a dignity stemming from such slowness. He started up the road leading to the barbed wires, ignoring the prisoners’ surging anxiety. We fixed our eyes on him. He was confidently mounting uphill, his head held high. “Hey!” voices were heard, “Where are you going? There is no way out there. The soldiers shoot…” 

These cries caught the attention of inside guards, until one surprisingly rushed toward the newcomer, yelling to him, “Stop! The soldiers really do fire! “E-e-e-e-h, convict! Y-o-u-u-u, do not fire!” Without looking back, he kept on, a civilian. He walked into the killing zone, where “Do Not Enter” signs swayed in the wind, like graveyard crosses. At the nearest guard tower, a soldier, as if inside the open head of a wooden monster, was aiming from the fangs with his machine gun. “No!” cried the inside guard, “Do not fire, soldier--I am here, too!”  He reached the new prisoner, grabbed his arms and dragged him. “Turn back,” he yelled, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you crossing into the forbidden zone? Do you want to be killed? Look at your friends--be patient!” The former citizen kept silent. “Are you insane?” 

“As you say,” he nodded, bewildered. Approaching, he looked at us and was more terrified of us than of the guns. He must have pictured himself as one of us.

An obscure sadness overtook me. Was it for myself, or for him who wanted to be killed? I did not dare kill myself. I was not even thinking. What would I kill; we were no longer beings. Then my sadness fell entirely on the newcomer, the unknown newcomer. Better he was killed, to challenge and then to be freed. I was horrified to be thinking this way, so mercilessly about another life. I had no right to wish the death of someone else, even when they wished for mine.

What about our psychologist, if he really was one, if they were allowed, (they were considered Freudians, banned, but perhaps he became a psychologist in prison; there was no opportunity to become one, but raw material was plenty), he reasoned thus: “When the inside guard, a living rubber baton of the dictatorship, dares and saves the life of an enemy, it must mean the dictator is very sick, or dying, or rather he has died, and they are hiding his death, like they did in ancient Chinese dictatorships, where dead emperors led. By saving the life of a prisoner, the class-struggle policeman helps his own later survival, so in a certain way, he prolongs the existence of evil, moreover by denying one’s right to die.” 

“What? Don’t you think the policeman saved the man’s life simply because his humanity compelled him?” 

“No, no, no way. He has saved his skin from imprisonment; time has come to switch places. The police sniffed it out, how could I not sense it?”

Switching places is not change. Can’t there be a society without judges and the judged, without prisons and dictatorship?

Utopia, like communism.

Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa   

Time to trade places

 Visar Zhiti

(Extract from the novel “Torn Hell” by Visar Zhiti)

New prisoners kept coming before we old timers had had a chance to get to know each other, which, by the way, was forbidden. The lack of contact with others lessened one’s self-perception. That poor mass of humanity, seemingly dressed the same, with identical haircuts, equally famished, where another seemed to be you and you someone else; without individuality we were nothing if not empty transparencies, multiplied by a thousand, or two thousand, by a million, by millions.  During the age of slavery, three thousand years ago, this setup would have reduced you to nothing more than a slave due to your long years of imprisonment We whispered among ourselves that cosmonauts could see our jails from afar, from the cosmos, perhaps from the moon, the prison caves, the rows of the condemned, the seemingly endless chain of them, stretching longer than the rivers. There were no prisons anywhere else.

            Among the prisoners emerging one day from the police van was a young man with a face paler than those of others who had survived their interrogation period. Around his shoulders he wore a black jacket with a flap in the back. Perhaps that was the fashion outside. He was told to take it to the clothes depot; he would get it back the day he was discharged (or whatever was left of it). He was also to get rid of his shoes and pants and don the prison uniform.

            When he was done, he emerged from among the new arrivals and silently, slowly, with the dignity of slow motion, he started climbing the path toward the barbed wire fence, disregarding the prisoners’ mounting tension. We had fixed our eyes on him. He walked sure-footed, his head held high. “Hey” – said some voices- “where are you going? There is no exit there. The guards will open fire. . .” These voices caught the attention of the guards inside the compound, where one of them, unexpectedly, rushed toward the newcomer screaming that he stop, as the guards would shoot: “Hey you, prisoneeer! You guards, don’t shoooot.” The prisoner, however, continued walking, without turning his head, with dignity. He entered the killing zone where signs marked “DO NOT ENTER” were buffeted by the wind like crosses in a graveyard. The soldier in the nearest guard tower, like from inside a wooden monster head and from between its teeth, was aiming his automatic rifle in our direction. “No,” yelled the guard from inside the compound, “soldier, don’t fire, I, too, am here.” He reached the recently sentenced man, grabbed him by his arms and pulled him back. “Turn around,” he yelled, “what’s the matter with you? Why are you crossing into the forbidden zone, or are you trying to get killed?” Look at the other inmates, be patient!”  The former citizen did not open his mouth. “Are you insane?” He nodded in agreement. When he came close to us, he looked bewildered, more terrified of us than of the guns. He probably saw himself like one of us.

            I was overcome by sorrow, I didn’t know whether for me or for him who wanted to get killed. I not only did not dare kill myself, but had given up thinking altogether. Besides, whom was I supposed to kill, we were no longer human beings. My sorrow turned completely toward the unknown newcomer. It would have been better for him had he been killed. It would have been over for him and a challenge to the status quo. My very thoughts terrified me, for being so merciless toward another’s life. I had no right to want someone else’s death, even though others felt that way toward me.

            I doubt it that from the very beginning we had a psychologist among us. Had there been one, he would have been rejected as a Freudian. More likely, someone among us could have become a psychologist in prison. Chances were slim but psychological anomalies were all around us. A psychologist could have thought along these lines: “The inside guard, no more than a rubber truncheon for the regime, dares to save an enemy’s life. That must mean that the dictator is very ill, probably in his death throes; he may even be dead. They may be hiding it as in ancient Chinese dictatorships that were ‘led’ by dead emperors. Thus, the policeman of the ‘class warfare’, by saving the life of a prisoner may have been promoting his own future thus extending the life of an evil, even as he prevented death.”

            Why, are you thinking that the policeman did not save the prisoner’s life, just out of human concern . . . ?

            “No, no, no way, he was trying to avoid being arrested. Time has come for us to trade places. How could I miss it if the policeman didn’t?”

            Trading places is not necessarily a change. Can there be no society without condemned individuals, hence without judges, without jails, without prisoners?

Translated from The Albanian by Genc Korça

The Ambassador

By Teuta Mema



In the marble hall, in the crystal building near the Hudson River bank, Manhattan, New York, a U.N. conference on the vulnerability of women and children took place. Founded after World War two, the UN seeks to encourage peace between nations and foster international cooperation on pressing global issues. Representatives from six continents lectured, recounting stories from all around the world. A large portion of the participants described the morbid sufferings of women and children, but free Western nations, like the United Sates, gave positive accounts. The discussion stretched past the meeting, into corridors, and behold in one corner, some shake hands with the Ambassador of a tiny country. His speech impressed them, a small nation, straight out of communism, in a short period of time, has been able to secure the safe treatment of women and children. The cases the Ambassador provided intrigued the audience, so the discussion outside of the meeting centered on those.

Ambassador Agim Nesho




…It was winter; the wind slashed the freezing rain onto a woman’s youthful face and onto the small daughter holding her hand. The woman silently cried, her child wailed, the two sobbed and the cold rain swirled their tears, showering their soft faces in the dark night, dark like the land, communist Albania. The bare land, its undergrowths strangled in the iron palm of the Stalin Replica, was suffocated in heavy air of terror. Dictator Enver Hoxha killed thousands and thousands of innocent people and in the end, his devoted comrades in arms.

“Go to hell! You, daughter of an enemy of the Party! You and your creature, your creature! It is not mine! It cannot be mine! It is your monster! Enemies!”

“Please, do not throw us out on this winter’s night; the Party will re-evaluate! My father is not an enemy. My father is a doctor.”

“No, away you! The little devil is not mine!” He closed the door, leaving his wife, Liliana Ziçishti and daughter, Julka Nesho to the downpour…

The ambassador declared how he personally adored his family. A woman was by his side. He presented her to the surrounding delegates, as they shook her hand. They passed her around, a dance of greetings, her silver dress, flashing about them. Politicians eagerly spoke with her about her home, and raised glittering crystal glasses to the marble heights, cheers to Albania, Albania’s families. This time the new wife was different. She was loved by the party.



Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa

ONE PERSON - TWO POINTS OF VIEW: HIS EXCELLENCY BABA REXHEB.

by  Mërgim Korça

After almost half a century when commitment to the Fatherland was considered a crime, virtue became a sin, and knowledge was marked for prosecution, the light of day finally replaced the nightmare of the seemingly unending darkness of communism.  In this regard, the presidential decree signed by Albania’s President Prof.Dr.Sali Berisha awarding his excellency Baba Rexheb the high title of - The Nation’s Honor - corrected a gross injustice by placing the late Baba Rexheb at the high altar of our nation side by side with the other recipient of this high honor, with Mother Theresa, the Albanian of Calcutta.

By this presidential decree, from now on Baba Rexheb will no longer be a “traitor of the people and a criminal whose hands were dripping wet with the blood of the people”.  Instead and in truth, he will be known as the true saint he was.  No matter how hard I may try, I don’t think I could describe him better than Father Bellusci, the Arberesh (Italo-Albanian) religious, who portrayed him with these words : “ … speaking with him (Baba Rexheb) you realized you were before a sage of advanced age who uttered only words of sainthood, dedicated to love and brotherhood among people, words of compassion and generosity …”. 

I firmly believe that the presidential decree and Fr.Bellusci’s ringing endorsement of Baba Rexheb are most convincing and that they dispose of the slander with which he was depicted by Enver Hoxha’s (1) sycophants and prolific falsifiers of history.  Needless to say, Enver Hoxha’s fair-haired boys used the same mudslinging techniques against any true patriot and every honest intellectual.

In the past, others, including this writer, have written about Baba Rexheb both in Albania and in the diaspora focusing principally on his personal merits.  On the occasion of the presidential decree, I believe time has come to approach his lofty figure from a different angle by examining why his beliefs and virtues were bound to clash with the communist dogma of class warfare against patriots, distinguished intellectuals, and against all people of integrity.

How do I remember Baba Rexheb ?  I remember, as if it were now, his subtle smile when he gazed at me sweetly as he proceeded to tease me :

“ … my son, it is unfortunate that you are dealing with a traitor whose hands drip with the blood of the people”.  As time went by, I began to notice that Baba used this expression fairly frequently.  Finally, it dawned on me how deeply the communist slander had hurt him.  Gradually, I also came to recognize the three basic factors that were at the root of the communist wrath.

First, because Baba was the quintessential patriot.

Second, because he  was  virtue  personified.  And,

Third, because his knowledge was almost limitless.

I believe it can be said without exaggeration that his patriotism was unsurpassed from early youth until the day his spirit left this earth.  In 1920, he and his spiritual guide, Baba Selim, sent this telegram to Qazim Koculi (2), the strategist of the War of Vlora that successfully dislodget the remnants of the Italian forces from Albania :  “We are with you in spirit.  If you want us at your side in person, let us know by dusk and we can be at Kote at your side by dawn”.

Almost a quarter of a century later, fully formed in character and spirit, Baba, Baba Rexheb covers the province of Gjirokaster from end to end to stop the fratricidial war being fomented by the Albanian Communist Party, this blind tool of Slavic interests.  His other aim is to prevent the people from being deceived by the communist propaganda of “national liberation” spread by Bedri Spahiu (3) and Shemsi Totozani (4) that would lead to the massacre of Grehot (5).  Baba Rexheb’s untiring efforts, his convincing arguments, his inspired religious convictions and compassion, tirelessly opposed the propaganda of Bedri Spahiu and his companions who were thirsting for blood.  Unfortunately, circumstances made it impossible for Baba Rexheb and the other distinguished patriots to stop the onslaught of events that cost the Albanian people so dearly.

What lessons can we draw from Baba Rexheb’s virtues and humanitarian character ?  During one of my trips to Albania, I happened to see copy of a recently published so-called self criticism by Bedri Spahiu.  I will not say what I thought of it so as not to get side tracked and simply stick to the facts.  Upon my return I went to see Baba at his monastery and after some small talk I gave him Bedri Spahiu’s writing.  He asked me to read it to him and followed every word with great concentration.  When I finished, Baba was immersed in deep thought.  I waited until he spoke again.  “Listen, my son”, he said, “all my life I have been praying for Bedri Spahiu as he is in great need of prayers because of his many crimes and sins.  Usually, even convinced atheists begin to believe in religion as they grow old.  Now I feel even sorrier for Bedri that despite his advanced age he continues to lie about events.  He needs my prayers now more than ever”.  Thus Baba closed the chapter Bedri Spahiu and we changed the topic.  Now I began to understand one of Baba Rexheb’s lessons that I had heard before but had never made my own.  Baba had often spoken about our duty to pray to God, adding that he never let a moment go to waste without offering prayers.  “You, my beloved good people must know”, he added ‘that I pray very little for you compared to my prayers for evil people and particularly for those who have hurt me.  And the more they have hurt me, the more I pray that God Almighty save their souls.  Good people are already close to the Lord and therefore need fewer prayers”.

Baba held broad ecumenical views in matter of religion.  He often said that to get closer to God we had to rise above the earthly fog and above the clouds and only then could we see before our eyes the shining light of the one and only Lord of the universe.  This lesson of his sheds much light on his impressive stature and  deep understanding as an ecumenist whose motto was : “All believers in a single God believe in the same Creator”.

One day Baba and I were talking about mysticism in general and Moslem mysticism in particular.  As he delved into his favorite topic of Bektashi mysticism, he looked deep into my eyes and said : “You may think it exaggerated that I insist ceaselessly that man must do his utmost to fight his egoism.  Believe me, egoism is like a high mountain before our eyes and God is behind this mountain.  If we cannot conquer this mountain, we will never see God Almighty”. By now it should be clear that Baba, as a most honorable patriot, fully deserved to be branded a “criminal and a traitor” by the communists.  Similarly, his “guilt” as a most virtuous man was beyond question.  At this juncture, we should find it easy to recognize the many and diverse reasons that prompted his communist accusers to consider him guilty as charged.

Baba Rexheb’s vast knowledge was like a diamond mine appearing at first sight only like a narrow tunnel.  One had to be a master in one’s own right to penetrate into the very depths of shafts and galleries before gazing at all the hidden treasures.  I stress the need for mastery because I am convinced that Baba Rexheb revealed only enough learning so as not to hurt my feelings by leaving me too far behind.  I have come to understand this now as I think back to the conversations with Baba when he used to quote one of the many maxims of the great Haxhi Bektash Veliu : “Never show your knowledge before the uneducated because it is like standing stuffed with food before the hungry”.  One day as I was chitchatting with Baba, I don’t remember what prompted me to ask him :  “I recall that Baba Selim was your uncle and your spiritual adviser in your formative years.  Now that you are in your nineties, how would you compare your present knowledge with Baba Selim’s when you last saw him in 1944”?  Baba Rexheb smiled, peered deeply into my eyes, and answered :  “One cannot compare my knowledge to that of Baba Selim, my son”.  I insisted that Baba Rexheb should leave modesty aside and answer me as if speaking of a third person.  When he understood that I was determined to seek an answer, he thought for a while and then began to answer very quietly : “I will show you that Baba Selim’s knowledge by far surpassed mine in many respects.  Listen.  Baba Selim’s knowledge of Persian was much deeper than mine.  So was his Turkish, both in its classical and in its modern version.  His Arabic was also far superior enabling him to translate and render even its finest subtleties.  Are you now convinced, my son, that Baba Selim had a superior set of keys with which to open the doors leading to Bektashi Mysticism ?  Let me explain :  According to Bektashi Mysticism, the two most important human attributes are knowledge and kindness.  Knowledge and learning pave the road leading to God.  Kindness enables one to endure sufferings and insults inflicted by the populace.  By now you should have no difficulty understanding that the greater your knowledge and learning, the easier it will be for you to find your way to God.  Therefore, Baba Selim was much better equipped to find the way”.  It was at this point that I began to fathom the breadth and depth of the mystical knowledge of these two masters of Bektashi Mysticism. 

I cannot end this review of Baba Rexheb seen from a different perspective without mentioning one more incident.  Without intending to include Ramiz Alia (6) in this article, I only want to mention that at the death of Shefqet Peci, commander of the Fifth Partisan Division, Ramiz Alia spoke with the same virulence about the figure of Baba Rexheb as had the slanderous communist propaganda apparatus for almost 50 years under the very direction of Alia.  Recognizing that propaganda is propaganda and the facts are facts, I invite the reader to form his own judgement about Baba Rexheb who, even though of small stature was a true moral giant and ardent patriot.  I am not surprised that almost 50 years before, sharing the defeat of Bedri Spahiu, his comrade in arms - or rather in crime, Alia would back Spahiu whenever the latter had the misfortune of crossing swords with Baba Rexheb.  But to continue this scurrilous slander against Baba Rexheb half a century later is hard to understand.  This is perhaps what the Latin author had in mind when he wrote :  “Errare humanum est sed perseverare diabolicum”.  (To err is human, to persist is diabolical).

On the other hand, it may be appropriate for Ramiz Alia to continue to spew slander against Baba Rexheb as the latter will probably have prayed for Alia just as he had for Bedri Spahiu.

Footnotes :

Enver Hoxha :  Albania’s undisputed ruler and First Secretary of the Communist Party from the end of World War Two until his death in 1985.  Because of his crimes, he has been compared to North Korea’s Kim Il Sung.

(1)  Qazim Koculi :  A graduate of the High Academy of the Admiralty in Constantinople.  During the Vlora War, he was the strategist and military leader of the Albanian forces.  Mussolini never forgot this and, 23 years later, ordered professional killers to assassinate this distinguished Albanian patriot.

(2)  Bedri Spahiu :  During the Civil War, secretary of the Albanian Communist Party for the region of Gjirokaster;  also member of the Politburo of the Central Committee.  Prosecuting attorney at the first show trial of the political elite.

(3)  Shemsi Totozani :  Deputy secretary of the Communist Party for the region of Gjirokaster.

(4)  Battle of Grehot, September 14, 1943 :  A battalion of the nationalist organization Balli Kombetar, under the command of Hysni Lepenica, was on its way to accept the surrender of the Italian Division Perugia following Italy’s surrender on September 8.  Bedri Spahiu and Shemsi Totozani conned the italian troops into believing that the Albanian battalion’s true intentions were to massacre the italian garrison.  The Italian troops opened fire killing 35 Albanians, as well as Hysni Lepenica.

(5)  Ramiz Alia :  Political commissar of the Fifth Albanian communist division during the Civil War and member of the Central Committee Politburo for over 40 years.  He assumed Enver Hoxha’s position as First Secretary of the Communist Party at Enver Hoxha’s death. 

Translated from The Albanian by Genc Korça