[ALBSA-Info] An article by a "doctor"

[KreshnikBejko]

Does anyone care to expose the fallacies of this article?


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> >From the Albanian Daily News
> 
> The Myth of Greater Albania
> 
> By Dr Sam Vaknin
> 
> To the politicians of the Balkans - almost without
> exception corrupt and despised by their own
> constituencies - the myth of a Greater Albania comes
> in handy. It keeps the phobic Macedonians, the
> disdainful Serbs and the poor and crime-ridden
> Albanians united and submissive within their
> respective countries, although each group for
> differing reasons.
> 
> To reiterate, it is the belief that people of Albanian
> extraction, wherever they may be, regard their
> domicile as part of a Greater Albania and undertake
> all efforts necessary to create such an outcome. For
> example, Kosovo should be part of this Greater
> Albania, so the myth goes, because prior to 1912, when
> the Serbs occupied it, Kosovo had administratively
> been part of an Ottoman-mandated Albania. Sali Berisha
> - a former president of Albania - talks ominously
> about an "Albanian Federation." The younger, allegedly
> more urbane Pandeli Majko, the former Prime Minister
> of Albania, has raised the notion of a uniform
> curriculum for all Albanian pupils and students,
> wherever they may reside. Albanians in Macedonia make
> it a point to fly Albanian flags conspicuously and on
> every opportunity. This could have well been a
> plausible scenario had it not been for two facts.
> Firstly, there is no such thing as homogeneous
> "Albanians" and secondly Greater Albania is without
> historical precedent.
> 
> Albanians are comprised of a few ethnic groups of
> different creeds. There are Catholic Albanians - such
> as Mother Theresa - and Muslim Albanians - such as
> Hashim Thaci, the self-proclaimed "provisional Prime
> Minister" of Kosovo. There are Tosks - southern
> Albanians who speak a (nasal) dialect of Albanian and
> there are Gegs - northern Albanians (and Kosovars) who
> speak another dialect which has little in common with
> Tosk (at least to my ears). Tosks don’t like Gegs and
> Gegs detest Tosks. In a region where tribal and
> village loyalties predominate, these are pertinent and
> important facts.
> 
> The Kosovars are considered by their Albanian
> "brethren" (especially by the Tosks, but also by
> Albanian Gegs) to be cold, unpleasant, filthy-rich
> cheats. Albanians - Tosks and Gegs alike - are
> considered by the Kosovars to be primitive,
> ill-mannered bandits. There is no love lost between
> all these groups. When the crisis brought on by
> Operation Allied Force started, the local Albanian
> population charged the refugees exorbitant (not to say
> extortionate) prices for such necessities as a roof
> over their head, food and cigarettes. When the UN
> mandate (read: the KLA mandate) was established, the
> Albanians rushed to export their brand of crime and
> banditry to Kosovo and to prey on its local
> population.
> 
> No Macedonian - however radical - will dare speak
> about the Albanians in the way that my Kosovar
> contacts do. They nonchalantly and matter-of-factly
> attribute to them the most heinous crimes and
> uncivilized behaviour. Kosovars had an excruciating
> experience in Albania during this crisis. The lessons
> learned by Kosovars since Albania was opened up to
> them in 1990 will not be easily forgotten nor
> forgiven. Albanians reciprocate by portraying the
> Kosovars as cynical, inhuman, money-making terminators
> and emotionless wealthy predators.
> 
> This is not to say that Albanians on both sides of the
> border do not share the same national dreams and
> aspirations. Kosovar intellectuals were watching
> Albanian TV and reading Albanian papers even
> throughout the Stalinist period of Enver Hoxha, the
> long-time Albanian dictator. Albanian nationalists
> never ceased regarding Kosovo as an integral part of
> an Albanian motherland. But as the decades passed by,
> as the dialects metamorphosed, as the divide grew
> wider, as the political systems diverged and as the
> political and cultural agendas became more distinct -
> Kosovars became more and more Kosovars and less and
> less like the Albanians of Albania proper.
> 
> This historical, 80-year-old rift was exacerbated by
> the abyss between the Enver Hoxha regime and its Tito
> counterpart; the former impoverished, paranoiac,
> xenophobic, hermetically isolated and violent; the
> latter - relatively enlightened, economically
> sprightly, open to the world and dynamic. As a result,
> Kosovar houses are three times as big as Albanian ones
> and Kosovars used to be (until the Kosovo conflict)
> three times richer (in terms of GDP per capita).
> 
> Kosovars crossing into Albania during the Hoxha regime
> were often jailed and tortured by its fearsome secret
> police. A Kosovar - Xhaferr Deva - served as Minister
> of the Interior in the hated Second World War
> government in Albania, which collaborated
> wholeheartedly with the Nazis. Albanians, in general,
> were much more reserved and suspicious towards the
> Germans (who occupied Albania from 1943, after the
> Italian change of heart). Kosovars welcomed the Nazis
> as liberators from Serb serfdom (as did Albanians in
> Macedonia to a lesser extent). Deva was responsible
> for the most unspeakable atrocities against the
> Albanian population in Albania proper. It did not
> render the Kosovars more popular. In Albania proper,
> three anti-fascist resistance movements - the Albanian
> Communist Party, Balli Kombetar (the National Front)
> and Legaliteti (Legality, a monarchist faction
> fighting to re-establish King Zog) fought against the
> occupiers from 1941. The Communists seized control of
> the country at the end of 1944.
> 
> Thus, the forced re-union was a culture shock to both.
> The Kosovars were stunned by the living conditions,
> misery and lawlessness of Albania proper. The
> Albanians were envious and resentful of their guests
> and regarded them as legitimate objects for
> self-enrichment. There were, needless to say, selfless
> exceptions to the egotistic rule. But I cannot think
> of any right now.
> 
> Historically, there was never a "Greater Albania" to
> hark back to. Albania was created in 1912 (its borders
> finally settled in 1913) in response to
> Austro-Hungarian demands. It never encouraged Kosovo
> to secede. 
> 
> The Albanian King Zog suppressed the activities of
> Kosovar irredentist movements in his country in
> between the two world wars. Albania, mired in the twin
> crises of economy and identity, had little mind or
> heart for Kosovo.
> 
> But this was the culmination of a much longer,
> convoluted and fascinating history
> 
> 
> 
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