Albanian Government Council of Ministers

Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at the conference on the 50th anniversary of Science Academy:

 

Allow me to deliver some remarks as the only non-science degree holder in this very room.

Honourable Head of the Academy of Science,

Honourable President of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts,

Honourable participants,

“For anyone dealing with science, the term Academy has a great significance. For us, the academy was like a dream. It materialized the yearning of Renaissance people for more knowledge and research institutions of the future.”

These are the remarks by one of the founders of your Academy, the unforgotten professor Aleks Buda. As an institution founded in the very basis and foundations of the new Voskopoja Academy, as an institution built on the programs of Renaissance people, the ideas of Noli, Lumo Skendo, Ndre Mjeda for development of critical and scientific thinking, even in those  times of darkness in terms of freedom, remained aloof from the political-social influence of the country and one of the episodes I would like to recall here is the farewell speech of Aleks Buda at the funeral of the linguist Selman Riza, who was expelled from the Institute of History and Linguistics and left in oblivion in a suburban museum in Berat until he passed away.  It is said that this act of Aleks Buda and the participation of a number of prominent academics at the linguist’s funeral caused a stir both in the institute and in the political establishment. But professor Buda’s tribute to the linguist was not only a challenge to the regime but also an expression of the Academy’s independence in the best interests of knowledge, professionalism, the path of science, an honor for a colossal work like that of Selman Riza dedicated to the country, the nation, Albanians and an honor from the president of the Academy of Sciences himself.

The Academy of Science is an institution that has strongly represented and defended the highest national interest of the Albanian language. If there is today a unified Albanian language, this is primarily due to the then academics and to that Academy of Sciences, which is now undergoing a process of returning to its former glory and living up to its mission.

What history were we be supposed to write now that we have taken over to do certainly with the minds and hands of this Academy of Science and through the government support if today’s Academy membership was not to include some of the students of those great colossus like professor Paskal or Professor Pëllumbi? Nothing!

The Academy of Science, from a forlorn and beseeching institution, where as I remember the most important meetings were those held for paying the last respects to someone who passed away, has turned into a space where the seedlings of tomorrow are being planted.

We have now re-established a centre for Albanian encyclopaedic publications, already leading a very complex process of compiling three major publications on Albanian language and culture, namely Albanian Encyclopaedia, History of Albanians and Complete Dictionary of the Albanian Language, through the government support and in close collaboration with the Kosovo government.  There are three big challenges in three directions in which Albania, not only our state, but our nation as a whole, are under threat. The history of Albanians is under threat from an ignorance and an unparalleled arrogance that for many years has turned independence of the Academy of Sciences into a territory of political bias and an arena of extremism that find a way because the realm of information and communication is a world respecting no hierarchy of knowledge, and for this reason we are still uncertain whether or not we can write a history of Albanians that belongs to all Albanians and to which Albanians can refer to from generation to generation, certainly enriching it, but not being divided to contest it.

Concluding, I would like to say that today we are still very far from what we could have been if the continuity of the Academy of Sciences had been guaranteed and if between the past and the present, or more precisely, the political vulgarity and the uprising of the ignorant would not have caused all the carnage they caused with the entire network of knowledge and with the entire infrastructure of that network of knowledge.

Albania’s access through universities, of course in the absence of the Academy in all the past years, to the “Horizon 2020” programme is 8%. Albania has absorbed only 8 % of the potential funding. In the first year of the programme, Albania’s access to the programme is now 38%. Albanian universities and the academic world have received funding for research thanks to their interaction and also thanks to the commencement of a movement to the right direction, with the Academy of Science naturally having its own role. The funding in an amount of EUR 2.1 million might jump to over 20 million euros during the seven-year programme. This amount might be much higher if we will know how to cooperate to take science and research forward and leave political biases outside the science and research realm, where there is so much territory for conflict, because not only the past, not only history, not only national language, not only our culture and ethnos are defended within this perimeter, but the future is also guaranteed. This perspective goes far beyond the future that politics can ensure, the political parties can ensure, and various administrations can guarantee at certain stages of their responsibility in governing the country.

Until recently, a total of 50 Tirana University lecturers were conducting scientific research projects under European funding, whereas their number is more than 400 now, and their involvement certainly helps their income increase.

With much respect for all of you and being extremely glad to see this hall academically “occupied” and assuring you this will be an unforgettable view for me, a view that will make the next parliament session harder for me, but I will deal with it as we are used to withstand even more serious situations, I would like to express all my gratitude for everything you have done in this not very easy time, to put it mildly, for science. I express all my respect to you for how much you have withstood the ignorant individuals, turncoats, vulgar individuals, who have shown up to tell how this work could be done over so many, many years and I wholeheartedly wish that you will not give up, just like the Academy chairman Skender Gjinushi does not give up.

Thank you!

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