A quick reading through articles here, and I already find articles about my country, Albania. Yes, it is a teeny-tiny country located in the Balkans that many have difficulties to recognize in a map. I heard travellers say jokingly that if no close attention was paid, one could pass through it, and not even be aware they passed through a country – if it wasn’t for passport checks in the borders that is. It shares a lot of history with surrounding neighbours, and yet, it is unique in its experience. It went through forty-seven years of a totalitarian regime which was without any doubt the most tyrannical of all Eastern Block authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. The only dictatorship worth comparing it to is North Korea today.
We were completely isolated from the rest of the world, including countries of the communist bloc. Isolation was complete: political, social, cultural, and even economic. We went through a 22-year period of self-reliance after we broke ties with our last remaining ally in the former communist bloc – China – in 1978, and the economy stagnated for a while until it finally collapsed within itself. We joined the wave of overthrowing totalitarian regimes across the bloc more or less at the same time other Eastern European countries did, in the early nineties, and are still struggling with building a functional democracy.
Policies implemented by the Albanian communist regime were radical. They included eradication of private property, nationalization of all means of production and objects of ownership, collectivization, forced volunteer work, abolishment of religion and control over the intelligentsia. The Cultural Revolution of the 60s, was basically an attempt to limit and ultimately, ban, all Western influence in Albanian society. Forced collectivization and forced volunteer work enabled the state to extend its power over the private life of the individual; the latter was ultimately brought completely under the state’s control. Sounds a lot like Orwell’s 1980, right? And to be frank, it was. No form of criticism was tolerated, and critics were either executed without trial, or served life sentences in prisons which looked a lot like horror movie-sets.
I was very young when the communist regime collapsed. Signs of it are still visible everywhere. Physical remnants could be put into great use for their historical value and the lessons they teach (although we still haven’t managed to do it yet), and I am not concerned about them. What bothers me however are the scars left in people’s mentalities and thought processes; still so strong after 26 years that it actually makes me feel a bit pessimistic at times. That said however, we are doing OK I suppose. Change is very slow and gradual, but it is happening. Considering that we came from a complete dark place with no experience or knowledge whatsoever, and that we learned through a trial and error process, Albania today has done a remarkable progress.