[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: [balkans] Book Review: De Waal, Albania Today: a Portrait of Post-Communist Turbulence, reviewed by Antonia Young

[Agron Alibali]

> Balkan Academic News Book Review 9/2005
> 

> 
> Clarissa De Waal, Albania Today: a Portrait of
> Post-Communist Turbulence. 
> I.B.Tauris/The Centre for Albanian Studies. London.
> 2005. 268 pp., 45 GBP, 
> ISBN 1-85043-859-5. (hardcover).
> 
> Reviewed by Antonia Young (University of Bradford)
> Email: 
> a.t.i.young at bradford.ac.uk
> 
> ----------
>
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect?path=ASIN/1850438595&link_code=as2&camp=1634&tag=balkanacademi-21&creative=6738>Support
> 
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> 
> ----------
> De Waal justifies her decade-long studies of
> Albania's rapid 
> transformations against James Clifford's accusation
> of 'salvage 
> ethnography', asserting that this will serve to
> supplement other records 
> and thus help to provide a full picture of a
> particular moment in history. 
> In spite of discussion on the difficulty of her
> choice of a suitable 
> village in which to undertake research, and
> subsequent descriptions of many 
> villages studied, an essential map is missing.
> 
> The author covers Albania 's remarkably bloodless
> break with Communism 
> (1991-2), and Sali Berisha's dramatic early success
> with the Democratic 
> Party. She gives a uniquely clear analysis of the
> further dramatic changes 
> that led up to the eruption into anarchy 1996-7; a
> six-month period when 
> around 2,000 people were killed by mostly random
> shooting as a result of 
> the opening up of the country's armouries. De Waal
> notes that under 
> Berisha, the extent of the laissez-faire attitude
> (which set few guidelines 
> through governmental action) affected all aspects of
> life. She points out 
> that two of the greatest (related) setbacks
> preventing individuals from 
> being able to contribute to the development of
> Albania, were the lack of 
> any policies on both unemployment and emigration
> (both abroad and for 
> poverty stricken mountain dwellers migrating to the
> lowlands where former 
> sparsely populated state land seemed to offer
> opportunity). She explains 
> how the desperate search for work, forced Albania's
> exodus (most of whom 
> became illegal immigrants elsewhere) to be the
> greatest, per capita, of all 
> the former European Communist countries. At times as
> much as one tenth of 
> Albania's population was residing in Greece . Quite
> apart from the extreme 
> dangers they suffered from their illegal exploits,
> these immigrants were 
> also not eligible for social service benefits, and
> if they managed to 
> return to Albania with savings, there were no banks
> or safe investments 
> into which they could deposit their earnings.
> Furthermore Berisha exempted 
> the fraudulent pyramid schemes from a banking law
> which would have 
> regulated them. Thus these schemes lasted longer
> than those in other 
> transforming Communist countries, so that more and
> more people were 
> convinced by the returns they saw being received,
> and were also lured into 
> the trap whereby an estimated one third of the
> population lost substantial 
> savings and in many cases everything, including
> their homes [pp. 245-6].
> 
> In general, lesser Communist managers are found to
> have come out best 
> following Communism's fall. However those who had
> worked for the state in 
> more lowly positions, when they were fortunate
> enough not to lose their 
> jobs, found that the pay, when it was honoured,
> became miniscule as 
> inflation mounted, forced many to leave in search of
> work elsewhere. 
> Teachers had been highly respected under Communism,
> but from the 1990s 
> teachers could no longer survive on their pay. By
> 1993, 5,000 teachers had 
> left the country. Meanwhile many children could no
> longer attend school, in 
> rural areas it was often considered too dangerous to
> travel (usually on 
> foot) to school; additionally their labour was
> needed at home, many were 
> kept out of school due to ongoing blood feuds.
> 
> De Waal was interested to find that 6th Grade
> Albanian education books on 
> civic education discuss the Kanun (oral traditional
> law practised for 
> several centuries and recorded by Shtjefen Gjecov a
> century ago). Although 
> even discussion of it under Communism, was
> forbidden, as also were all 
> forms of religious practise, both survived. The
> author found further 
> support for the Kanun's laws regarding arranged
> marriages, among young 
> women in Mirdite.
> 
> The greatest post-Communist problem concerns land
> distribution. Under the 
> pro-natal government policies whereby a mother of 10
> gained an award of 
> high honour, the population trebled during the 40
> years of the Communist 
> regime. Although in 1991, the government declared
> that land was to be 
> privatised, there was never any clarification of
> exactly which land should 
> be distributed, and how to share the majority of
> buildings constructed 
> while the land was still state owned. Corruption
> became endemic in all 
> spheres of life, but De Waal found that the worst
> feuding developed 
> especially within families. Police usually avoided
> these situations, partly 
> for fear of becoming involved themselves.
> 
> In the early transformation of Albanian society
> there was fury vented 
> against anything considered to belong to the state.
> Destruction was 
> country-wide: of all co-operatives, of government
> buildings, schools, 
> factories, mines, olive groves, vineyards, the
> massive greenhouses which 
> had produced tomatoes for export, and other produce
> and even mills.
> 
> De Waal's comments on religion show her to be rather
> sceptical of the usual 
> claim that the country is 70% Muslim, 20% Orthodox
> and 10% Catholic. All 
> her evidence proves that much religious practice is
> based on superstition 
> and that preference for one religion over another is
> not very strongly 
> felt, and furthermore that a very large section of
> society claim to have no 
> interest at all in religion. Of much greater
> influence than religion, is 
> that of the Kanun, although many are found to
> confuse the two.
> 
> The book's format is often muddly, repetitious and
> with occasional lapses 
> in writing style. The chapter headings are unhelpful
> and the chapters 
> themselves appear to have been written as conference
> papers all on a 
> similar topic. The bibliography is extraordinarily
> short for a study 
> covering a whole decade. The six very interesting
> photographs included, 
> probably the author's, are marred by very poor
> reproduction.
> 
> Despite imperfections, there is a wealth of
> information and unique 
> observation which responds to De Waal's goal of
> recording for posterity how 
> she experienced through the people of Albania, the
> decade after its fall 
> from Communism.
> 
> ----------
> 
> Book Review Editors: Jelena Obradovic
> (jelena_obradovic at hotmail.com) and 
> Cristina Bradatan (cbradata at mail.ucf.edu)
> 
> 
> ----------
> © 2005 Balkan Academic News. This review may be
> distributed and reproduced 
> electronically, if credit is given to Balkan
> Academic News and the 
> author.  For permission for re-printing, contact
> Balkan Academic News.
> 


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