Prime Minister Edi Rama, on a visit to the United States of America, was presented with the leading Joan Ganz Cooney Global Leadership Award by the non-profit educational organization Sesame Workshop for welcoming, providing shelter, education, health and care services and support for thousands of Afghan refugees.
The award was handed over to PM Rama by the Sesame Workshop President, Mrs. Sherrie Westin, at the organization’s annual award gala evening in New York
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: I am very, very thankful, but I am also very sorry to repeat something I have already said many times; how embarrassed I feel. And don’t take me wrong, because it is actually a great honour and of course a great pleasure to be here tonight, but still I can’t make peace with the fact that what should have been the norm is actually an exception.
And I have to tell you, as far as we are here behind the closed doors and nobody would hear this, that what I felt in front of so much reluctance and so many refusals coming from much richer countries to open the doors for the Afghans has only one name: “Shame.”
So many people have asked me: “Why? Why would Albania do this? Why I would take this decision?” And perhaps there are people also in this room wondering “why and how come that one of the poorest countries in Europe became the first country to open its doors to people who were struggling between life and death.
And the answer to this question is in our history, a history of hospitality, a history of respect towards people in need, a history that is embodied in our very first constitution, the Kanun (the Code of Honour) of Albanians, where it is written that “the house of the Albanians belong to God and the guest.” By the “guest” meaning not simply the ones you invite, but the one that knocks on your door, because has a need. And based on this Kanun, the knock on the door is the will of God and therefore you have to open the door. And whoever is behind the door has to be provided shelter, care and protection.
And this is perhaps the reason why Albania was the only country in Europe to have more Jews after the war than before the war; the country where not a single Jew was delivered to the Nazis. In such tragic times when the Jews were fleeing their homes everywhere in Europe, Albania became the place where Jews were coming to and not leaving from; coming to be protected.
There is a story among many that I would like to share with you. It is a story about the four religious leaders of our country, which is very often branded as a Muslim country, but no. We are a country where Muslims and Christians live together in full respect of each other. These four leaders, who were invited in Berlin by the guy who headed the “Final Solution” operation, were representing the four religious communities in Albania, namely the Catholic Christians, the Orthodox Christians, the Sunni Muslims and the Bektashi Albanian Muslims. They were asked to sign an agreement with the Third Reich, with two points: to allow the Nazi regime have access to the Albanian gold, which was at the Bank of Rome at that time, and to cooperate with the Nazi regime to detain the Jews. They signed the gold, but they didn’t sign the Jews.
And so the story went on to continue with us being refugees leaving our country, escaping not fundamentalist religious regime like the Taliban, but an atheist regime that dared to include in our Constitution the stipulation that the Republic of Albania was an atheist republic, where religion was completely banned by law, where life was a hell and the country was the North Korea of Europe back then. So, we left the country to find refuge elsewhere 30 years ago. And when the Afghans had to flee their country to find refuge and escape death, how could we possibly say “no”! How could we possibly not open the door and how could we possibly ask about the colour of their skin, the religion they believe in or how far or near they were from Albania?!
No, we couldn’t! We simply said “yes.” As long as we have a home, our home is also the home of whomever is in need and we are there, we will always be there, not by words, but by deeds. So, we did it to honour our tradition, we did it to honour our own personal story as refugees, but we also did it to honour our children, and the children of our children, because, at the end, the most valuable treasury we have and we owe to our children is our memory.
And I very much hope that Albania one day become a rich country, but I always pray that we will rank among the richer countries that have lost their memory. We should keep our memory.
And thanks God there are so many people, good willing people in this country that stand for what is so valuable and for what can never be left aside in the name of any election, in the name of any power, in the name of any vested interest, which is humanism. And I am very proud, I am very honoured and I am very humble to be among you today and to have been able to put myself and my country aside of you and aside of so many people that have honoured the United States of America and that honour by deeds and not by words what the United States of America represents for everyone.
The people, as Nazarin told us, are three times readier and eager to open the door to the refugees than the United States government.
At the end, I would like to tell you that I am here because Albania will be the country to have the Presidency of the Security Council of the United Nations. It is for the first time in our history that we are sitting in that Council and we would be very proud and very grateful, if Sesame together with Welcome US would answer positively to our invitation to come to the UN Security Council on June 6 and brief the Security Council and the whole world about the children of Ukraine and the kids of all these people and families all over the world that are suffering so much by leaving their homes by being displaced.
Sherrie said they are 100 million. They are too many! What we did saved just a few thousands.
I would like to conclude by honouring a great Albanian, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Saint Teresa of Albania, who told us: “It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”We lit our candle and we will continue to do so.
Thank you very much for what I want to be very modest, though modesty is not my strongest point, but I would like to sound really modest, because it is true. This is not about me. I just happen to be the Prime Minister. It is indeed about the Albanian people, who were totally behind the decision and when they were asked about how they felt about this decision, a much larger majority than the one supporting the government replied: “Oh yes. We have been there, we know how it feels like and we are honoured to open the door to those who are today the Albanians of 30 years ago.”
Thank you!
