From the CIAO Atlas Map of Europe 

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The Current State of Democracy in Albania

Institute on East Central Europe

Summer, 1996

Introduction

It is commonplace to begin academic conferences with a statement complaining about the dismal state of knowledge on the subject under discussion. In the case of Albania, truer words were never spoken. Having been almost totally isolated by a restrictive communist regime for the last half century, and receiving little attention from scholars before then, Albania is without question the least known country in Europe. As a result of the protracted disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century, a plethora of wars, and various settlements by Great (and not-so-great) Powers, Albanians found themselves scattered throughout adjacent countries in the Balkans.

Naturally enough, each society found itself facing different challenges. In the post-World War II period, Albanians living in Albania found themselves --as one Albanian recently put it -- in a single, large concentration camp, one in which those who ruled and those who were ruled were Albanians, living in a sovereign state. Ethnic Albanians who lived in the different republics of former Yugoslavia had equally little voice in government but were ruled by ethnic Slavs in a federation which grew increasingly hostile and repressive toward its Albanian inhabitants as time progressed, particularly in the province of Kosovo, or Kosova as it was known to the ethnic Albanians who accounted for ninety percent of its population by the 1980s. It was then that the federal government in Belgrade began a campaign of disenfranchisement and ultimately terror against a people demanding the same right to self-determination that the Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, and Bosnians, demanded and achieved beginning in 1991. Ethnic Albanians co-inhabiting three newly-independent states -- Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia -- faced unique but related political, social, and educational issues in each country, and different from those confronting their co-nationals in Albania.

In February 1995, scholars, activists, and policy makers from the United States, Albania, Macedonia (FYROM), and Kosova gathered at Columbia University to clarify, challenge and expand their ideas about the present and future of Albanian society. The scope of the two-day conference was political, economic, and social change in Albania, Kosova, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Although the meeting was designed to focus on the internal dynamics of Albanian society, much of the discussion tended towards inter ethnic conflict. Given the different circumstances in which Albanians find themselves in the four states in which they comprise either a majority or significant minority, a good deal of controversy was unavoidable.

The host for the conference was Columbia University's Institute on East Central Europe, and the conference was cosponsored by the Association for the Study of Nationalities. The idea for the conference originated with Dr. Janet Reineck, an anthropologist and Albanian specialist, who was a US Institute of Peace grantee and Visiting Fellow at Columbia University in 1994/95. She was ably assisted by Professor Henry Huttenbach of the City College of New York, and by Professor John S. Micgiel, Director of Columbia's Institute on East Central Europe. The conference organizers owe a special debt to Harry Bajraktari, Kathleen Imholz, Professor Sami Repishti, and Safo Boga for their wise counsel and assistance in planning the conference.

A staff of dedicated graduate students, including Fred Abrahams, Nicole Barrett, Marietta Ries, Sherrill Stroschein, and Stacy Sullivan made all the preparations at the conference site and ensured that things ran smoothly. Emilio Carril and Dawid Walendowski transcribed and copy-edited theproceedings. The entire undertaking was supervised by Kevin Hallinan, whose watchful eye was invaluable.

The response of the Albanian community in the United States was most heartening, and included, for example, V & D Pizzeria's donation of lunch. The conference banquet was contributed by Paul Duvaj, owner of Restaurant Fino,who lavishly wined and dined the conference participants. Cultural luster was brought to the meeting by Stanley E. Sherer of the University of Massachusettsat Amherst, who displayed a slide exhibit, and by the tremendously talented members of the String Quartet of the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana, who graced the conference with a concert. Press coverage of the six panels by theAlbanian-US newspaper Illyria, by the Voice of America, and by the journal Puls (Skopje), ensured not only an enthusiastic crowd at the conference, but a certain resonance in and around Albania itself.

Needless to say, the conference could not have taken place without the generous assistance of various foundations. The organizers hereby acknowledge the support of the Soros Foundation - Open Society Institute in New York, the Open Society Foundation for Albania in Tirana, the International Research and Exchanges Board in Washington, the Harriman Institute, and the President's and Provost's Student Initiative Fund at Columbia University.

Finally, the organizers wish to thank the participants themselves, who gave their time and many of whom came at their own expense to share their thoughts and reflections with us. Indeed, the establishment and, in some cases, deepening of contacts between US academics and their colleagues from the Balkans and elsewhere were a high point of the experience.

Much has occurred in Albania and in the Balkans in general since the conference took place, and more information is currently available both in printed form,and electronically, on the Internet. As far as we know, the Conference onTransformations in Albanian Societies was the first of its kind in the West. It was our aim to provide some basic information on Albanian societies and politics and to begin the sort of dialogue that is, sadly, so often lacking in our part of the world. We trust that the conference and this publication serve as a step on the road to a fuller understanding of the processes, particularly social processes, taking place in the Balkans, where it seems, "he who talks, can only be talking politics."

February 1996 John S. Micgiel

New York