[ Libra NëLinjë ]
Isuf B.Bajrami
Recently, discussions about the past have taken on heated tones, even though the debate on this topic is not new! Imposing debates, with which attempts are made to obscure the past and test Albanian opinion about the period of Yugoslav communist rule!
For the pluri-party “democracy” that we have, the people did not think that they should have it today! As for where the motive is, the causes of this conclusion, there are not a few who would answer, without thinking long: the miserable situation in the country, the insecurity for life, for work and for property! This irregularity was certainly not created today, but is inherited and as a consequence of the continuity of the former Yugoslav communist system! The consequences of their misgovernment, the country is feeling and will suffer for a long time. Ordinary people do not know how to theorize, but they know how to make comparisons. Here we must look for the disappointment of the people, the wavering of faith in democracy and the turning of the gaze to the bitter past, which was as it was, but the phenomena that they would see in democracy, they had not seen and did not know.
This is difficult to say. But what can be said without fear is that the misgovernance of the Yugoslav communists and the “democrats”, a mixed hybrid and fabricated group, from the union of former Yugoslav communists, turned overnight into “democrats”, who are the worst and most dangerous part for genuine democracy, with the former Yugoslav communists and Belgrade collaborators, or their heirs, who thought that the time had finally come, for revenge, for rematch and a new class war, damaged and compromised, from the very beginning, democracy, its image and its future.
The attacks that began immediately after the Liberation War, the attempts to deny and blacken everything from the positive national past, were undertaken, apparently to justify and cover up their deeds with corruption and the plunder of national wealth. They created differentiations, which actually deprived the majority of Albanians from integration into a democratic society and plunged them into pessimism, forcing the youth to leave the country! With these actions, did they think that they would ensure the Yugoslav communists and “democrats” a long and trouble-free government again!? However, they have made a mistake in their calculations! The attack on the Liberation War will very soon turn into a boomerang, in the form of anger and opposition, in relation to and in response to the immoderate acts of the Yugoslav communist rulers without a genuine democratic culture!
The people, kneeling down from poverty, could justify and endure the difficulties of the moment the country was going through, with the change of system, but not the “hunt for the scoundrels” that the “democratic” Yugoslav communists with Isa-Tita at the head started! These overturned the true national history, denied the Liberation War, the shed blood of the martyrs and the sacrifices that were made, in the name of the freedom and independence of the homeland! These actions were done with the premeditation and sole purpose of opening the way for the rehabilitation and return to power of the Yugoslav communists, whom the people know well.
The attacks on the liberators are also encouraged and supported by some unconscious internationals, from this “dance of the devil”, not even a destructive group from Albania can be exempted! Even here, the Yugoslav communists found the fragile terrain, a contingent composed of collaborators, or their descendants and heirs, and, thus, marginalized and irritated, outside the currents of contemporary democracy, they failed to access genuine democratic and emancipatory processes, which would advance Albanian society, but destroyed everything that was built with much effort and sacrifice! They remained in the class war, immersed in the world of mediocrity and platitudes, which feed and keep alive the feeling of hostility and revenge! These “democrats”, former communists now “anti-anti-communists”, have not yet understood that this means nothing. Being in one party or the other is a personal matter for everyone, but this does not automatically make you a patriot or an honest person.
Genuine democracy, in principle, is the most attractive way to organize power in a democratic society. Without genuine democracy, everything looks different! The suspicion, born of the former Yugoslav communist structures, by causing a crisis in the representation of methods and practices from the past have exhausted productive work, among other things, have left the country distrustful and angry with their diabolical claims!
This complex of factors made it aggressive and unrestrained, in its attempts to overthrow and destroy everything and anything from the past, not sparing even some important achievements in certain areas of social and economic life, since they were created in communism. The ignorance and cruelty that would be displayed as soon as the first steps on the path of democracy began, the tendencies to destroy and demolish everything from the past, were reminiscent of the Chartist Movement in England, which expressed its hatred of capitalism in the destruction of machinery, the latest technical inventions, which had revolutionized production. The attacks on the past here aimed to present the country without life, without work, without any progress, a hell immersed in crimes and punishments, filled with prisons!
Citizens everywhere must clearly and openly express their disagreement with the past, with the Slavic-communist dictatorship. Of course, the demands for the revision of the past must be understood correctly, as an objective demand and need, which clarifies and enriches on the basis of data and documents! The realization of this would not be easy and without problems, not only because of the difficulties of this process, but also because of the complex factors that still exist in leading countries!
I call on specialists in certain professional fields to determine what has become of this political system and the cause of the many major crises that the country has encountered in recent years. Democratic aspirations, expressed throughout Kosovo, have never been so strong, but in addition to being severely suppressed by former rulers, they coexist with an increase in authoritarian demand, which is particularly evident from the electoral success of the so-called “pluri-part-titiste” parties!
Reflection on the developments of events from the past, require that a professional, reliable and independent institution, deal with the necessary seriousness, calmly, and not in panic. Because citizens who have lived this period, do not accept inaccurate reactions and without democratic culture, there should be no hesitation, that in certain cases, unmeasured assessments are expressed, for the past! An honest man remains honest and, under no circumstances, does not go outside himself and outside the lived reality. And such, who in one way or another, express disagreement with revenge against the past! Today we must be sober to make the right assessment. Therefore, there is no place, it does not suit, at least historians and researchers, to point the finger at one or, whoever it may be, without looking at every action correctly.
Anti-communist propaganda cannot be used, speculatively, as a certificate of exoneration for crimes and treason against the country! On their behalf, they commit acts that are punishable in any democratic country and at any time.
In the circumstances created, it is the imperative of the time to review the past, which is more than necessary, and at the same time legally possible, relying on the Documents of the Council of Europe, and later the European Union, which undertook a series of initiatives and resolutions to assist the process of separation from communist totalitarianisms.
These documents should also be the basis for the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, such as;
– Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on “Measures to eradicate the legacy of totalitarian communist systems” (1996);
– The Prague Declaration “On European Conscience and Communism” (2008), which sets out the commitment to condemn the crimes of communism, according to the practice of the Nuremberg Trials, as crimes against humanity ;
– European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes ” (2008), and;
– Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on “The necessity for international punishment of the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes ” (2006), etc.
Through these resolutions, they are called upon to clearly distance themselves from the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes and to condemn them without any ambiguity. Even on 2 April 2009, the European Parliament, appealing in a new resolution “ On European conscience and totalitarianism” and the importance of keeping the memory of the past alive because “there can be no reconciliation without truth and remembrance”.
The people are not so ignorant and indifferent as not to look at them, not to make comparisons, and not to draw conclusions.
In the course of this process, the Assembly of Kosovo should adopt a Resolution “On the Punishment of Crimes Committed by the Serbian-Yugoslav Communist Regime in Kosovo ”. After the adoption of this Resolution, the archives will be opened, citizens will speak more freely about the suffering and consequences of the discriminatory past, historians and researchers will first and foremost be professionally engaged in reflecting the truth, avoiding censorship and self-censorship, utilizing archives and creating the necessary premises for carrying out this task.
The Land of Lek; 13.11.2025
