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Open letter after a statement that calls the occupation of Albania by a fascist army "something more natural"

2022-10-13 18:40:43Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA FATOS TARIFA
Open letter after a statement that calls the occupation of Albania by a fascist
Fatos Tariff

Dear Prime Minister!

I heard you in the hall of the Assembly of Albania two days ago when you greeted the Academy of Sciences of Albania on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of its establishment. I was glad that in your speech you mentioned with the respect they deserve the "founding fathers" of this academy, Aleks Buda and Eqerem Çabej, whom you rightly described as "colossus" of Albanian science.

I completely agree with you that, from the 1990s onwards, politics has brutally interfered in the activity of the Academy of Sciences by dismantling its structures and abandoning that reservoir of human resources which, as you put it, was "perhaps the most precious heritage of the past".

Likewise, I share the same opinion with you that, if it had not been for Çabej and Buda, we Albanians would have been "unarmed" in the debate that takes place today about our origin, language and national history and that historians like Xhufi and Milo would find it much more difficult today to write about the history of our nation.

I completely agree with all of this. Moreover, I also share with you the view, which you articulated quite clearly in your speech that day, that "the history of the Albanians is threatened by an unparalleled ignorance and arrogance, which for many years has turned the Academy of Sciences aside in a partially political territory and in an arena of extremism".

I have long expressed and argued the opinion—and I have made this publicly known even in an open letter to you—that politics should not mix with the study of history. History should be left to historians, jurists and sociologists to study, write and evaluate and re-evaluate on the basis of new documents that may come to light from time to time.

Only those historians and researchers, who do not trade their scientific and moral integrity for privileges and offices, can discover and explain historical truths. This cannot be done by pseudo-historians, nor by those historians who serve the interests of the day and the politics of the season. The latter (and, unfortunately, there are many), change their views and attitudes, many times hiding or distorting historical facts, with the change of seasons in politics, with the change of parties in power.

Politicians and governments are equally incapable of studying and interpreting history. I regret to note, dear Prime Minister, that you also continue to express and defend historical considerations that contradict historical truths, historical logic and the sentiments of the majority of Albanians.

In your golden jubilee address to the Academy of Sciences, you rightly criticized the "unprecedented arrogance" with which politics has interfered with the interpretation of our national history to date. But, even recently, from the position of the head of the government of this country, you yourself have expressed and held equally arrogant positions on historical issues that do not belong to you, that have nothing to do with your expertise and that, for rather, they compromise your stature as a top-ranking politician.

The same day you greeted the Academy of Sciences, I read an interview you gave to the Italian television SkyTG24. Whereas, like you, I believe that the far-right political orientation of the new Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, will not have any significant negative impact on the very good interstate relations between Italy (a strategic partner for us) and the country ours, I was very impressed by your assessment in that interview about the occupation of Albania by Mussolini's fascist army. If your words in that interview were translated correctly in our media, those words said, no more and no less, that "the fascist occupation [of Albania] was an occupation as if it were something more natural, because Albania belonged to of this empire" (!!).

These words of yours, which I read by chance on the same day that you greeted Albanian scientists on the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of their Academy, sounded to me like an arrogant antithesis of what you said to them that day. I cannot know what is the meaning you give to the word invasion as "something more natural" when you talk about the occupation of Albania by Fascist Italy, but your words sounded to me like a great sacrilege. After those apologetic words, all that remains is to express our gratitude as a people and as a country to Mussolini's Italy, which conquered us in 1939.

How can you call the invasion of Albania by a fascist army that set foot on our land with about 40,000 soldiers, who came from across the Adriatic with 12 warships, with about 400 planes, tanks and motorized vehicles?! How can a fascist occupation that killed tens of thousands of people, that destroyed the very poor economy of this country, hundreds of elementary schools, churches and public buildings, as well as thousands of houses, be called "natural school"?!

Words like those, coming from the mouth of the prime minister of Albania, prove many things, but above all they prove political opportunism and a lack of dignity for the head of the government of a country that in the Second World War lined up alongside the Great Anti-Fascist Alliance and came out from that war on the side of its victors.

Your words in that interview also suggest an almost complete disregard for the Albanian people's resistance to the Italian fascist occupation and the great human and material damage our country suffered during the four and a half years of that occupation.

Those words you said to an Italian television can also be read as an arrogant and imposing message to our history researchers, to whom you say that, despite the facts and historical documents, despite the murders and destructions that the Italian fascist invaders did in Albania , despite the resistance and anti-fascist national liberation war of the Albanian people against that invasion, that invasion was "something natural".

Your words are heavy for the dignity and pride of the Albanian people, who resisted the fascist occupation with arms and heroism, as well as for the memory of those tens of thousands of Albanians killed during that occupation. You say that "Albania belonged to this empire" (!)—which empire? when? how? why?—and therefore its occupation by Fascist Italy was "something more natural". This "argument" is beneath the dignity of the head of a government elected by the vote of a people, who has been and is distinguished for his anti-fascist values.

Imagine for a moment if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zeneskyy were to tell the Ukrainian people and historians of that country today that the Russian occupation of their country's territories is "something more natural," since Russia and Ukraine have been for a long time part of the same empire—the Tsarist and Soviet empires.

Imagine for a moment if today's leaders of the Czech Republic and Hungary told the Czechs and Hungarians that the Soviet tanks in Budapest in 1956 and the Russian occupation of Prague in 1968 were "something more natural" since these two countries were in that at the time part of the communist empire and the Warsaw Pact ruled by Moscow.

Would you, Mr. Prime Minister, consider the invasion and eventual annexation of Taiwan by China as "natural" because this island, today a sovereign republic, has been part of the Chinese empire for centuries?

Dear Prime Minister!

I apologize if these lines may sound didactic to you, but the surprise and indignation caused in me by your words on the nature of the occupation of our country by Fascist Italy reinforces my conviction that politics and politicians should stay away from history and not to get involved in issues that have nothing to do with the current policies and those perspectives for the development of the country.

What the government you lead should do more and better would be to invest more in the development of higher education and science in our country, including studies in the field of history and our national tradition. This would be the most worthy service that this government and any other government would do to the development of science in Albania and the preservation of the best national heritage of our people.

With respect,

Fatos Tariff


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