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The Museum of the Victims of Communism was inaugurated on June 13 in Washington. The museum honors over 100 million individuals, who were killed by communist regimes worldwide.
Today, it is estimated that about 1.5 billion people still live in communist systems, hostile to democracy, that violate the rights and freedoms of their citizens. Albania has lived for almost half a century in one of the most brutal communist systems and according to many estimates, the country is still not completely detached from the authoritarian mentality. American scholar Lori Amy in an interview with the Head of the Albanian Service of the Voice of America, Arben Xhixho, takes a look at the legacy and influence in the present days of the years of communist dictatorship.
Voice of America: Professor Amy, a new museum dedicated to the victims of communism was inaugurated in Washington today. You have been living in Albania for several years, researching the crimes committed during the communist system. Do you think the country is doing enough to not forget and honor the thousands of innocent victims?
Professor Lori Amy: Unfortunately, no. We definitely need a memorial object, similar to the one that just opened in Washington, similar to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, that would accurately document the historical trajectory of communism under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha’s proletariat.
Today, we have nothing to show in detail the structure of state terror, during almost half a century of the most brutal dictatorship in Southeast Europe. Without this, the country can in no way achieve a moral confrontation with the crimes of the past. And that is one of the reasons why we see state crimes continue today.
Voice of America: Albania lived under dictatorship for almost half a century. Do you think that today, almost 30 years after the fall of communism, the country has managed to break away from the communist mentality and its legacy?
Professor Lori Amy: Aspak. Aspak. You may recall that according to Freedom House’s 2022 report, Albania is only a partially free society, and the V-DEM Institute’s 2022 report classifies Albania as an electoral autocracy. This is a direct result of the continuation of the communist mentality. The cycle of cultural trauma of almost 50 years of brutal dictatorship continues in several ways. One of them is the structure of totalitarian power.
We continue to see that the party and the cult of personality inflate the function of party leader into that of an absolutely irrefutable deity. In the previous regime, this was accompanied by wiretapping structures, which included, at the highest rate 1 in every 3 persons, and at the lowest rate 1 in every 5 persons. People were indoctrinated to tell the government the things it wanted to hear. He taught people that they could not trust anyone. So denial and lies became part of daily life. We see this today, at all levels of the power structure and its actions.
Voice of America: There are many observers who say that it is the consequences of the continuation of this mentality, that they are pulling the country back and that they are not allowing it to advance and fulfill its aspirations for a liberal democracy. Whats your opinion?
Professor Lori Amy: I think this is very true. And I just gave you some examples of such a situation, but let me give you some concrete examples. So, under the structures of authoritarian power and I remind you that the V-DEM Institute calls Albania an electoral autocracy; thus, under the structures of authoritarian power, the state can act with impunity.
I want to give you an example of how this happened recently in 2020. The state used the global pandemic to destroy the historic national theater. And that came after two years of civic movement, a civic organization that grew to protect the theater from collapse. It was after Europa Nostra named the historic theater, one of the seven most important heritage sites endangered in Europe. And it came after the entire diplomatic corps and every cultural agency begged the government to exercise restraint and open a dialogue about the theater it planned.
The act of state violence with which that theater was destroyed, is of the level of state violence under Hoxha’s regime. Under no circumstances can you have a functioning and stable democracy when the state acts with impunity. And this was for a development plan, highly controversial, linked by some of the independent agencies with a high potential for money laundering and a clear example of the secret cooperation of the government by the oligarchs. Democracy cannot thrive in these circumstances.
Voice of America: Although we have not seen any study, but there are numerous indicators in the media, on social platforms, where a kind of nostalgia for the past is noticed. What causes this and how do you explain that in one of the most oppressed societies, in a country completely isolated from the developed world, there is still nostalgia?
Professor Lori Amy: Nostalgia is an inevitable byproduct of the state’s failure to morally confront state crime under communist dictatorship. This moral failure has to do with at least a few things. First, official state denial continues to obscure the scale of the brutality from which the people suffered. We see this for example, in the fact that almost 6,000 bodies of people executed by the regime have not been found in order to bury them.
In the fact that government agencies hinder the work of the International Commission on Missing Persons, leaving many people with no choice but to bury their dead and focus on the future. So under these circumstances, nostalgia is an inevitable consequence. It is created in particular by the failure of the state to morally confront the crimes of communism. And if I may give you another example of this nostalgia and its close relationship with the functioning of the state.
The Government of Albania is being supported by the Albanian-American Enterprise Fund to transform the museum that was set up to elevate and idealize Enver Hoxha into a center of new technology. The mayor of Tirana calls this a revival project and the prime minister has specifically called it a revival that will enable the restoration of an iconic building. How are we restoring an iconic building, dedicated to a dictator whose crimes have not yet been uncovered? And how did the international community get involved in this? This is a wild, savage example of the continuation of state crime today.
Voice of America: Let me ask you another question. How do you judge, however, the fact that, despite the criticism made to you, Albania is today a member of NATO, a candidate country for EU membership, which is trying to become part of this elite club of the most developed countries in the world?
Professor Lori Amy: This again has to do with everything we have talked about so far. I am very, very pleased that you asked me this question, because one of the things that Albanians suffered during the Hoxha regime was state propaganda, which sold Albania to the world as a country that held on to its own forces, how lucky it must be to be the people in the best place; that everything is beautiful here and the rest of the world is bad.
We have a very illogical continuation of this. Most of the world knows very little about Albania. The version of Albania that is sold to the international community and the diplomatic relations that function with Albania on a global level, is a story that continues to accept only one version, the state version. And this version absolutely denies the reality of the majority of the population. That’s why it’s particularly painful for me, as it represents what is known as ‘normative abandonment’.
And this happens when the violence that people have suffered continues to be ignored and denied. This is the second rape that Albanians are suffering. And this is something I am very sure that if we could clarify, we could help to deal with it./VOA
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