By Dr. Haim Reitan
“Eagle’s Wing” - Albanian national magazine
“Eagle’s Wing” is an Albanian national magazine which first appeared in the democratic years, whose aim is to promote the social and literary life as much as to serve to a national aim and also to protect the unfavorable groups of Balkan’s society. The spiritual leader was and still remains Bilal Xhaferri.
“Eagle’s Wing” is a political, cultural, literary and social magazine, which was first published in 1974, in two languages: Albanian and English, as an organ of Cham League in Chicago in US. Bilal Xhaferri was its founder, editor and leader. He was born on November 2, 1935 in Ninat, Konispol, and after an intense literary and publicist activity, died in exile (fleeing Albania as anti-communist nationalist in 1969) on October 14, 1986 in Chicago, US.
Bilal Xhaferri baptized, directed, prepared and published “Eagle’s wing” magazine till the end of his life. He converted it in a powerful arm in the war against communism.
Thus “Eagle’s Wing” was a free democratic thinking tribune, with anticommunist, anti- dictatorial and anti-enverists inclinations, which had as a purpose the union of all political Albanian forces in exile, the unification of thoughts, programs and the unification of their goals for a free pro-western Albania.
Among the magazine’s pages Albanian national problems were widely treated, especially the Cham issue, Kosovo’s problem, the problem of other territories that had remained outside the maternal lump, Albania, and problems of Albanian communities around the world and Diaspora.
Bilal Xhaferri could communicate through “Eagle’s wing” magazine with a lot of patriots in USA, Europe and Canada, Turkey and elsewhere, with newspapers and other magazines of Diaspora. He influenced through his activity in the approach, union and collaboration between Albanians of all territories, dispositions, parties and different political organizations. Soon “Eagle’s wing” was converted in a national magazine. It was kept with the emigrants’ writings and it was destined to all the Albanians, wherever they were.
“Eagle’s wing” magazine had a great brotherly, moral and material support from the Albanians in Kosovo and Montenegro, from parties and their national organizations, even some close friends and collaborators of Bilal Xhaferri were from there. In a congratulation note in the magazine he writes: “During this summer (1981) I stayed for some months in Detroit. Among many friends, whom I want to thank very sincerely for their brotherly hospitality, I want to mention in particular Prof. Prenk Gruda, who never reserved his help as a great patriot”.
Besides the publications of many foreign and Albanian authors, Bilal Xhaferri published even his works, a lot of publicistic articles, poetries, tales and fragments of the novel “Opposite sidewalks” (1975), fragments of the novel “The moon of the yards” (1977), skits for the Albanian language courses that were situated near mosques, masjids or Albanian churches. He also published his drawings and caricatures, artistic photos and short films made by him. He wrote in USA movie scenarios. In the magazine number where was published for the first time a passage of the novel “The moon of the yards”, it was advertised that he was producing a scenario from this novel for a feature film with a complete length under the adapted title in English “The moon of the Countryside”. A company from Hollywood was going to film it.
Even in America, the country of the big freedom, the security of the Albanian dictatorial state victimized and punished frequently Bilal Xhaferri to efface his work and kill him. Thus in 1978 they wounded him. “Eagle’s wing” wrote these words for this terrible episode: “Bilal Xhaferri, the editor of “Eagle’s wing” magazine was assaulted in darkness from three unknown people while he was going in a meeting for the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Prizreni League. The friends that were waiting for him in the meeting, worried from this delay, went out to look for him and they found him in the street, wounded in the head and face and with a knife cutting in the rib. The police that was informed and came immediately brought him to the hospital” (“Eagle’s wing” 1985, May).
When the editorial office was set on fire in 1981, Bilal Xhaferri and the magazine met with a knockout, too severe. This fact has been published even in “Eagle’s wing” magazine: “A fire that burnt up in the building where was located “Eagle’s wing” magazine, burnt down all the files and the collections. This was a personal tragedy for Bilal Xhaferri, who lost his books and his manuscripts, thorough literary volumes, studies, scientific researches, translations, political notes, letters, pictures, photos, works and efforts of the ten difficult years in exile” (“Eagle’s wing” 1981, January). So the Albanian state security impeded by all means the activity of Bilal Xhaferri and “Eagle’s wing” magazine. The Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior of the Albanian dictatorial state in those years expressed themselves in this way: “We will bring back Bilal Xhaferri in Albania, dead or alive”.
Bilal Xhaferri could publish 39 editions.
Since 1995 and following “Eagle’s Wing” goes on being published in Tirana, as the organ of the cultural association “Bilal Xhaferri” (The cultural community of Chameri), founded and directed by the well-known journalist and writer Shefki Hysa. He initiated the return of Bilal Xhaferri’s bones in Albania and the glorification of the extraordinary values of this rare personality, prosecuted and thrown into oblivion by the ex-dictatorship of the communist Albania.
In the magazine’s pages, among editions that defend Albanian national issue, notably the Cham problem, have often been published even articles and selected compositions by personalities of Albanian pens like: Bilal Xhaferri, Dritero Agolli, Ismail Kadare, Jakup Mato, Martin Mato, Namik Mane, Pjeter Arbnori, Arben Çokaj, Sazan Goliku, Sokol Jakova, Shefki Hysa, Vath Koreshi, Visar Zhiti etc. and also by other well-known global authors like: Jack London, Jean-Pol Sartre, Alfred de Musset, Edgar Allan Poe etc…
The foreign authors who have notably treated the Chame issue like Miranda Vickers, Hillary Clinton, James Pettifer and Dr. Haim Reitan have taken a special place among the pages of this magazine and they will do the same in the future.
Acting as an editor and chief editor of the monthly magazine, Shefki Hysa, with his contributions and that of his friends, managed to publish more than 100 editions and consistently insists in chanting this pedestal of the free-thought in the trench of Bilal Xhaferri’s ideals.
Dr. Haim Reitan, Diplomat,
Honorary President
of the Diplomatic Mission
Peace and Prosperity
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
I am from Chameria too, I’m Cham!
These are some impressions from the activity
of the missionary Dr. Haim Reitan in Albania
Having friends that care on you in the world is the best thing but having friends that are passionate even at your ideals and love your country the same as their country, this is a miracle. This is a utopia, a dream somebody can say. This is his right, however I can tell him that sometimes a miracle happens and the dreams become a reality and part of this wonderful reality is even our friendship with the missionary Dr. Haim Reitan.
But who is this kindhearted man that with his attitude and his actions induces me to think that a person that meets such a friend is fortunate?
Dr. Haim Reitan was born in Istanbul (Turkey) on 20 May 1946. He is a doctor, a diplomat, a translator and publicist.
He is an Italian citizen with Israeli origin. Actually he lives in Bergamo (Italy).
He has finished the college for biology in Bat-yam (daughter of the sea) a city of Israel. He graduated in medicine in the University of Pavia (Italy) in 1974. Later he has done some specializations for the diseases of the cardio-vascular apparatus, Flebology, Nephrology in Pavia (Italy), in New York, Miami, Arizona and Texas, in USA, and further in London, Rotterdam e Tel Aviv. He is a member of the Italian Association of Cardiology and the Association of Flebology.
Until 2003 he has worked as a hospital director in some cities of Italy, as a forensic advisor and as a coordinator in some projects within the European Community countries and developing countries like some African countries. During 2004, he has worked as a medical adviser in engineering projects in the construction of the new hospital of Bergamo.
In 2005 and 2006 he has accomplished the role of the coordinator for the development of the relations between Italy and Albania in the medicine field, a thing that he still does due to the good relations that he has created with the officials of the Ministry of Health. He has assisted and continues to give a hand to many people that need to be treated in the Italian hospitals and this is a feature of his character as a man with a spirit of idealist missionary. Meanwhile he continues to direct his own medical center in Bergamo (Italy).
Dr. Haim Reitan speaks some foreign languages, such as the Hebrew language, English, Italian, Spanish, French, Turkish, etc. Now he is trying to learn even the Albanian language. Owing to his ability of polyglot and erudite he has been engaged as an adviser of some well-known political personalities, like ministers, prime ministers and presidents in different countries and with his work he has influenced in the consolidation of their relations with Italy and Israel.
He has been distinguished as a zealous and visionary diplomat, especially in the role of the honor consul and with his intelligence he has influenced in the improvement of the relations between Italy and Israel, especially with countries like Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, Congo etc.
As a good connoisseur of the politics and the development of the situations in Balkan with cramps, conflicts and inter-ethnic tensions, Dr. Haim Reitan has contributed even in the albanological studies and balkanology. He is giving a big contribution as a translator and publicist with his editions in different media of the world. He is one of the most zealous collaborators of the magazine “The eagle’s wing”, an organ of the NGO: The Cultural Association “Bilal Xhaferri” and the publishing organ: The publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri”.
Recently, Dr. Haim Reitan has encouraged some political- economic lobbies in Italy, Israel, USA, Switzerland and somewhere else to support the development of democracy in Albania, for the recognition of Kosovo independence, for the economic-administrative consolidation of its new state and for the internationalism of the Cham problem. In Albania you can find him with the Cham historian Ibrahim Hoxha, with the writers Shefki Hysa and Namik Mane and with other intellectuals, public-spirited for the Albanian national issue. Dr. Haim Reitan is so in love with the Cham issue as to express himself in the Albanian language: I am from Chameria, I’m Cham!”
Dr. Haim Reitan has made friends some personalities of the Albanian politics such as Sali Berisha, Sabri Godo, Fatmir Mediu, Edi Rama, Skënder Gjinushi, Hashim Thaçi etc. One of his projects is the twinning of some Albanian universities with the universities of the most developed countries of the Western Europe. With his work, as a missionary of the Albanian issue in the world, he has gained the respect of many intellectual elites in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.
These are some impressions from the activity
of the missionary Dr. Haim Reitan in Albania
Having friends that care on you in the world is the best thing but having friends that are passionate even at your ideals and love your country the same as their country, this is a miracle. This is a utopia, a dream somebody can say. This is his right, however I can tell him that sometimes a miracle happens and the dreams become a reality and part of this wonderful reality is even our friendship with the missionary Dr. Haim Reitan.
But who is this kindhearted man that with his attitude and his actions induces me to think that a person that meets such a friend is fortunate?
Dr. Haim Reitan was born in Istanbul (Turkey) on 20 May 1946. He is a doctor, a diplomat, a translator and publicist.
He is an Italian citizen with Israeli origin. Actually he lives in Bergamo (Italy).
He has finished the college for biology in Bat-yam (daughter of the sea) a city of Israel. He graduated in medicine in the University of Pavia (Italy) in 1974. Later he has done some specializations for the diseases of the cardio-vascular apparatus, Flebology, Nephrology in Pavia (Italy), in New York, Miami, Arizona and Texas, in USA, and further in London, Rotterdam e Tel Aviv. He is a member of the Italian Association of Cardiology and the Association of Flebology.
Until 2003 he has worked as a hospital director in some cities of Italy, as a forensic advisor and as a coordinator in some projects within the European Community countries and developing countries like some African countries. During 2004, he has worked as a medical adviser in engineering projects in the construction of the new hospital of Bergamo.
In 2005 and 2006 he has accomplished the role of the coordinator for the development of the relations between Italy and Albania in the medicine field, a thing that he still does due to the good relations that he has created with the officials of the Ministry of Health. He has assisted and continues to give a hand to many people that need to be treated in the Italian hospitals and this is a feature of his character as a man with a spirit of idealist missionary. Meanwhile he continues to direct his own medical center in Bergamo (Italy).
Dr. Haim Reitan speaks some foreign languages, such as the Hebrew language, English, Italian, Spanish, French, Turkish, etc. Now he is trying to learn even the Albanian language. Owing to his ability of polyglot and erudite he has been engaged as an adviser of some well-known political personalities, like ministers, prime ministers and presidents in different countries and with his work he has influenced in the consolidation of their relations with Italy and Israel.
He has been distinguished as a zealous and visionary diplomat, especially in the role of the honor consul and with his intelligence he has influenced in the improvement of the relations between Italy and Israel, especially with countries like Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, Congo etc.
As a good connoisseur of the politics and the development of the situations in Balkan with cramps, conflicts and inter-ethnic tensions, Dr. Haim Reitan has contributed even in the albanological studies and balkanology. He is giving a big contribution as a translator and publicist with his editions in different media of the world. He is one of the most zealous collaborators of the magazine “The eagle’s wing”, an organ of the NGO: The Cultural Association “Bilal Xhaferri” and the publishing organ: The publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri”.
Recently, Dr. Haim Reitan has encouraged some political- economic lobbies in Italy, Israel, USA, Switzerland and somewhere else to support the development of democracy in Albania, for the recognition of Kosovo independence, for the economic-administrative consolidation of its new state and for the internationalism of the Cham problem. In Albania you can find him with the Cham historian Ibrahim Hoxha, with the writers Shefki Hysa and Namik Mane and with other intellectuals, public-spirited for the Albanian national issue. Dr. Haim Reitan is so in love with the Cham issue as to express himself in the Albanian language: I am from Chameria, I’m Cham!”
Dr. Haim Reitan has made friends some personalities of the Albanian politics such as Sali Berisha, Sabri Godo, Fatmir Mediu, Edi Rama, Skënder Gjinushi, Hashim Thaçi etc. One of his projects is the twinning of some Albanian universities with the universities of the most developed countries of the Western Europe. With his work, as a missionary of the Albanian issue in the world, he has gained the respect of many intellectual elites in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Elim Pallmadhi
By Arben Çokaj
Dr. Haim Reitan – a contributor and a friend of the Albanians
Dr. Haim Reitan was born in Istanbul (Turkey) on 20 May 1946. He is a doctor, a diplomat, a translator and publicist. He is an Italian citizen with Israeli origin. Actually he lives in Bergamo and he is an Italian citizen.
Dr. Reitan works with different projects to invest in Albania, which I will explain in progress, but let’s take a look to his CV. He has finished the college for biology in Bat-yam (daughter of the sea) a city of Israel.
He graduated in medicine in the University of Pavia (Italy) in 1974. Later he has done some specializations for the diseases of the cardio-vascular apparatus, Flebology, Nephrology in Pavia (Italy), in New York, Miami, Arizona and Texas, in USA, and further in London, Rotterdam e Tel Aviv. He is a member of the Italian Association of Cardiology and the Association of Flebology. Until 2003 he has worked as a hospital director in some cities of Italy, as a forensic advisor and as a coordinator in some projects within the European Community countries and developing countries like some African countries. During 2004, he has worked as a medical adviser in engineering projects in the construction of the new hospital of Bergamo.In 2005 and 2006 he has accomplished the role of the coordinator for the development of the relations between Italy and Albania in the medicine field, a thing that he still does due to the good relations that he has created with the officials of the Ministry of Health. He has assisted and continues to give a hand to many people that need to be treated in the Italian hospitals and this is a feature of his character as a man with a spirit of idealist missionary. Meanwhile he continues to direct his own medical center in Bergamo (Italy).
Dr. Haim Reitan speaks some foreign languages, such as the Hebrew language, English, Italian, Spanish, French, Turkish, etc. Now he is trying to learn even the Albanian language. Owing to his ability of polyglot and erudite he has been engaged as an adviser of some well-known political personalities, like ministers, prime ministers and presidents in different countries and with his work he has influenced in the consolidation of their relations with Italy and Israel. He has been distinguished as a zealous and visionary diplomat, especially in the role of the honor consul and with his intelligence he has influenced in the improvement of the relations between Italy and Israel, especially with countries like Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, Congo etc. Such people with a human and diplomatic activity serve as connective bridges between different nations.
As a good connoisseur of the politics and the development of the situations in Balkan with cramps, conflicts and inter-ethnic tensions, Dr. Haim Reitan has contributed even in the albanological studies and balkanology. He is giving a big contribution as a translator and publicist with his editions in different media of the world. He is one of the most zealous collaborators of the magazine “The eagle’s wing”, an organ of the NGO: The Cultural Association “Bilal Xhaferri” and the publishing organ: The publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri”.
Recently, Dr. Haim Reitan, Honorary President of the Diplomatic Mission Peace and Prosperity, has encouraged some political- economic lobbies in Italy, Israel, USA, Switzerland and somewhere else to support the development of democracy in Albania, for the recognition of Kosovo independence, for the economic-administrative consolidation of its new state and for the internationalism of the Cham problem. In Albania you can find him with the Cham historian Ibrahim Hoxha, with the writers Shefki Hysa and Namik Mane and with other intellectuals, public-spirited for the Albanian national issue. Dr. Haim Reitan is so in love with the Cham issue as to express himself in the Albanian language: I am from Chameria, I’m Cham!”
Dr. Haim Reitan has made friends some personalities of the Albanian politics such as Sali Berisha, Sabri Godo, Fatmir Mediu, Edi Rama, Skënder Gjinushi, Hashim Thaçi etc. One of his projects is the twinning of some Albanian universities with the universities of the most developed countries of the Western Europe. With his work, as a missionary of the Albanian issue in the world, he has gained the respect by many intellectual elites in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.Dr. Reitan is trying to intercede even in the investment issue, in Italy or widely in Albania, especially the private investments that come from the Italian business or other countries. As everywhere in the world, the Albanian market should be open for such people with constructive initiatives for our country and our state institutions should be more exposed and careful to approach such people, with considerable knowledge and interest for Albania, so that their will and contribution could turn in serious and long-term investments for our country.
In the business world the profit is the main thing but it’s more beneficial when the business that is offered in Albania from human people like Dr. Reitan is welcomed and stimulated from the Albanian goodwill and hospitality. We should try as we can to avoid our social wound- the corruption- because devoted people like Dr.Reitan can get tired, can feel insulted and at the end can give themselves up. As Albanians, we must open the door to such constructive attempts and think in a dynamic way for the best forms for the development of our country in the future.
Dr. Haim Reitan – a contributor and a friend of the Albanians
Dr. Haim Reitan was born in Istanbul (Turkey) on 20 May 1946. He is a doctor, a diplomat, a translator and publicist. He is an Italian citizen with Israeli origin. Actually he lives in Bergamo and he is an Italian citizen.
Dr. Reitan works with different projects to invest in Albania, which I will explain in progress, but let’s take a look to his CV. He has finished the college for biology in Bat-yam (daughter of the sea) a city of Israel.
He graduated in medicine in the University of Pavia (Italy) in 1974. Later he has done some specializations for the diseases of the cardio-vascular apparatus, Flebology, Nephrology in Pavia (Italy), in New York, Miami, Arizona and Texas, in USA, and further in London, Rotterdam e Tel Aviv. He is a member of the Italian Association of Cardiology and the Association of Flebology. Until 2003 he has worked as a hospital director in some cities of Italy, as a forensic advisor and as a coordinator in some projects within the European Community countries and developing countries like some African countries. During 2004, he has worked as a medical adviser in engineering projects in the construction of the new hospital of Bergamo.In 2005 and 2006 he has accomplished the role of the coordinator for the development of the relations between Italy and Albania in the medicine field, a thing that he still does due to the good relations that he has created with the officials of the Ministry of Health. He has assisted and continues to give a hand to many people that need to be treated in the Italian hospitals and this is a feature of his character as a man with a spirit of idealist missionary. Meanwhile he continues to direct his own medical center in Bergamo (Italy).
Dr. Haim Reitan speaks some foreign languages, such as the Hebrew language, English, Italian, Spanish, French, Turkish, etc. Now he is trying to learn even the Albanian language. Owing to his ability of polyglot and erudite he has been engaged as an adviser of some well-known political personalities, like ministers, prime ministers and presidents in different countries and with his work he has influenced in the consolidation of their relations with Italy and Israel. He has been distinguished as a zealous and visionary diplomat, especially in the role of the honor consul and with his intelligence he has influenced in the improvement of the relations between Italy and Israel, especially with countries like Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, Congo etc. Such people with a human and diplomatic activity serve as connective bridges between different nations.
As a good connoisseur of the politics and the development of the situations in Balkan with cramps, conflicts and inter-ethnic tensions, Dr. Haim Reitan has contributed even in the albanological studies and balkanology. He is giving a big contribution as a translator and publicist with his editions in different media of the world. He is one of the most zealous collaborators of the magazine “The eagle’s wing”, an organ of the NGO: The Cultural Association “Bilal Xhaferri” and the publishing organ: The publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri”.
Recently, Dr. Haim Reitan, Honorary President of the Diplomatic Mission Peace and Prosperity, has encouraged some political- economic lobbies in Italy, Israel, USA, Switzerland and somewhere else to support the development of democracy in Albania, for the recognition of Kosovo independence, for the economic-administrative consolidation of its new state and for the internationalism of the Cham problem. In Albania you can find him with the Cham historian Ibrahim Hoxha, with the writers Shefki Hysa and Namik Mane and with other intellectuals, public-spirited for the Albanian national issue. Dr. Haim Reitan is so in love with the Cham issue as to express himself in the Albanian language: I am from Chameria, I’m Cham!”
Dr. Haim Reitan has made friends some personalities of the Albanian politics such as Sali Berisha, Sabri Godo, Fatmir Mediu, Edi Rama, Skënder Gjinushi, Hashim Thaçi etc. One of his projects is the twinning of some Albanian universities with the universities of the most developed countries of the Western Europe. With his work, as a missionary of the Albanian issue in the world, he has gained the respect by many intellectual elites in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.Dr. Reitan is trying to intercede even in the investment issue, in Italy or widely in Albania, especially the private investments that come from the Italian business or other countries. As everywhere in the world, the Albanian market should be open for such people with constructive initiatives for our country and our state institutions should be more exposed and careful to approach such people, with considerable knowledge and interest for Albania, so that their will and contribution could turn in serious and long-term investments for our country.
In the business world the profit is the main thing but it’s more beneficial when the business that is offered in Albania from human people like Dr. Reitan is welcomed and stimulated from the Albanian goodwill and hospitality. We should try as we can to avoid our social wound- the corruption- because devoted people like Dr.Reitan can get tired, can feel insulted and at the end can give themselves up. As Albanians, we must open the door to such constructive attempts and think in a dynamic way for the best forms for the development of our country in the future.
Monday, March 2, 2009
By Shefki Hysa
The confession
Fatija trembled when the voice of the bride brought up the start of her thoughts. After all, a kind of sleep is even meditation, being lost in yourself darkness, where are accumulated the pains, the sorrows, all the sufferings and the troubles of life. There is no better cure for these incurable wounds, harmed unwittingly. You wander in your mind, you unwrap and spin that poor, slowly, like a coil of wool, like the old- age witch would long for. But what did the bride say? The poor thing supposes that the unfortunate old-woman is crazy!
- Did I hear your voice or I didn’t? - She said to the young lady who was grating some cabbages in a used copper pie- pan.
Everything in that cabin, where they had found a shelter after the horror that followed them until the gates of the Albanian border, was half. And, as if the horrible memories that went around time after time in the eyes of the mind weren’t enough, it was also the poverty, like a flock of thorns.
- I said a commission; a commission with some foreigners has arrived here- repeated the bride, in the face of whom, the mother distinguished compassion.
She felt creeps in her creasy, like a ball of rags, old body, arrant because of the gloom rather than the old- age.
- Did you say foreigners? But what do they want here? -almost screamed the old woman, full of shivers and without understanding if the presence of the foreigners brought this hatred or something else…
- They say that they are doing their best mother. They are collecting testimonies for the crimes of our murderers. They say that the world will condemn the Greek Zervist who set on fire, killed and destroyed Chameria- sweetened her voice the young lady, like she had in front her three years old son that needs to be fondled.
- The black goodness of the foreigner! The foreigner remains a foreigner, my daughter. This is from your mother… But what are they looking for? ... Can you say one more time because I feel like my ears are roaring! - emphasized the incredulous and curious mother, meanwhile converted like the fire that blows up in a flame that is thundering.
- The people have got together in Rexha Plaku’s house and they are telling the foreigners about the atrocities that the Greeks have done to us, how they killed and ousted us from our homes, how they plundered and burnt down our fortune, how they left us like refugees without a homeland - said tearfully the bride.
- Is it true?!- whispered hesitantly the mother as though a glimmer had inflamed the corners of the afflicted spirit.
She guessed that it had passed more than a year from that cursed day, when the death with the image of the perfidious Greek Zervists, had come upon their village there in Chameria, in every house, had furiously thrust their clutches in the life of innocent people, had slaughtered, massacred and covered with blood children, boys and men…The coward death wasn’t reserving neither the women!...
“Oh curse, only curse! - jumped the insurrectionary being.-Cursed in eternity! The foreigners! Those who killed us at night and cried us during the day! ... In this way and every time in this way… Maybe since this world was created… The foreigner kills with his knife and his smile too, with bullet and bread… Yes, yes even the bread of the foreigner harasses you! It can stick in your throat, and no one believes you… This is why the story with the foreigners is repeated and repeated… As it happens in our Chameri… No, foreigners I can’t believe you… At least me, the poor old woman, because you reduced me in this way, lonely…
The mother, a little infuriated, like those that feel fainted and lose their temper, was missed in front of the scenes of the tragedy that her torpid imagination made and remade constantly, until the bride’s voice moved her from that self-stiffness. She experienced day and night this stiffness, which brought in the eyes of her mind, as with magic, all the dead people and she flew at the death with the arms of the fantasy, took it away, far away, cleansed the wounds of the victims, talking and discussing with them…
After all, the immersion in the past, even though excruciating, was the only pleasure that consoled the mother, besides her three - years old nephew, whom she loved like the apple of the eye. He was like her son and if she enjoyed the apple of the eye it was owing to this inheritor…
- Did you say anything my daughter? Because I think I am becoming deaf my poor girl - was felt the mother and she noticed that even the young woman, although she still wasn’t thirty years old, was cockling and turning grey, like many other widows.
- I said that those foreigners don’t believe the witnesses of our people. They consider them fantasies…
It broke Fatije’s heart as though the knife of the Zervists had struck her. Her sight darkened and she was stunned again. This time, only her bride’s hands pull her out from this faint condition. It was a kind of logic asphyxia.
- Look after your son my daughter, - said the mother and stood up with some efforts. She didn’t move her hands, lapful on the apron as she was a pregnant bride, waiting her first baby. The only thought that buzzed in her head was that the foreigner remains a foreigner. And her whole body trembled as from the fever…
Walking in a path, she set eyes on the leaves of the nuts that were yellowing. A turbid autumn sky hung beyond her head. It was the autumn of 1946. The fires of Cham refugees still puffed lightly in Vasilikua, beneath Konispol. The tombstones whitened in Qafëbotë. The mold on those graves wasn’t dried up yet…
The old woman climbed down in the midst of the village, holding herself in the trunks of the nuts and olives. She tried to fall and she didn’t fall. The hopes kept her up…
She looked from far away the crowd and they saw her too. The foreigners, although everything was translated in details, continued to shake their head doubtfully. The murderous massacre, that tormented and victimized them, and that was described from the eyewitnesses seemed to be a fabled bugbear rather than a lived homicidal truth. The konispolits, crowded together in
front of the commission, were getting angry by this indifference.
Fatija, who was imagining just a little the run of the conversations, appeared above the square. Surprisingly, a waking force somewhere inside of her interior, made her footfalls more secure. “The foreigner remains a foreigner” was the only chorus thought within her skull, clothed with the white wimple, tied in the gill. The hatred boiled her body, shrunken and crooked from the terror of the cruelty. So hirsute in appearance, she gripped with her hands that were trembling, the lap of the apron. The irritated people hushed and paved like she was bringing a big proof that contained all the proofs, facts and testimonies, those said and those that the people were going to say…In this way the foreigners couldn’t shake their heads with distrust anymore…
The eyes of all the people were fixed simultaneously on the lap of the apron, in an anxious waiting, as though she was having a baby right now, a baby that would grow up instantly to witness with the signs of the wounds, the screams of the terror in front of the tortures of the death, everything that the fervid Chams had seen, heard and suffered…
Even the people of the commission scented something. They hushed and stared at the old woman like a lively and fabled testimony, like a suffering, dolor and poverty node, which was imperceptible from their minds.
The mother was drawing near slowly, like a mortal ceremony. In an instant she hesitated: should she stop or should she go to the end of that hall where the foreigners were staying. Sometimes she warped her face, like in her bride hood from the pangs of childbirth, her only child who was massacred in front of her from the Zervist hangmen. None of the people that were surrounding her didn’t peep or say even a word.
When she approached the table of the foreigners, she was out of breath and the tears that had withered from her deep eyes a long time ago, crashed and tied up her throat. However, she looked up from her belly and gazed the infuriating foreigners. Suddenly a plume of hair tore off from her hands and fell on the paper-work with the ghoulish semblance of a peel that is flayed from a human head…
The foreigners hit the ceiling and backed with horror. A scream, like that of the raven, rose from the breasts of the people. The cynical view of the mother involved all the people and stopped at the foreigners. They didn’t speak, like being scared of a punishment that could appear in every moment.
- So you are collecting evidences against the criminals and their crimes? Here they are! They speak alone for the calamity that the perfidious people threw us, - she said and her voice broke as from a sudden blow. Some tears flowed down by the furrows of the weather- beaten cheeks. She hushed a little and then began to tell, more for herself than for the others.
- We heard the hectic sound of some shoes in the solid stairs. We froze. The foreboding of the bad or the shadow of that ominous clatter, which was flying at our two-storied house, like a solid castle in a cliff in shore there in Chameri, gagged us. We had a joy that day, I don’t remember very well but we were laughing with the little boy, who was dangling in the shoulder of my son. Even the little child stopped smiling. The whey- faced bride, like being simulated by something, grabbed the tongs in the fire- place and remained with the scared eyes fixed in the door. The tramp stopped for a little, the time that a man needs to breathe, in the ground upstairs, and then a kick hit and the door crashed like a thunderclap, against the walls. A leaf that had flowed out from the hinge slanted with a remonstrant crunch. Two bearded soldiers of Zerva, one taller than the other, appeared in the groundsel. The taller one had a red eye, infuriated from the beverage or maybe from the sleeplessness, like the view of a mad dog. Promptly he took the dagger from the girdle and so cross-eyed he threatened us that if we felt sorry for our skin we wouldn’t move or scream. The bride put the both hands on the face to smother the cry that she uttered from the panic. The other soldier, a thick- witted man that knew only to grin, put the point of the dagger in her throat in the moment that she was trying to hit him with the tongs. I rushed between the soldier and the bride and very frightened, I pushed them away from each other. My heart was beating like a drum in the breast. The little boy, who was in the hands of his father and scared from the brutal arrival of those foreigners, burst into tears with screams. Quit down that puppy because otherwise I will pluck his head like a bird - he grinned to my son and approached him with his eyes that were sparkling only badness. I threw myself again between the murderer and my son. They both had the same age of my son. Nameless and nor twenty years old they were cruel like a scion of the devil. They obliged us to go in the corner of the room, my son, the bride and me, trying to protect them with my body from the horrible cusp of the dagger in the hands of the cross- eyed man. The thick- witted man, who was keeping two guns and a dagger, hang around the house, with that abhorrent and voiceless smile, like a sufferer of apoplexy. The shabby floor of plane wood was whimpering and fulminating from those heavy shoes that those damning people were wearing. The cross-eyed man pulled over the heap with mattresses and quilts, the hampers, the buffets, messed the whole house and turned everything backward. He was searching for gold whereas the thick- witted man had his eyes on us as he was flying around, hitting with the toe cap the dresses of my set of clothes. My son hardly restrained himself but I stopped his run-up, nipping him to hush and staying in any case in front of him. The cross-eyed man, who wasn’t finding any worth thing, grumbled and grunted with a hollow voice. He was almost exasperated. His forehead became black. I followed with anxiety every move of him and in that moment I would like to have had a batch of gold for those bogeys so that they couldn’t touch my son, the bride and their child, my dear. I didn’t want the gold before the little child. But instantly the cross- eyed man sat up and ordered the thick- witted man to bind us. Oh, that instant! The eyelashes were wobbling from the deviltry of that criminal. How he squeezed the jowls and the teeth, how chuckled that peevish black hog! O my God, what a hideous creature on earth! He jumped over my son, slipped the terrified baby, threw it in the set of clothes and put his foot in the throat to suffocate it. My son escaped from the hands of the thick- witted man and hunched to save the child. He scuffled with the cross- eyed man, who flounced to him with fists and kicks. He grabbed my son from the hair and began to drag him by the room. My bride and me, bound together, screamed but it was impossible to save him. The thick- witted man held from the arms my son and the infuriating cross- eyed man hit him in the belly with his heavy shoes. His eyes were blooded from the rabies. When my son’s body fell in the ground, almost dead, the gluttonous cross- eyed man stabbed the dagger in his heart, pulled it, and so covered with blood stabbed it again and again… Even the thick- witted man blazed up… With the bayonet…They made his body holey… The bride lost consciousness immediately whereas I was watching as in a haze, with my broken heart, almost exhausted, how my son screamed: Oh, mother, they killed me”!
How trembled and curled the corpse, still warm, how dribbled the blood, sprinkled the wall and the murderer’s clothes, poured on the floor, some of it exuding through a slot downstairs, in the dark of the cot whereas the other part shrank and froze in my feet…
But was this enough?! The thick- witted man didn’t take away that bogey laugh from his lips whereas the cross- eyed man gabbled, grinning near my nose, with the blood of my son dripping from the knife…I was parched. With the wall-eyes from a horror that one has never heard or seen, from that very arduous dread for the shoulders of a grey- headed mother, I had lost, almost completely, my tenderness… I was like a living cadaver… Whereas the bad men, who still wanted to torture me, after they had slaughtered my son like a cattle, peeled his head and put the bloody skin on the lap of the apron… Even that apple of the eye darkled and I couldn’t see anymore… When I recollected myself, they had gone…
I washed with my tears the house that was covered with blood and I took the way beyond the border, at least I could save the bride and the little boy from the clutches of the pestilence that Zerva threw us, with that band of cursed recreants…
The crowd that was listening to the story terrified, without understanding, blazed in a rebellion whisper that surrounded the mother. So integrated, that close group of people, aforetime violated, irradiated the feverish desire for justice, in front of the table of the commission…
The foreigners that had already recollected themselves, as if they absorbed in every cell of their body the atrocity that these people had suffered, the revolt that the unrequited maiming caused to them…The justice was among them, massacred…
They took some pictures as if they wanted to fix in celluloid the human anger, wrote something in their papers, closed them hurriedly into some black briefcases and left the pace with a car…
Mother Fatija took with caresses and sorrow the skin of her son’s head, winded it on with caution and care, and put it in the breast, unbuttoned the shirt and put it near the heart, as if she wanted to give her life from her life…
She took a look at the people one more time, with the tearful eyes and so, with the hands on the breast she turned her body, ready to go…
The people paved without saying a word. She was going. However she remained like a fresh incurable wound in their hearts, one more wound near the just hurt wounds of the innocence that enlightened their faces…
The confession
Fatija trembled when the voice of the bride brought up the start of her thoughts. After all, a kind of sleep is even meditation, being lost in yourself darkness, where are accumulated the pains, the sorrows, all the sufferings and the troubles of life. There is no better cure for these incurable wounds, harmed unwittingly. You wander in your mind, you unwrap and spin that poor, slowly, like a coil of wool, like the old- age witch would long for. But what did the bride say? The poor thing supposes that the unfortunate old-woman is crazy!
- Did I hear your voice or I didn’t? - She said to the young lady who was grating some cabbages in a used copper pie- pan.
Everything in that cabin, where they had found a shelter after the horror that followed them until the gates of the Albanian border, was half. And, as if the horrible memories that went around time after time in the eyes of the mind weren’t enough, it was also the poverty, like a flock of thorns.
- I said a commission; a commission with some foreigners has arrived here- repeated the bride, in the face of whom, the mother distinguished compassion.
She felt creeps in her creasy, like a ball of rags, old body, arrant because of the gloom rather than the old- age.
- Did you say foreigners? But what do they want here? -almost screamed the old woman, full of shivers and without understanding if the presence of the foreigners brought this hatred or something else…
- They say that they are doing their best mother. They are collecting testimonies for the crimes of our murderers. They say that the world will condemn the Greek Zervist who set on fire, killed and destroyed Chameria- sweetened her voice the young lady, like she had in front her three years old son that needs to be fondled.
- The black goodness of the foreigner! The foreigner remains a foreigner, my daughter. This is from your mother… But what are they looking for? ... Can you say one more time because I feel like my ears are roaring! - emphasized the incredulous and curious mother, meanwhile converted like the fire that blows up in a flame that is thundering.
- The people have got together in Rexha Plaku’s house and they are telling the foreigners about the atrocities that the Greeks have done to us, how they killed and ousted us from our homes, how they plundered and burnt down our fortune, how they left us like refugees without a homeland - said tearfully the bride.
- Is it true?!- whispered hesitantly the mother as though a glimmer had inflamed the corners of the afflicted spirit.
She guessed that it had passed more than a year from that cursed day, when the death with the image of the perfidious Greek Zervists, had come upon their village there in Chameria, in every house, had furiously thrust their clutches in the life of innocent people, had slaughtered, massacred and covered with blood children, boys and men…The coward death wasn’t reserving neither the women!...
“Oh curse, only curse! - jumped the insurrectionary being.-Cursed in eternity! The foreigners! Those who killed us at night and cried us during the day! ... In this way and every time in this way… Maybe since this world was created… The foreigner kills with his knife and his smile too, with bullet and bread… Yes, yes even the bread of the foreigner harasses you! It can stick in your throat, and no one believes you… This is why the story with the foreigners is repeated and repeated… As it happens in our Chameri… No, foreigners I can’t believe you… At least me, the poor old woman, because you reduced me in this way, lonely…
The mother, a little infuriated, like those that feel fainted and lose their temper, was missed in front of the scenes of the tragedy that her torpid imagination made and remade constantly, until the bride’s voice moved her from that self-stiffness. She experienced day and night this stiffness, which brought in the eyes of her mind, as with magic, all the dead people and she flew at the death with the arms of the fantasy, took it away, far away, cleansed the wounds of the victims, talking and discussing with them…
After all, the immersion in the past, even though excruciating, was the only pleasure that consoled the mother, besides her three - years old nephew, whom she loved like the apple of the eye. He was like her son and if she enjoyed the apple of the eye it was owing to this inheritor…
- Did you say anything my daughter? Because I think I am becoming deaf my poor girl - was felt the mother and she noticed that even the young woman, although she still wasn’t thirty years old, was cockling and turning grey, like many other widows.
- I said that those foreigners don’t believe the witnesses of our people. They consider them fantasies…
It broke Fatije’s heart as though the knife of the Zervists had struck her. Her sight darkened and she was stunned again. This time, only her bride’s hands pull her out from this faint condition. It was a kind of logic asphyxia.
- Look after your son my daughter, - said the mother and stood up with some efforts. She didn’t move her hands, lapful on the apron as she was a pregnant bride, waiting her first baby. The only thought that buzzed in her head was that the foreigner remains a foreigner. And her whole body trembled as from the fever…
Walking in a path, she set eyes on the leaves of the nuts that were yellowing. A turbid autumn sky hung beyond her head. It was the autumn of 1946. The fires of Cham refugees still puffed lightly in Vasilikua, beneath Konispol. The tombstones whitened in Qafëbotë. The mold on those graves wasn’t dried up yet…
The old woman climbed down in the midst of the village, holding herself in the trunks of the nuts and olives. She tried to fall and she didn’t fall. The hopes kept her up…
She looked from far away the crowd and they saw her too. The foreigners, although everything was translated in details, continued to shake their head doubtfully. The murderous massacre, that tormented and victimized them, and that was described from the eyewitnesses seemed to be a fabled bugbear rather than a lived homicidal truth. The konispolits, crowded together in
front of the commission, were getting angry by this indifference.
Fatija, who was imagining just a little the run of the conversations, appeared above the square. Surprisingly, a waking force somewhere inside of her interior, made her footfalls more secure. “The foreigner remains a foreigner” was the only chorus thought within her skull, clothed with the white wimple, tied in the gill. The hatred boiled her body, shrunken and crooked from the terror of the cruelty. So hirsute in appearance, she gripped with her hands that were trembling, the lap of the apron. The irritated people hushed and paved like she was bringing a big proof that contained all the proofs, facts and testimonies, those said and those that the people were going to say…In this way the foreigners couldn’t shake their heads with distrust anymore…
The eyes of all the people were fixed simultaneously on the lap of the apron, in an anxious waiting, as though she was having a baby right now, a baby that would grow up instantly to witness with the signs of the wounds, the screams of the terror in front of the tortures of the death, everything that the fervid Chams had seen, heard and suffered…
Even the people of the commission scented something. They hushed and stared at the old woman like a lively and fabled testimony, like a suffering, dolor and poverty node, which was imperceptible from their minds.
The mother was drawing near slowly, like a mortal ceremony. In an instant she hesitated: should she stop or should she go to the end of that hall where the foreigners were staying. Sometimes she warped her face, like in her bride hood from the pangs of childbirth, her only child who was massacred in front of her from the Zervist hangmen. None of the people that were surrounding her didn’t peep or say even a word.
When she approached the table of the foreigners, she was out of breath and the tears that had withered from her deep eyes a long time ago, crashed and tied up her throat. However, she looked up from her belly and gazed the infuriating foreigners. Suddenly a plume of hair tore off from her hands and fell on the paper-work with the ghoulish semblance of a peel that is flayed from a human head…
The foreigners hit the ceiling and backed with horror. A scream, like that of the raven, rose from the breasts of the people. The cynical view of the mother involved all the people and stopped at the foreigners. They didn’t speak, like being scared of a punishment that could appear in every moment.
- So you are collecting evidences against the criminals and their crimes? Here they are! They speak alone for the calamity that the perfidious people threw us, - she said and her voice broke as from a sudden blow. Some tears flowed down by the furrows of the weather- beaten cheeks. She hushed a little and then began to tell, more for herself than for the others.
- We heard the hectic sound of some shoes in the solid stairs. We froze. The foreboding of the bad or the shadow of that ominous clatter, which was flying at our two-storied house, like a solid castle in a cliff in shore there in Chameri, gagged us. We had a joy that day, I don’t remember very well but we were laughing with the little boy, who was dangling in the shoulder of my son. Even the little child stopped smiling. The whey- faced bride, like being simulated by something, grabbed the tongs in the fire- place and remained with the scared eyes fixed in the door. The tramp stopped for a little, the time that a man needs to breathe, in the ground upstairs, and then a kick hit and the door crashed like a thunderclap, against the walls. A leaf that had flowed out from the hinge slanted with a remonstrant crunch. Two bearded soldiers of Zerva, one taller than the other, appeared in the groundsel. The taller one had a red eye, infuriated from the beverage or maybe from the sleeplessness, like the view of a mad dog. Promptly he took the dagger from the girdle and so cross-eyed he threatened us that if we felt sorry for our skin we wouldn’t move or scream. The bride put the both hands on the face to smother the cry that she uttered from the panic. The other soldier, a thick- witted man that knew only to grin, put the point of the dagger in her throat in the moment that she was trying to hit him with the tongs. I rushed between the soldier and the bride and very frightened, I pushed them away from each other. My heart was beating like a drum in the breast. The little boy, who was in the hands of his father and scared from the brutal arrival of those foreigners, burst into tears with screams. Quit down that puppy because otherwise I will pluck his head like a bird - he grinned to my son and approached him with his eyes that were sparkling only badness. I threw myself again between the murderer and my son. They both had the same age of my son. Nameless and nor twenty years old they were cruel like a scion of the devil. They obliged us to go in the corner of the room, my son, the bride and me, trying to protect them with my body from the horrible cusp of the dagger in the hands of the cross- eyed man. The thick- witted man, who was keeping two guns and a dagger, hang around the house, with that abhorrent and voiceless smile, like a sufferer of apoplexy. The shabby floor of plane wood was whimpering and fulminating from those heavy shoes that those damning people were wearing. The cross-eyed man pulled over the heap with mattresses and quilts, the hampers, the buffets, messed the whole house and turned everything backward. He was searching for gold whereas the thick- witted man had his eyes on us as he was flying around, hitting with the toe cap the dresses of my set of clothes. My son hardly restrained himself but I stopped his run-up, nipping him to hush and staying in any case in front of him. The cross-eyed man, who wasn’t finding any worth thing, grumbled and grunted with a hollow voice. He was almost exasperated. His forehead became black. I followed with anxiety every move of him and in that moment I would like to have had a batch of gold for those bogeys so that they couldn’t touch my son, the bride and their child, my dear. I didn’t want the gold before the little child. But instantly the cross- eyed man sat up and ordered the thick- witted man to bind us. Oh, that instant! The eyelashes were wobbling from the deviltry of that criminal. How he squeezed the jowls and the teeth, how chuckled that peevish black hog! O my God, what a hideous creature on earth! He jumped over my son, slipped the terrified baby, threw it in the set of clothes and put his foot in the throat to suffocate it. My son escaped from the hands of the thick- witted man and hunched to save the child. He scuffled with the cross- eyed man, who flounced to him with fists and kicks. He grabbed my son from the hair and began to drag him by the room. My bride and me, bound together, screamed but it was impossible to save him. The thick- witted man held from the arms my son and the infuriating cross- eyed man hit him in the belly with his heavy shoes. His eyes were blooded from the rabies. When my son’s body fell in the ground, almost dead, the gluttonous cross- eyed man stabbed the dagger in his heart, pulled it, and so covered with blood stabbed it again and again… Even the thick- witted man blazed up… With the bayonet…They made his body holey… The bride lost consciousness immediately whereas I was watching as in a haze, with my broken heart, almost exhausted, how my son screamed: Oh, mother, they killed me”!
How trembled and curled the corpse, still warm, how dribbled the blood, sprinkled the wall and the murderer’s clothes, poured on the floor, some of it exuding through a slot downstairs, in the dark of the cot whereas the other part shrank and froze in my feet…
But was this enough?! The thick- witted man didn’t take away that bogey laugh from his lips whereas the cross- eyed man gabbled, grinning near my nose, with the blood of my son dripping from the knife…I was parched. With the wall-eyes from a horror that one has never heard or seen, from that very arduous dread for the shoulders of a grey- headed mother, I had lost, almost completely, my tenderness… I was like a living cadaver… Whereas the bad men, who still wanted to torture me, after they had slaughtered my son like a cattle, peeled his head and put the bloody skin on the lap of the apron… Even that apple of the eye darkled and I couldn’t see anymore… When I recollected myself, they had gone…
I washed with my tears the house that was covered with blood and I took the way beyond the border, at least I could save the bride and the little boy from the clutches of the pestilence that Zerva threw us, with that band of cursed recreants…
The crowd that was listening to the story terrified, without understanding, blazed in a rebellion whisper that surrounded the mother. So integrated, that close group of people, aforetime violated, irradiated the feverish desire for justice, in front of the table of the commission…
The foreigners that had already recollected themselves, as if they absorbed in every cell of their body the atrocity that these people had suffered, the revolt that the unrequited maiming caused to them…The justice was among them, massacred…
They took some pictures as if they wanted to fix in celluloid the human anger, wrote something in their papers, closed them hurriedly into some black briefcases and left the pace with a car…
Mother Fatija took with caresses and sorrow the skin of her son’s head, winded it on with caution and care, and put it in the breast, unbuttoned the shirt and put it near the heart, as if she wanted to give her life from her life…
She took a look at the people one more time, with the tearful eyes and so, with the hands on the breast she turned her body, ready to go…
The people paved without saying a word. She was going. However she remained like a fresh incurable wound in their hearts, one more wound near the just hurt wounds of the innocence that enlightened their faces…
By Dr. Haim Reitan
What is the cultural association “Bilal Xhaferri”?!
The cultural association “Bilal Xhaferri” (The Cultural Community of Chameria) is an Albanian NGO, with its center in Tirana, founded by a group of journalists, writers, artists and intellectuals, friends and well-wishers of the noted dissident poet, narrator and publicist Bilal Xhaferri, which aims to point out the brilliance of this outraged figure, thrown in forgetfulness from the former communist dictatorship and the sublimation of our national culture values versus the values of the advanced civilizations, especially those of the martyr Chameri.
The boom of the publications of this publishing-house and the big echo of its activity in those years, initiated the idea that an institution, with bigger spaces and legal purview than those of a simple publishing organ, was indispensable. Thus, it was necessary to found a cultural multifunctional organism, more dignified, an unprofitable organization that should include even the publications field and at the same time it should have possibilities to collaborate with governmental and non-governmental institutions in all the life views, inside and outside the country.
A group of Cham activists, in concert with their friends in different regions of Albania and in Diaspora, discussed a long time with the best intellectuals of the Cultural Community of Chameria and in collaboration with many writers, artists and other Albanian intellectuals, friends and well-wishers of Bilal Xhaferri and the Cham issue, decided to create a cultural association, that would have besides the publishing-house, even its press. So, they would found a non-governmental organization like the Cham League, which was founded by Bilal Xhaferri, in Chicago, USA or something similar with the association “Chameria”, but disposed toward the Cham culture rather than politics.
As a result of the collaboration, the Cultural Association “Bilal Xhaferri” was founded and consolidated during 1993 and 1994 as a specialized institution that would expand his cultural activity beyond the Albanian borders, in Kosovo, Macedonia and USA to coordinate the work with the Cham League, the Kosovo’s League, the Democratic League of Montenegro, The League of the Albanians of Macedonia and with many other organizations that operated in the American continent. The association would be a potential voice for the support of the Cham problem and for its solution in a diplomatic way …Thus, these initiators had to become a little diplomats, like all the writers and artists that take the role of the ambassadors of their country’s culture… In this way they would become missionaries of the Albanian culture, her diplomats…
But who were some of the friends that joined the table of this association and helped with the Albanian heart the Cham ideal?! Even well-known intellectuals were distinguished among them. We can mention: Namik Mane, Pandeli Koçi, Pjetër Arbnori, Dritëro Agolli, Ismail Kadare, Ballkiz Halili, Dhori Karaj, Faik Teodori, Fatos M. Rrapaj, Hektor Sejko, Hekuran Halili, Namik Selmani, Martin Mato, Minella Kureta, Sokol Jakova, Vath Koreshi, Axhem Çapo, Alem Hoxha, Balil Proda, Bujar Shurdhi, Qani Biraçi, Xhemil Lato and many others, not only Chams…
Very soon, the cultural association “Bilal Xhaferri” was expanded not only in the areas of the Cham community but even in the main districts of Albania, wherever the friends of Bilal Xhaferri’s work and ideal lived… It created very good relations with the structures of the Albanian state, with politicians of every political spectrum, with those of the position and opposition, with the old politicians and the young ones such as: Pjetër Arbnori, Sali Berisha, Ibrahim Rugova and Fatos Nano, Aleksandër Meksi, Servet Pëllumbi and Skënder Gjinushi, Sabri Godo, Fatmir Mediu, Namik Dokle and Arian Madhi, Edi Rama, Hashim Thaçi, Gramoz Ruçi, Bamir Topi, Besnik Mustafaj and Neritan Ceka, Petro Koçi and Preç Zogaj, Ilir Meta, Pëllumb Xhufi and Sabri Hamiti, Makbule Çeço, Jozefina Topalli, Diana Çuli, Lajla Pernaska, Valentina Leskaj, Mimi Kodheli, Majlinda Bregu and many others.
The contacts of this association were extended and consolidated even with the American, Italian, German and Turkish embassies etc, or with personalities of the world diplomacy and culture like Hillary Clinton and Doris Pack, Miranda Vickers and James Pettifer, Marko Panela and Callenback, Dr. Haim Reitan, Amir Gilad etc.
A generation of poets, journalists, intellectuals and young talented politicians such as Agim Mero, Alma Ahmeti, Bianka Bilali, Dylbere Dika, Florian Bulica, Fllanxa Veshi, Kadri Aliu, Kostaq Myrtaj, Ismail Murtaj, Leonora Bilali, Mina Çaushi, Rudina Hasa, Yllka Sulku, Xhulia Xhekaj and many others afterwards would become in years the big armature of the warriors of the Cham ideal that this association had as a purpose…
The magazine “Eagle’s wing”, founded by Bilal Xhaferri in USA became the organ that reflected and continues to reflect all the activity of this patriotic organization.
The main purpose of this organization is to point out the grandiosity of the figure of Bilal Xhaferri and the values of the Cham and Albanian culture near the best world values… The most imminent objective that was assigned to realize this purpose was: The restitution of the bones of Bilal Xhaferri in Albania that was realized in May 6, 1995 with the contribution of the Albanian state and the writer Shefki Hysa, director of this association…
An in this way began a long collaboration with all the governmental and non-governmental organisms, until it was made possible that the bones of Bilal Xhaferrit could come and repose in Saranda. A lot of other purposes in benefit of the Albanian culture and the final solution of the Cham problem were the other objectives to achieve…
It was extracted from the book “The diplomacy of self-denial” of the writer Shefki Hysa, Tirana, 2008
Dr. Haim Reitan, Diplomat,
Honorary President
of the Diplomatic Mission
Peace and Prosperity
What is the cultural association “Bilal Xhaferri”?!
The cultural association “Bilal Xhaferri” (The Cultural Community of Chameria) is an Albanian NGO, with its center in Tirana, founded by a group of journalists, writers, artists and intellectuals, friends and well-wishers of the noted dissident poet, narrator and publicist Bilal Xhaferri, which aims to point out the brilliance of this outraged figure, thrown in forgetfulness from the former communist dictatorship and the sublimation of our national culture values versus the values of the advanced civilizations, especially those of the martyr Chameri.
The boom of the publications of this publishing-house and the big echo of its activity in those years, initiated the idea that an institution, with bigger spaces and legal purview than those of a simple publishing organ, was indispensable. Thus, it was necessary to found a cultural multifunctional organism, more dignified, an unprofitable organization that should include even the publications field and at the same time it should have possibilities to collaborate with governmental and non-governmental institutions in all the life views, inside and outside the country.
A group of Cham activists, in concert with their friends in different regions of Albania and in Diaspora, discussed a long time with the best intellectuals of the Cultural Community of Chameria and in collaboration with many writers, artists and other Albanian intellectuals, friends and well-wishers of Bilal Xhaferri and the Cham issue, decided to create a cultural association, that would have besides the publishing-house, even its press. So, they would found a non-governmental organization like the Cham League, which was founded by Bilal Xhaferri, in Chicago, USA or something similar with the association “Chameria”, but disposed toward the Cham culture rather than politics.
As a result of the collaboration, the Cultural Association “Bilal Xhaferri” was founded and consolidated during 1993 and 1994 as a specialized institution that would expand his cultural activity beyond the Albanian borders, in Kosovo, Macedonia and USA to coordinate the work with the Cham League, the Kosovo’s League, the Democratic League of Montenegro, The League of the Albanians of Macedonia and with many other organizations that operated in the American continent. The association would be a potential voice for the support of the Cham problem and for its solution in a diplomatic way …Thus, these initiators had to become a little diplomats, like all the writers and artists that take the role of the ambassadors of their country’s culture… In this way they would become missionaries of the Albanian culture, her diplomats…
But who were some of the friends that joined the table of this association and helped with the Albanian heart the Cham ideal?! Even well-known intellectuals were distinguished among them. We can mention: Namik Mane, Pandeli Koçi, Pjetër Arbnori, Dritëro Agolli, Ismail Kadare, Ballkiz Halili, Dhori Karaj, Faik Teodori, Fatos M. Rrapaj, Hektor Sejko, Hekuran Halili, Namik Selmani, Martin Mato, Minella Kureta, Sokol Jakova, Vath Koreshi, Axhem Çapo, Alem Hoxha, Balil Proda, Bujar Shurdhi, Qani Biraçi, Xhemil Lato and many others, not only Chams…
Very soon, the cultural association “Bilal Xhaferri” was expanded not only in the areas of the Cham community but even in the main districts of Albania, wherever the friends of Bilal Xhaferri’s work and ideal lived… It created very good relations with the structures of the Albanian state, with politicians of every political spectrum, with those of the position and opposition, with the old politicians and the young ones such as: Pjetër Arbnori, Sali Berisha, Ibrahim Rugova and Fatos Nano, Aleksandër Meksi, Servet Pëllumbi and Skënder Gjinushi, Sabri Godo, Fatmir Mediu, Namik Dokle and Arian Madhi, Edi Rama, Hashim Thaçi, Gramoz Ruçi, Bamir Topi, Besnik Mustafaj and Neritan Ceka, Petro Koçi and Preç Zogaj, Ilir Meta, Pëllumb Xhufi and Sabri Hamiti, Makbule Çeço, Jozefina Topalli, Diana Çuli, Lajla Pernaska, Valentina Leskaj, Mimi Kodheli, Majlinda Bregu and many others.
The contacts of this association were extended and consolidated even with the American, Italian, German and Turkish embassies etc, or with personalities of the world diplomacy and culture like Hillary Clinton and Doris Pack, Miranda Vickers and James Pettifer, Marko Panela and Callenback, Dr. Haim Reitan, Amir Gilad etc.
A generation of poets, journalists, intellectuals and young talented politicians such as Agim Mero, Alma Ahmeti, Bianka Bilali, Dylbere Dika, Florian Bulica, Fllanxa Veshi, Kadri Aliu, Kostaq Myrtaj, Ismail Murtaj, Leonora Bilali, Mina Çaushi, Rudina Hasa, Yllka Sulku, Xhulia Xhekaj and many others afterwards would become in years the big armature of the warriors of the Cham ideal that this association had as a purpose…
The magazine “Eagle’s wing”, founded by Bilal Xhaferri in USA became the organ that reflected and continues to reflect all the activity of this patriotic organization.
The main purpose of this organization is to point out the grandiosity of the figure of Bilal Xhaferri and the values of the Cham and Albanian culture near the best world values… The most imminent objective that was assigned to realize this purpose was: The restitution of the bones of Bilal Xhaferri in Albania that was realized in May 6, 1995 with the contribution of the Albanian state and the writer Shefki Hysa, director of this association…
An in this way began a long collaboration with all the governmental and non-governmental organisms, until it was made possible that the bones of Bilal Xhaferrit could come and repose in Saranda. A lot of other purposes in benefit of the Albanian culture and the final solution of the Cham problem were the other objectives to achieve…
It was extracted from the book “The diplomacy of self-denial” of the writer Shefki Hysa, Tirana, 2008
Dr. Haim Reitan, Diplomat,
Honorary President
of the Diplomatic Mission
Peace and Prosperity
By Dr. Haim Reitan
How was founded the publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri”
The publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri” is one of the first Albanian publishing organs of the post-communist period with the purpose to select and to publish the most prominent values of the world literature, the Albanian dissident literature and the creativity of the young talents that are at risk to lose in the difficult conditions of the trade market.
The publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri was created as a result of the idea that the culture, the art, the literature and the personalities that represent them, with their values, are the ambassadors and the most convincing and effectual diplomats for the dignified presentation of a nation before the other civilized nations. In January 27, 1992 the Ministry of Culture released the permission for the foundation of this publishing organ. The minister at that time was the writer Vath Koreshi, one of the promoters and supporters of the literary beginnings of the talent Bilal Xhaferri. Vathi signed with enthusiasm the permission for publishing activity and promised that he would constantly give his support and that of many friends of Bilali.
At that time the work of Bilal Xhaferri was forgotten. His values were denied from the former communist dictatorship. It was the duty of the Cham intellectuals like Shefki Hysa to glorify the work of Bilal and the treasures of the Cham culture and folklore, great values that were infringed and the Albanian public didn’t know. The marvelous pearls of the popular Cham epos could be expressed in front of the Albanians and the civilized world through the figure of Bilal Xhaferri, an exceptional talent that had shined like a star in the horizon of the Albanian literature in 1960s and was suddenly extinguished from the fatal stroke that it took from the former communist dictatorship. The Albanians and all the foreign well-wishers, being familiar with these wonderful values of Chameria, would raise the interest and fell in love with the Cham issue like a singular and sacred religion institution that belonged even to them.
Thus the publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri” due to the capacities, the great zeal and the numerous contacts with the Albanian and international politics of the writer Shefki Hysa, increased and it was experiencing day by day a bum of selected publications from the world literature, books of former outraged personalities like Pjetër Arbnori and especially works of young talents. Its staff made all the attempts that the young boys and girls, full of talent, not only of the Cham Community, could find themselves in the publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri”, be affirmed and not meet with the whilom destiny of Bilal, in the difficult period of the cruel capitalist transition that Albania was experiencing.
It was difficult to find monetary instruments for books publications in the first years of the post communist period and the young talents saw a dreams shelter in this publishing organ, part of the institution: The cultural Association “Bilal Xhaferri”…
The novel “Krastakraus” of Bilal Xhaferri was published in 1993. It was one of the most artistically realized works with the topic and the problems of the Albanian ethnicity, so preferred from this author. The publication was enabled with the assistance of the Cham intellectual Ballkiz Halili, who has kept for years a typescript copy of this novel. This publication was a great and unexpected success. Finally the Albanian public had in his hands one of the most dignified works and not only the figure of Bilal, the dissident writer that had scuffled with the former Albanian communist dictatorship. The number of the publications increased every year and the Publishing House “Bilal Xhaferr” played an important role to introduce the Cham problem that was near the solution, in the national and international area.
Some of the most known publications of this institution with national values are:
“Fatal love”, romance (1992), Alfred de Musset
“Bloddy Love ( Beyond the distances)”, romance (1992), Bilal Xhaferri
“The respectful prostitute”, novels (1992), Jean Paul Sartre
“When the vikings invade”, novel (1992), Pjetër Arbnori
“The flaw of the heart”, poetry (1992), Gjin Progni
“The turtledove and the devil”, tales (1992), Shefki Hysa
“Krastakraus (Berati crumpled), novel (1993), Bilal Xhaferri
“Don’t remind me the death”, poetry (1993), Rudina Hasa
“Rebel”, poetry (1993), Shpëtim Roqi
“The night of the foreign cypresses”, essay (1994), Artur Spanjolli
“The beauty and the shadow”, romance (1994), Pjetër Arbnori
“Hostages of peace”, novel (1994), Shefki Hysa
“Peccant angel”, poetry (1994), Mirela Rapi
“The living dossiers”, journalism (1995), Agim Musta
“The pergola of the tears”, poetry (1995), Namik Mane
“The homesick horse”, poetry (1996), Arshin Rexha
“The dream stars”, poetry (1996), Etleva Shahini
“The vortex”, novel (1997), Pjetër Arbnori
“The cursed paradise”, novel (1997), Shefki Hysa
“The sold paradise”, poetry (2002), Dylbere Dika
“And the day dies”, tales (2003), Dylbere Dika
“Soul scream”, poetry (2004), Liri Hidërshaj
“Aroma of Chameria” , tales (2004), Shefki Hysa
“The false miracles”, tales (2005), Shefki Hysa
“Spiritual lactacion”, novel (2005), Liri Hidërshaj
“For a little bit happiness”, poetry (2006), Venka Capa
“The narration”, novel(2006), Liri Hidërshaj
“Dialogue for the impossible peace”, journalism (2006), Hysen Haxhiaj
“Family sorrow”, poetry (2006), Mina Çaushi
“With our feet we traveled the world”, novel 2007), Xhulia Xhekaj
“Dodona, the ancient temple of Albania”, research articles (2007), Rasim Bebo
“The regret”, novel (2007), Liri Hidërshaj
“The tears of the rose”, poetries (2008), Kostaq Myrtaj etc, etc.
It was extracted from the book “The diplomacy of self-denial” of the writer Shefki Hysa, Tirana, 2008
Dr. Haim Reitan, Diplomat,
Honorary President
of the Diplomatic Mission
Peace and Prosperity
How was founded the publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri”
The publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri” is one of the first Albanian publishing organs of the post-communist period with the purpose to select and to publish the most prominent values of the world literature, the Albanian dissident literature and the creativity of the young talents that are at risk to lose in the difficult conditions of the trade market.
The publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri was created as a result of the idea that the culture, the art, the literature and the personalities that represent them, with their values, are the ambassadors and the most convincing and effectual diplomats for the dignified presentation of a nation before the other civilized nations. In January 27, 1992 the Ministry of Culture released the permission for the foundation of this publishing organ. The minister at that time was the writer Vath Koreshi, one of the promoters and supporters of the literary beginnings of the talent Bilal Xhaferri. Vathi signed with enthusiasm the permission for publishing activity and promised that he would constantly give his support and that of many friends of Bilali.
At that time the work of Bilal Xhaferri was forgotten. His values were denied from the former communist dictatorship. It was the duty of the Cham intellectuals like Shefki Hysa to glorify the work of Bilal and the treasures of the Cham culture and folklore, great values that were infringed and the Albanian public didn’t know. The marvelous pearls of the popular Cham epos could be expressed in front of the Albanians and the civilized world through the figure of Bilal Xhaferri, an exceptional talent that had shined like a star in the horizon of the Albanian literature in 1960s and was suddenly extinguished from the fatal stroke that it took from the former communist dictatorship. The Albanians and all the foreign well-wishers, being familiar with these wonderful values of Chameria, would raise the interest and fell in love with the Cham issue like a singular and sacred religion institution that belonged even to them.
Thus the publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri” due to the capacities, the great zeal and the numerous contacts with the Albanian and international politics of the writer Shefki Hysa, increased and it was experiencing day by day a bum of selected publications from the world literature, books of former outraged personalities like Pjetër Arbnori and especially works of young talents. Its staff made all the attempts that the young boys and girls, full of talent, not only of the Cham Community, could find themselves in the publishing house “Bilal Xhaferri”, be affirmed and not meet with the whilom destiny of Bilal, in the difficult period of the cruel capitalist transition that Albania was experiencing.
It was difficult to find monetary instruments for books publications in the first years of the post communist period and the young talents saw a dreams shelter in this publishing organ, part of the institution: The cultural Association “Bilal Xhaferri”…
The novel “Krastakraus” of Bilal Xhaferri was published in 1993. It was one of the most artistically realized works with the topic and the problems of the Albanian ethnicity, so preferred from this author. The publication was enabled with the assistance of the Cham intellectual Ballkiz Halili, who has kept for years a typescript copy of this novel. This publication was a great and unexpected success. Finally the Albanian public had in his hands one of the most dignified works and not only the figure of Bilal, the dissident writer that had scuffled with the former Albanian communist dictatorship. The number of the publications increased every year and the Publishing House “Bilal Xhaferr” played an important role to introduce the Cham problem that was near the solution, in the national and international area.
Some of the most known publications of this institution with national values are:
“Fatal love”, romance (1992), Alfred de Musset
“Bloddy Love ( Beyond the distances)”, romance (1992), Bilal Xhaferri
“The respectful prostitute”, novels (1992), Jean Paul Sartre
“When the vikings invade”, novel (1992), Pjetër Arbnori
“The flaw of the heart”, poetry (1992), Gjin Progni
“The turtledove and the devil”, tales (1992), Shefki Hysa
“Krastakraus (Berati crumpled), novel (1993), Bilal Xhaferri
“Don’t remind me the death”, poetry (1993), Rudina Hasa
“Rebel”, poetry (1993), Shpëtim Roqi
“The night of the foreign cypresses”, essay (1994), Artur Spanjolli
“The beauty and the shadow”, romance (1994), Pjetër Arbnori
“Hostages of peace”, novel (1994), Shefki Hysa
“Peccant angel”, poetry (1994), Mirela Rapi
“The living dossiers”, journalism (1995), Agim Musta
“The pergola of the tears”, poetry (1995), Namik Mane
“The homesick horse”, poetry (1996), Arshin Rexha
“The dream stars”, poetry (1996), Etleva Shahini
“The vortex”, novel (1997), Pjetër Arbnori
“The cursed paradise”, novel (1997), Shefki Hysa
“The sold paradise”, poetry (2002), Dylbere Dika
“And the day dies”, tales (2003), Dylbere Dika
“Soul scream”, poetry (2004), Liri Hidërshaj
“Aroma of Chameria” , tales (2004), Shefki Hysa
“The false miracles”, tales (2005), Shefki Hysa
“Spiritual lactacion”, novel (2005), Liri Hidërshaj
“For a little bit happiness”, poetry (2006), Venka Capa
“The narration”, novel(2006), Liri Hidërshaj
“Dialogue for the impossible peace”, journalism (2006), Hysen Haxhiaj
“Family sorrow”, poetry (2006), Mina Çaushi
“With our feet we traveled the world”, novel 2007), Xhulia Xhekaj
“Dodona, the ancient temple of Albania”, research articles (2007), Rasim Bebo
“The regret”, novel (2007), Liri Hidërshaj
“The tears of the rose”, poetries (2008), Kostaq Myrtaj etc, etc.
It was extracted from the book “The diplomacy of self-denial” of the writer Shefki Hysa, Tirana, 2008
Dr. Haim Reitan, Diplomat,
Honorary President
of the Diplomatic Mission
Peace and Prosperity
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