Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the reception for the 70th anniversary of Liberation:
Highly distinguished attendees, friends and guests
Dear Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Albania,
Dear clergymen present herein
Dear friends, representatives of partner countries and other countries represented by the Diplomatic Corps accredited to Albania,
World War II that reached Albania prior to its “official start” affected all Albanians. Like all the other peoples they engaged in this great war in various ways and roles. A significant part aligned itself with the great world anti-fascist front, the majority surviving the hard living conditions of war, an absolute minority ranking among the Nazi-fascist powers and others choosing to stay in their corner of indifference… In this broad spectrum of attitudes, Albanians were no different from the other countries of the continent.
It does Albanians honour, however, that in an indisputable majority they aligned themselves by the right side of history, with the great world front against Nazi-fascism, which in the name of the fight to liberate the country, brought together the majority of the Albanians, without distinction of ideas, region or religion.
We bow reverently in the face of this sublime sacrifice that gave the right to Albania to stand alongside the free nations, and, as the Speaker of the Assembly underlined, gave Albania the possibility to fend off any attempt against its integrity that continued even after the liberation, in the first moments where the war winners and losers were divided, with the latter paying a price too large, including division of their territories.
For all its indisputable greatness, the National Liberation War, and even more so the post-war period, was accompanied with severe side effects. Even before the country was liberated, the heads of the main political and military groupings added to the major war goal of freeing the country from the foreign occupier other objectives, with the attempt to take over political power being the most evident one. Their considering of the political power as a goal before the end of the war was the moment that, even today, fuels the attempts to compromise such the sublime sacrifice and the war itself. These were desperate efforts that have nothing to do with the fatal mistaking of the liberation war for the skirmish to obtain political power that, unfortunately, keep feeding division among Albanians even to these days.
Like any country at the end of the war, Albania as well faced its biggest challenge, “to forge the swords into ploughshares,” which it failed to win, like half of Europe. But that was Albania’s post-war historical destination
Let me bring an example that tells us that in less than two months from the end of World War II, on 5 July 1945, Great Britain had its political elections. Poll results were issued only on the Thursday of 26 July, due to the ballot counting of about 3 million British soldiers around the world, who were still waiting for their chance to return home.
The early voting results the next day of a victory that is remembered once and for all as of the greatest in the history of humanity, indicated the most devastating defeat for the absolute winner, indisputable guidance and moral leader of World War II, Sir Winston Churchill. By that historic “punishment” of the world war hero, Great Britain opened the new chapter of democracy giving a lesson that is often hard to grasp for the dimension and depth of freedom and democracy it bears and the endless opportunities and roads inherent to freedom and democracy.
The British knew by July 1945 how to draw the line clearly between war merits and other virtues. Following his resign, in the evening of 26 July 1945, Winston Churchill, who only the day before had left Potsdam Conference for a little while to turn back again where the leaders of the world coalition had convened, had to wonder also over finding accommodation, since his Kent-based house had been dilapidated after being abandoned and he had sold the London flat.
A human drama of a politician who will, undoubtedly, remain forever in the history of world politics if not as the greatest shining star out there, one those whose light is brighter, but, on the other hand, it is also the tough miracle of democracy.
While this drama of winners and losers played out in London, Tirana counted almost a year in which the winning warheads had accommodated in the power offices and the seized houses and buildings, whereas hundreds and thousands bearing the scars of war wounds had turned to their hard living.
What is the reason, though, that I brought up a similar comparison?
I did so to say that sure enough what happened with the post-war Albania was a major disaster that stayed with the country for decades, but these years in the war aftermath can in no way serve as a reason to misjudge the war. Although the decades following the war lead to a reality that differed entirely from what those who fought the war had dreamt of, not only does not change or burden the judgment on freedom fighters, but, on the contrary, it makes for a very solid reason to distinguish between the two clearly. Hence, the attempt to belittle 29 November is nothing but an extension of the embroilment beginning as a fight for political power within the liberation war, have no links with the latter, whatsoever.
I believe there is not even the slightest doubt to claim today that all efforts attempting to diminish or even hide November 29 behind November 28 have failed are doomed to fail, because what followed in the aftermath was not the aimed outcome of war, but rather a deviation from the dreams and aspirations of those who fought the war. Remembering the war is not only an obligation, but is, at the same time, a chance to never forget that without the National Anti-Fascist Liberation War the Albania we have today could have been quite different, and not for the better, but for worse, much worse.
There is no doubt that without the National Anti-fascist Liberation War we would not have had the possibility to be what we are today, proud of our history, of that moment in time when Albanians stood by the right side of the history, as never before, in the clearest way ever. That made Albania and Albanians natural partners of the allies with whom we fought the National Liberation War, the United States, Great Britain and, later, of the entire European Union.
In conclusion, I would go back to recall 29 November of 1944 where, like today, Albania celebrated by waving its own national flag together with the flags of the today’s allies, the today’s US allies, today’s British allies. That suffices to realize that it is not the 29th of November that is under judgment and that every judgment of what followed after 29 November can never eclipse the glorious light of the National Anti-fascist Liberation War.
Eternal glory to the memory of those who died in the National Anti-fascist Liberation War!
Respect for all those who to this day live among us as a proof of that idealism without which war would have been impossible.
Thank you!
