ALBANIA: But Where Are the Differences

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

TIRANA, Jul 4 2007 (IPS) - People across the Balkans have much in common, forget the conflicts of the recent or distant past, and the efforts of politicians to convince them how “different” or “distinctive” they are.

It takes only a couple of days for a Serb to figure in Tirana how children go to “skholla”, just as Serbian children go to “skola”. Their parents could work in “kancellari” (office) in Tirana, or “kancelarija” in Belgrade.

At home, they tuck into that fermented yellow cheese “kachkavali” in Tirana or “kackavalj” in Belgrade, while watching “reklame” (advertisements). Afterwards in either country they might have some “supa” (soup) or “pita” (pie).

And in either country you could go shopping for “bluze” (blouses) and “pantalone” (trousers). After hundreds of years both countries of today spent under the Ottoman Turkish rule, language and ways had to find commonness.

But it is more than language that evokes similarities. It’s just everyday ways that are so similar.

In the Albanian city Shkodra, 150 km north of the capital, neatly dressed pensioners sit on park benches, regardless of the heat, playing chess. The picture can be strikingly similar in Serbian capital Belgrade or Bosnian capital Sarajevo.

In the evening, a downtown stroll or “xhiro” is a must in Shkoder. So is the “korzo” in, say, Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina, or in towns in Serbia.

But there is more to similarity than a stroll or two. Nations in the region come from a similar past, and are looking to a similar future.

Albanians are struggling to leave a Stalinist past behind. That past stands like the defunct factory complexes near Shkodra and in Berat, 120 km south. These factories used to produce textiles, fertilisers and other goods.

Similar complexes, the “kombinati” (combined factories) in both Albanian and other Balkans languages, stand along the roads of Bosnia or Serbia. After capitalism entered the region in the 1990s, few were interested in buying them or investing in them.

Everywhere, many of these “white elephants” of the communist era are on sale for a single Euro, in the hope that some businessman might want to modernise the facilities and resume production.

In Serbia, several old sugar mills were turned into highly profitable factories this way. The same cannot be said for once successful textile kombinati in Bosnia-Herzegovina, sold 10 years ago for one German Mark each. They never reopened.

Albania is having a go at such sales now. “We plan to introduce a programme called ‘Albania for one Euro’,” deputy minister for foreign affairs Edith Harxhi told IPS. “We hope this might attract investors.”

And like the other nations in the region, Albania is looking for new wealth through tourism. That has brought some healthy competition, but also cooperation, with many countries looking at least in part for tourists continuing on their way from the other.

Meanwhile, like many other people in the region, large numbers of Albanians live off remittances sent by family members who migrated abroad. Remittances make some 13 percent of country’s gross national income.

Remittances had kept many going in Serbia during the years of the sanctions, from 1992 until 2000. Work was not an option at the time, just as it is not in today’s Montenegro.

“This makes people lazy,” environmental activist Arian Gace told IPS. “But it cannot be stopped; we lack the culture of parents being strict with their children. They let them do whatever they want, as if they want to recover the time lost in the past when we had nothing.”

“We have so much in common, all people around,” Ajet Nallbani, manager of the Berat Institut of Cultural Monuments told IPS. Albanians, Bosniaks, Kosovars and Montenegrins are all “on the same road,” he said. “That is the road to Europe, the only one for us.”

And that, finally, should dissolve some of today’s political differences. “Once we are close to Europe, we’ll have to put behind all those nasty things we carry around, like wars and ethnic tension. That is the only real chance for us, and people here are ready for that,” Nallbani said.