This Week: Memories of a ‘hot and sultry’ night in Albania
ELEVEN years ago this month, I gave a lecture in Albania, but not the kind of lecture you might expect from a lecturer now working in one of Britain’s best universities. This was very definitely a lecture of its time and place. Anyway, I’d gone to Albania to give a presentation on the topic of ‘Symbols, Language, and Identity in Northern Ireland.’ My argument was that if people can agree on flags, emblems and that stuff, then they can start to agree on anything.
And for all the bad press they get, the Albanians aren’t that bad at bringing people together around the one flag. Don’t tell the men from The Daily Mail, but they’re not all dodgy Muslim lads with beards trying to sneak across the sea in boats.
To begin with, contrary to public perceptions, Albania is quite a mixed and secular society. Although the majority of the people are Muslim, there are a lot of Catholics and Greek Orthodox Albanian nationals especially in Tirana, the capital.
Mother Teresa, for example, was probably the most famous Albanian Catholic of all time. She was actually born as a Kosovar Albanian by the name of Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje, which is now the capital of North Macedonia.
Many North Macedonians like the Kosovars though feel a sense of being Albanian, regardless of national borders. Even people such as Xherdan Shaqiri the footballer born in Serbia who plays for Switzerland identifies as Albanian.
And one of the things that holds the Albanian identity together is loyalty around their distinctive flag. That’s the image of a black double-headed eagle in the centre of a red background, which represents being Albanian, and not just geographical Albania.
Obviously, if you’re a neighbour of Albania, that’s a problem. But the week that I went to Albania, I wasn’t really interested in thinking about any politics other than our own, where we’re not quite as bad as the Balkans when it comes to wars and probably not quite as good at football (these days at least).
Besides they really, really, really don’t like us appropriating their conflicts, just as the Basques, the
Palestinians, South