A rare article by Faik Konica about Ali saw Tepelena

By Fai k Konica - Written in 1910

We were used to seeing insults against Ali Pasha of Tepelen in the writings of the French and Turks. Issue 4 of the "Drita" newspaper, published in Bulgaria, shows us that from now on, among the insults of foreigners, will be added the slanders of Tuscany.

The curses of the French have their entire source in the books of Pouqueville, the general of France in Ioannina at that time. The French that Bonaparte sent after the Egyptian war to plunder Albania, these good French defeated and torn apart by Ali Pasha in Preveza; the English-friendly policy of Ali Pasha, which opposed many goals of the French, the love of Pouqueville (who had his head full of the beautiful history of ancient Greece) for the Greeks, the fierce grudge against the Albanians; his fights and fights for days with Ali Pasha: these and others prevented Pouqueville from reporting impartially - impartially - as a true historian should.

Therefore, the curses against Ali and the Albanian nation in his books; from there, two or three quick vials for any good and honest work, and a hundred pages for any mistake, for any skill or for any evil that Ali Pasha did. In the sea, I easily wear the curses of the French, a little more the curses of the Turks.

As all Historians say, and Pouqueville himself, Ali Pasha lit the first spark that brought mourning and broke the Turk's reign in the Balkans. And that's why the Tartars, their wrestlers, insult our Pasha Ali. What are the Poturaks of Toskëria insulting him, and how do they insult him? "Drita" teaches us in its number 4: "Our Ali Pasha (!), says, first I show bravery and great and popular deeds. But finally he took out his eyes altogether; had captured the iniquities, the vile and the dirty of the Sultans. Indeed, those Albanians who made you enemies and traitors to Ali Pasha, inviting friendship to the Anatolian governor and Mahmud and asking for help from him who was one of the most despicable barbarians in Asia, have always been evil, even their name it will be taken for granted and with sharia...

Yes, he made his own faults and mistakes. So Ali Pasha and his works do not have any significance for the Albanians; Apart from the damage, Albania did not receive any good or profit from Ali Pasha and from Shkodran... The Albanian nation has the greatest honor from Skënder Bey". It's good that the article adds these last words, because they tell us the extent of his mind.

Skanderbeg is so tall and so high, there are so many changes, so many ways in so many things, how much should a man really be able to think of comparing him and comparing him with Ali Pasha of Tepelen . Let's see this and let's get to work. "Drita" finds Ali Pasha "unscrupulous, vile, and dirty" for bringing harm to Albania. What's the harm? Bashustunets tell us below: That the "infidels" of Ali Pasha liberated Greece! - Here you can see the vileness of the villains who call themselves nationals burning for freedom: They want freedom for Albania, but not for other nations. As true Turks that they are, their souls burn that Greece was liberated. A little while ago, didn't we see many Albanians from their neighborhood crying that "Gjiriti is saved", despite the fact that this poor man, drowned in blood, not only deserved to be saved, but also help, luck had come to us, to be freed from Turku's nails. When the neighbors want to cross the border of their rights to their detriment, then we oppose them and hit them, very well; but when they also want to get their rights, then they are their friends and comrades, they also suffer like us, and only a soul-slave Turk must think otherwise. The leadership and liberation of Greece were very bad things, and indeed those people like the Poturaks of that country who do not want their freedom, do not deserve for themselves freedom but eternal slavery. In order to properly judge a man who has played a role in history, we must judge him not according to the thoughts of today's time, but according to the time in which he lived, lived and lived. Ali Pash, for the customs and the way of ruling, was a man of that time: educated in the political school of Turku,

But where is he above others, where is Ali Pasha really strange: by subtlety, by strength of will, by mind. The mind of Ali Pasha!

And how can the good people understand it, and why should we be angry that they didn't understand it? In order to learn about the life and works of Ali Pasha, a dozen English books, five or six Greek and three or four French books must be read, which were written through him; and we know for a fact that those gentlemen of "Drite" do not know a single one of these three languages, nor have they captured a story of the lion of Tepelen by hand, nor do they know anything else about Ali Pasha, except for the stories that the Toskëria zapts tell when they lie cross-legged they talk by rubbing their bare feet with their hands. We have seen, better than Albanian, French, English and Greek, all that was written by Ali Pasha, only one thing we want to ask the Poturaks: "We are not saying that you are bad Albanians, but in name of God, why do you want to judge things you don't know?

Ali Pasha, uneducated, friendless, surrounded by enemies, reached, only by the force of his will, on an almost royal scale. People like Lord Byro, like Admiral Nelson, like King Gustav-Adolf of Sweden, had the honor of growing up with him. Albanians woke up, united, felt a sense of compunction under his rule. And, by making this union, he did not stop for a day to command an Albanian army with the advice of some French officials he had. It is clear that his opinion is the liberation of Albania. "It is a matter that cannot be denied - says Aravantinoi, an enemy of Albanianism - that Ali Pasha had already memorized the deeds of an Albanian king". There are hundreds of proofs of this saying in Ali Pasha's life; you know that the narrowness of the place does not allow us to extend. It suffices to translate a piece from the Writings of Prince Metternich, the late Chancellor of the Austrian Empire: “…. Ali Pasha sent me on March 3, 1822 - says Prici i Metternich - a man of faith with a letter in which, praising me a lot, he asked me to send him an adviser to make a Constitution (a fundamental Canon of State) for Albania...".

What do I miss Ali Pasha? He lacks knowledge, he also lacks a loyal computer and is not always ready to think about money. It's a shame, at a time when the Albanian nation began to repent for the wrongdoers' past, at a time when our enemies shout at us for days on the face of Europe that we never tried for our liberation, it's a shame, I say Albanian-born people who try to diminish the faces that gave glory to Albania, instead of trying to confess that the faults of those faces were the faults of that time, but their value was their value. It's true that, when I think about what kind of Albanians they are who want to cover the name of the lion who put the sword to Turkey, we are quickly comforted...