Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at the first meeting of the Diaspora Coordination Council:
I would like to thank every attendee for taking to trouble to travel from all over world and participate in the constitutive meeting of Diaspora’s Coordinating Council and I would like to go back almost 100 years in time to evoke an event when Durres was hit by a powerful earthquake, which, according to the then news reports, caused material damages and loss of life as well.
A newspaper, on 18th of December 1926 reported as following: “the afternoon earthquake caused cracks to a cluster of walls, toppled over 12 houses, hurled down stones and plaster, badly mangled the castle’s gate where the telegraph’s offices are located, shattered the government’s building and sow horror and panic among people in the village of Ndroq, Rrogozhine, Romanat, where damages were serious and many houses collapsed.”
The newspaper goes on describing this quite a common event in Albania since antiquity, yet not quite understood at beginning of the last century, so “the earth tremor we feel, hear and suffer its damages is called an earthquake. The earthquake is one of the strangest and horrible phenomena the man knows and it is so bad as humans have no place to hide when their house, this safe haven seems to them dangerous and the solid earth seems as if it will crack open. Humans then lose trust in earth and become vulnerable, homeless and defenceless.”
Why did I provide this fact at this Diaspora’s Coordinating Council meeting? Because although official data on the damages and the post-earthquake rebuilding process in 1926 are very scarce, there are archival records of that time showing that the majority of reconstructed buildings were indeed rebuilt thanks to the help from the then Albanian diaspora.
In the absence of modern structures of an Albanian state still very much in its infancy back then, many of the inhabitants turned to the generous contributions of their relatives or friends in exile and many of the emigrants came together to provide money and material assistance.
Of course, many things have fortunately changed since then and I am very pleased to say that our state is today is fully capable of coping with such a national emergency even though its size is extensive in many respects.
I am glad that more than 13,000 inhabitants, who became homeless all of a sudden, were housed in hotels or other accommodating structures and many others in rental houses within a very short time, while care of them to make sure they lack nothing in essential aspects, ranging from food, medicines and so on, has proved to be completely successful.
A damage assessment process goes on even today and is being carried out by our engineers and foreign experts coming from all over the world to assist in the earthquake aftermath and we hope that a final post-disaster report will be ready within January, along with a preliminary financial assessment of the quake damages. I am saying a preliminary assessment, since experience in other countries shows that damage cost is an ongoing process.
Immediately after this process, the tough rebuilding phase will begin and I believe this process will have a decisive impact on our country’s future and on our society’s approach to the future.
We are seeking to emerge stronger from this post-earthquake situation and, through the rebuilding process, we hope to create a new quality in the relations with people, as well as in the people’s relation with their own country. Experience in various countries around the world, including much more developed and stronger nations than ours, shows that many of these countries are still struggling to cope with gangrenous post-earthquake situations ever many years later, just like there are many excellent examples we need to look at and learn how the post-earthquake has led to a completely new quality of life and development, as well as unification of communities.
At this point, I can’t help but reiterate that we had the comfort of the mass diaspora support right after the natural disaster. For the sake of truth, over the 30-years of Albania’s transformation from a secluded dictatorial country towards a functioning democracy and a country aspiring to become a European Union member, the Diaspora has been the biggest investor in Albania.
Nobody has invested more than the diaspora in Albania, and official statistics show that 86% of Albanian families have received direct financial assistance from their emigrant relatives.
Millions of dollars was raised quickly right after the earthquake, either via e-albania platform, or the renowned humanitarian organizations like “Albanians for Albanians,” “Different Weekend” Foundation, Albanian Roots fundraiser, as well as other organizations and we are confident that we will manage these funds, which apart from their significant financial value, bear a great spiritual and moral value, will end up to the destination they have been donated for, in a full efficient and transparent manner. To this end, we have set up also a National Rebuilding Committee with all stakeholders and factors that will closely monitor the process, making sure at the same time that the transparency mechanism is reliable and accessible to all.
A year ago, on the Skanderbeg year, we came together to host an important Diaspora summit, which adopted a long-term and inclusive strategy and its joint implementation between Albania and the Diaspora itself.
Indeed, an earlier Diaspora strategy has been adopted in 2004, but that document, except a serious analysis of the emigration factors and reasons, or the amounts of Diaspora contributions to the country’s finance, it failed to offer a strategy on how this treasury could become active in the country’s mainstream economy. I am quoting the honourable Mr. Mark Gjonaj, who has repeatedly and rightly called the Diaspora a precious assed of this country in all aspects.
The new strategy has altered this relation, in a bid to identify the opportunities through which we can engage each other, Albania and Albanians abroad.
Today, the mechanisms and channels through which the Diaspora can provide its contribution have multiplied.
I cannot but emphasize the special role the involvement of the new Minister for Diaspora has had in the new cabinet, but also the special role the Minister has played in leading a process that has led to the creation of a number of institutions, the adoption of a set of laws, the introduction of a set of mechanisms that serve as a solid basis on which we can work to further strengthen this interaction and give the Diaspora a greater role and force than it has ever had to date.
It is true – and I will quote Pandi again – the work commenced with a State Minister and three staff members, while a whole agency has been now created, namely the National Diaspora Agency, Diaspora Publishing Centre, The Albanian Development for the Diaspora, while a fourth agency, the research and publishing centre for the Abereshi, is set to be created soon.
We have adopted three new laws and substantial legal changes to a number of other laws, from the one on local government tasked with establishing administrative structures for diaspora and immigration in each municipality, to the amendments to the law on education and so on.
A parliamentary subcommittee on diaspora and immigration is operational in the Assembly of Albania, whereas the State Committee on Diaspora is created in the government chaired by the Prime Minister.
The diaspora business chamber was inaugurated in November and just yesterday the proposals of the inter-institutional working group were forwarded to the Albanian Parliament’s Electoral Reform Commission to advance the process of granting Albanians emigrants the right to vote outside the territorial borders of the Republic of Albania.
Summer school for diaspora children is set to begin next year, as a long-desired proposal from the diaspora itself aimed at creating conditions for children born abroad to experience their country first-hand. This year marked the first school year when teachers in the diaspora received the textbooks prior to the new school year, putting an end to a long and absurd story with books being delivered to the diaspora teachers sometimes and at the end of the school year.
Meetings of the joint commission between Albania and Kosovo on a new joint school curriculum in the diaspora have been held.
I am saying all this to take stock of what has been done and take the opportunity that you are here, – because you know all these – but also through the media to inform anyone who is interested in this topic about a not so small inventory given the short period of time and compared to the 28 past years this inventory is like night and day.
The world’s history certainly provides more successful examples regarding the Diaspora contribution, including the cases of immediate need for reconstruction. In 1988, Armenia was struck by one of the most terrifying earthquakes in the planet’s history that killed 200,000 people, but the event is considered the moment of an epochal transformation of the image of Armenia and its future thanks to unity, cooperation and the interaction this deadly earthquake created between Armenians inside and outside the country. When seeing this or other spectacular results various countries have achieved in the aftermath of earthquakes, one cannot help but quote the sacred phrase that goes: “God sends earthquake to compel men to think and purify.”
Likewise, numerous donations were collected in the earthquake aftermath in Armenia, Haiti and other countries, but all cases share something quite interesting in common, that interaction between people of the affected nation makes the difference. So, the Diaspora of the quake-stricken countries has been an interaction process, despite the fact that the international donations amounted over five billion dollars in the Haiti earthquake case, as it was a true apocalypse. However, the data show the people themselves, both in the country and abroad, have played the main role and have provide the main financial contribution.
And when considering Haiti, not a wealthy country, it is clear that it is all about a critical mass of people who by providing small donations made the big difference.
Prior to this meeting, we encountered a surprise by the Minister for the Diaspora, who alarmingly invited us to be here at 9:30, but we were set to meet young people from Florence and their teachers on the margins of an exhibition titled “Make your home a better place.” And indeed, despite the minister forcing me to call off another event just to be here at 09:30 punctually, I think the delay was completely and conceptually right because that exhibition coincides with a very appropriate moment to convey the message “Make your own home a better place.” It is a motive to figure out this situation as the moment of designing a new home, a better home for all, a home not simply for everyone to live in, but is the home where we give birth, raise children, and inherit values and that is our common home called Albania.
When I received the material on this gathering, I noticed that this very hall is named after Jeronim De Rada, who is an embodiment of the Albanians in Diaspora. I don’t know whether Pandi has intentionally picked this simple and small hall just to be in a place named after De Rada, but what is worth saying is that he left behind a political testament in which he predicted the day when all Albanians in freedom and prosperity – as he says – will sit together and jointly decide about the future, without taking into consideration the borders that may divide them physically.
I am concluding my speech by quoting a great exponent of the Diaspora, Faik Konica who used to say: “history tells us that all political changes have been initiated by two factors; the emigrants and a small intellectual elite within the country.”
We are not talking about a political change, but a much greater change that would transcend politics and reshape it in its role, limiting it within a reasonable perimeter and expanding it much beyond the perimeter of people’s understanding and cooperation with people. Before they are people of political conviction or political resentment, there are people who could be hit by an earthquake all together and depart from this world together with their political beliefs without being able to leave the trace they owe to the country. I hope this earthquake message is well taken into consideration. I won’t forget it for sure.
Thank you very much for attending and respect for your commitment and effort to be part of this Coordination Council that bears a great name and consists of very valuable and highly respected people and I hope their outcome will live up to the name and the individuals making up this Council.
Thank you!
