By Shefki Hysa

Chameria is our last will,
neither ground melts the last will
(Interview with Mr. Tahir Muhedini,
president of the Party for Justice and Integration)

- Where does Tahir Muhedini come from and what’s his flow in the river of life?
- I am Tahir Muhedini, born and raised in the “Ali Demi” neighborhood, in Tirana, with Cham origin. I graduated in law, I am a businessman, until the moment I accepted to be elected the president of the Party for Justice and Integration (Albanian: PDI). Now I am responsible for the direction of PDI with the single desire to protect the interests of the Cham population, to enable the return to our motherland, from which we had been violently deported. My family is originally from Paramithia, Chameria, I hope you know it. It is the area that first encountered the atrocity of the Greek chauvinists. On June 27, 1944, the zervist bands massacred about 600 men, women and children in Paramithia and from there their violence spread throughout Chameria, until all the Muslim Chams were deported from their homes and motherland. It is known that June 27 represents the day of the Greek genocide against the unprotected and innocent Cham population.

- What does the Cham issue represent for Mr. Muhedini?
- Now that you know that I am originally from Paramithia, the first Cham city that was covered in blood, was burned and destroyed by the Greek chauvinists, I believe you understand what the Cham ideal represents for a successor to that martyr country. Our ancestors have fallen in the name of freedom, of their convictions and beliefs, have been cruelly killed, though they were innocent. So, we have been unjustly massacred and deported from our land, we should have been back home a long time ago, if the Greek policy hadn’t insisted that it does not recognize the Cham problem, that this problem belongs to the historical past and other excuses like these, when it is trying hard to succeed in getting their soldiers, who came as invaders in Albania during the war and died in this land, settled in the martyrs’ cemetery. According to my opinion, we should say “yes” to the establishment of the Greek fallen soldiers’ cemeteries in Albania, but the Greek state should also remember that there is still an open problem with the Albanian state, the Cham problem and together they should do the impossible, so that our Cham ancestors may have their cemeteries in Chameria, Greece, and we will have the right to go and visit those graves, until we regain citizenship, the property rights and all human rights like all the Greek citizens. I say these because I judge that it is better not to look at the past with a darkening rationality, but to look into the future in a European way, because only this way we can make the others understand that the Chams must necessarily be given the possibility to return to their homes and territories and regain Greek citizenship, which has never been denied by them. I, personally, do not know if the tradition of last will is an element of Greek culture, just as it is in the Albanian culture, and therefore we need a way to make them know this fact. Chameria (memories, homes, land, citizenship) is the last will of our ancestors and neither the ground melts the last will...

- As you head the Party for Justice and Integration (Albanian: PDI), a relatively new party in Albanian politics, can you tell us what you intend to achieve through its program?
- The Party for Justice and Integration (Albanian: PDI) in the recent local elections, being introduced only in areas where it was known that it had its electorate and not all over Albania, managed to win a modest percentage of the Republic-level elections, but it was the first and most voted in the district of Delvina, the fourth force in the district of Vlora, the second political force in the district of Patos, the second political force in the Commune of Sukthi and some other communes. In this way, the Chams that have been neglected by all powers, are already represented by their sons, they are able to say their word. This is what the Party for Justice and Integration aims, that the Peaceable Cham Community, through a political party can be directly represented in the local political power of the Republic of Albania, as it was represented and will be later represented even by deputies in the Parliament of Albania. Now this community knows that there is an institutional “door” where they can knock, to seek or give help, taking an active role in the political life of the city, commune or municipality they belong to. I want to emphasize through this interview that this democratic and well disposed community has joined, has proposed and elected its representatives, in a democratic and statutory way, in the high political forums of the Party for Justice and Integration (Albanian: PDI) and being candidates of PDI in these local elections they were well represented in the power of local parliaments of Albania and this will undoubtedly serve as experience for the representation of this community in the General Parliament of the Republic of Albania. While in the international plan, I would like to emphasize that for the first time in history a delegation of an Albanian political party like the party for Justice and Integration, managed to express the 62-year concern of the Cham population in the European Parliament and for the first time representatives of this parliament directly heard the voice and the claims of the Cham population through a political party, which has in its main battles the democratic solution of this historical impasse, of Chameria problem.

- As far as we know, recently you have had several successful meetings in Strasbourg and Brussels over the Cham issue. Your comment about these achievements?
- Yes. Last October, a delegation consisting of representatives of the Cham Community made a visit to the European Parliament. The delegation also met with Mrs. Doris Pack, Chairwoman of the European Parliament’s Delegation for South East Europe. There was a full understanding at the meeting and in the end Mrs. Pack was given the dossier prepared over the Cham issue, comprised of international experts’ political analysis on the history and the ways of solving this problem left in silence. On October 25, Mrs. Doris Pack in the head- to-head meeting held personally with me, as Chairman of PDI, among other things promised me she would influence to make possible the return home of the Cham population and of course the honor of their ancestors’ graves. Mrs. Pack also promised me the Cham issue would be discussed in the 13th round of talks on Stabilization and Association Agreement between Albania and EU, as it has become reality and you are informed about this. She also promised she would discuss about this issue with the Greek euro deputies of the European Parliament.

- According to you which are the ways that would bring to a fair and quick solution of the Cham issue?
- Its internationalization, of course. When we were in Strasbourg and Brussels, euro deputies Marco Pannella, historical leader of the Italian Radical Party, Marco Cappato, head of the Italian Radical Party, along with other members of the Liberal Democrat Group of the European Parliament, promised us they would consider the possibility of proposing a Parliamentary Resolution, in which they would claim with emergency terms the opening of dialogue between Athens and Tirana with the participation of representatives of the Cham population and the presence of international community. While Graham Watson, Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Group of the European Parliament (Great Britain) together with Baroness Sara Ludford, member of the Liberal Democrat Group and member of the House of Lords in England, after having been informed about the case of disrespect of human rights standards for the Cham population, have promised us they would pass our dossier to the Commission on Human Rights and to the Commission on Foreign Policy of the European Parliament. To close this argument I want to say that all these successful activities constitute only the first important step toward the difficult road to realize the last will of the Cham community ancestors.

- What would you suggest politics, Albanian state and the higher institutions in the country, including President Moisiu to do to positively influence the solution of this problem?
- The Party for Justice and Integration would like to publicly ask the Albanian State institutions to verify the developments in the implementation of the Treaty of Friendship between the two countries and of course regarding the properties of all Albanian citizens and particularly of the Chams in Greece. I would like to remind the Albanian opinion, the Greek opinion and the international one that the Greek minority in Albania, after successive benefits of many properties in Albania, with the legalization policy of the actual Government, is again benefiting with no difference from that part of other Albanian citizens that illegally occupy territories. The party for Justice and Integration (Albanian: PDI) wants also to remember the Albanian state institutions that without solving these fundamental issues that concern the Cham community, no bilateral reciprocal relationship exists, but there is only a relationship based on interdependence between the one that commands and the one that only obeys.

Translated by Lorena Uliu

Namik Mane

THE PIGEONS’ EGGS

Story

(Dedicated to my friend Shefki Hysa)

I’m telling you what happened to me, without fancies, without inventions, I’m telling you about my unstable will-power, about that opinion vagueness that used to move inside my brain, about that hesitation to arrange myself…
I had been staying in Italy as a refugee for two years but I still wasn’t comfortable: At first I stayed in Lecce, then in Frossinone near Roma, but within six months I found myself in Campofelice, Palermo. Subsequently I went to Torino, Milano and lastly I found myself in Ravenna. This coastal city reminded me of my birth town, Durres, that’s why I said to myself: I think I found my place…
There was nothing left in my mind of the Italian language. Maybe those numerous movements, those southern and northern dialects made me jumble the words and I lost my confidence in speaking or maybe that change of bosses, those different people and different works had quaked my speaking with confidence.
My boss was a well-kept man. When I went to Ravenna, he had just celebrated his 75-birthday. His wife seemed to be of the same age. They lived among the fields in Lido Adriano, 5-6 kilometers far from Ravenna, in a castle-like house with small windows. The boss used to wake up early in the morning. I used to sleep in a hut some meters far from the house, but it soon was converted into a comfortable room for me. Strangely I made friends with my boss. I had different works to do: sometimes I had to cultivate the crops near the house, sometimes I had to drive the small tractor and get into the rows of vines, pruning, spraying poison, sometimes I had to reap the grass with a reaper, to make walls, plaster works, to paint with lime, to change the lamp-shades, to repair the faucets, the sinks. As if I was a master of everything. Within a few months I began to speak fluently with them. Every Sunday Xhorxho’s (the boss’s name) two daughters used to come with their husbands and children. They appreciated my work and expressed surprise over my abilities. The daughters had entrusted their parents to me.
Sometimes I woke up at night. It seemed to me that horsemen with breastplates and lances were going to appear in those fields, in those castle-like houses far away from each other and they were going to suddenly attack, that’s why I had to toughen myself, to be ready to protect them. I’m saying all this, readers, because I want to instill in you the conviction that I was the only one they trusted.
But Xhorxho hadn’t entrusted everything to me. He had kept his hobby for himself: He was a passionate collector of pigeons. In his garden, tens of pig-nosed, hairy-footed and crested pigeons danced from morning till night. Xhorxho opened his arms and the pigeons covered him entirely. I looked at him with envying eyes, without speaking and getting lost in a host of memories. I’m not adding anything. I have been one of the most famous growers and allurers of my city, but I had never talked to Xhorxho about this because it seemed as if I was going to take a piece of his pleasure.
One day, while I was harvesting the full grown grass of the garden, I don’t know how I felt, but I began to coo so warmly and sweetly that the pigeons began to move from Xhorxho’s shoulders. At times they moved toward me, at times they turned back again to him. I went and went on cooing and those damned pigeons and hen left Xhorxho’s shoulders and they all came to me. What could I do?... I switched on the reaper once again and I began working…
Next morning Xhorxho’s greeting was given to me even more sweetly. After that moment we intensified more our friendship. During free hours we used to speak broadly about the pig-nosed, the hairy-footed and the crested pigeons. I used to tell him about Tim’s, Skender’s and Bimi’s jobs. I used to tell him how I had once stitched up the cut breast of a pigeon, I used to tell him about my passion, pigeons lure, I used to talk to him about my childhood, how I did keep the pigeons in my breast and when I used to see a house having a bunch of pigeons in it, I would let the alluring pigeons go.
One day, while I was talking, Xhorxho turned to me:
- Can you lure the pigeons of Aldo and Xhino?
- Yes, - said I and began to explain him that it was necessary to take great care of the pigeons that were lured in, it was necessary to have a great ability to keep them because they could go.
Xhorxho said to me:
- Do your part, the rest of it belongs to me.
One day I took a couple of pig-nosed pigeons and let them go into their flocks. You have to know: luring pigeons is not stealing, as stealing books isn’t called stealing… It’s a sport with particular pleasure…
We went and went on with this sport… In the suburbs of Ravena the cages began to get emptied. The worried owners began to cut the pigeons’ wings…
One day, Xhorxho asked me to bring him a bunch of pigeons from Albania and I fulfilled his desire, without delay. At first we cut their wings so that the couple could get used to the place, we made them even a special food treatment. In the first months the pigeons cooed and flied cheerfully around us, leaving and coming back together with the bunch, but suddenly one day they didn’t come back.
I was worried. They were my pigeons, that’s why I began the search… I thought the other pigeon growers were giving us back the change, Xhorxho and I owed them this. I searched and searched until I ran out of patience, but there was no sign of them…
Finally, I went to Durres… I found them in Bimi’s cages… They sat on my shoulder, began to coo as if they wanted to say something to me. I understood their language, but I didn’t answer. I kept a rancorous attitude. They were the couple Xhorxho and I had fed. They seemed like people who hadn’t respected us, like ungrateful people. How could I justify myself to Xhorxho?!...
Amid trouble, I had an interesting idea; I took a small basket, I filled it with cotton, I went to Bimi’s cages, I clapped eyes on a beautiful couple, I took two eggs and putted them carefully in the basket. Without delay, I took the plane to Rimini and within a few hours I was in Lido Adriano.
I didn’t talk too much to Xhorxho. We didn’t say anything about the missing pigeons. I showed him the basket with eggs. That was enough, he understood me.
He smiled and spoke:
- Now it’s ok. They won’t go away anymore...
We putted the eggs in the cage of another couple. After eigteen days a couple of birds broke out of the eggs, with some shiny feathers as if they were two peacock’s birds. Xhorxho was enormously pleased and from time to time he used to talk alluringly, he felt like he had triumphed...
Months passed. One day we found their cage empty. Xhorxho and I looked at each other. I didn’t know what to say and unconsciously I did some uncontrolled actions. I went to my barrack and took the photographic equipment I still have. I began to photograph the pigeons’ cages, the house, the garden, the tractor, the reaper, the fence and everything else. I tried not to forget anything. I was seized by the desire to collect my memories, without forgetting anything and incited by this impression I said to Xhorxho that I would fly to Albania with the first plane.
As soon as I was in Durres, I went to meet Bimi, the famous pigeon grower. I wanted to verify the fact of the disappearence of the couple born and raised in Italy...
Two pigeons with peacock’s feathers began to dance on me, to coo and coo and strike me with their beak. It was the same couple, the pigeons I had lost in Italy... Two pigeons born from the eggs warmed in Lido Adriano, Ravena, fed and raised there...
The pigeons gambolled and gambolled with me as if they were two small human beings, as if they wanted to apologize for suddenly abandoning me in the foreign land... They cooed and cooed as if they wanted to justify themselves so that I could forgive them for the sake of Durres, the birthplace of their ancestors...
Immeditely I understood them and smiled. I took the message. As from two carrier pigeons...
I phoned Xhorxho. I invited him to come in Albania. I convinced him to come. We were friends from a long time and he had to know my country...
And Xhorxho came... And we silently understood each other for that sudden parting...
Today I have a small business in Durres... We maintain our friendship, we are near each other in joys and sorrows... Everyone in his own country...

Shpëtim Çilotaj: Chameria - my ideal