I mean that no change can come from nothing, just as no social despair and depression comes from some other entity outside of us. We can accuse everyone, but without pointing the finger at ourselves we will not be able to create another corrective consciousness that continuously heals the many wounds of our society. We can insult, insult, hit anyone who comes in front of us, but the first step of defense comes from a deep critical consciousness, from the humane awareness that seeks solutions in all that plural social totality that is right next to us somewhere and that seeks a cultural and civilizational latment. We can wrap ourselves in all kinds of totalitarian overcoats, but the first coat of arms comes from the cultivation of the individual, from the cultural and civilizing cultivation of his soul, which knows freedom in all its dimensions, which knows responsibility in the square of common life, which recognizes knowledge as the only way to deconstruct fraud, all forms of manipulation.
Author: Bardhyl Zaimi
Walking through concepts and always keeping in mind the journalistic principles that are often indictable, I get stuck in a limited way of thinking that excludes the first person singular, excludes what is thought, essence, sensitivity, but also articulated assessment without the constraints of “objectivity” and interdependencies of other concerns.
In fact, when we try to extend the text to an undefined continuity, we really take into account, more precisely, the anxious care not to be misunderstood in the dialogue we seek to establish with people, because we are in a civic relationship that recognizes the responsibility and the realities of the present, which always limit us and represent a risk of getting confused and seeing ourselves in the broken mirror of political militancy.
Therefore, the things that I want to say, I want to say them slowly, without these burdens of actuality and without the danger of this broken mirror, which really always appears as a kind of persecuting shadow for those essences of thought that have nothing to do with names, with parties, with certain individuals and groups. These essences of thought that have been carved out of a long political, cultural, social and ethnopsychological trajectory are rather related to permanent, repeatable, sometimes fatal phenomena for the Albanian society in North Macedonia.
I want in a few lines, in a single formulation, to articulate and express as an idea, as a waiting horizon and a typological transformation the Albanian nationalism, this permanent bleeding that runs through everyone’s veins, through the most sublime consciousness of all those people who seek a salvation, a hope within a long blackness crossed by many ups and downs, ups and downs and countless dreams and disappointments.
I mean that no change can come from nothing, just as no social despair and depression comes from some other entity outside of us. We can accuse everyone, but without pointing the finger at ourselves we will not be able to create another corrective consciousness that continuously heals the many wounds of our society. We can insult, insult, hit anyone who comes in front of us, but the first step of defense comes from a deep critical consciousness, from the humane awareness that seeks solutions in all that plural social totality that is right next to us somewhere and that seeks a cultural and civilizational latment. We can wrap ourselves in all kinds of totalitarian overcoats, but the first coat of arms comes from the cultivation of the individual, from the cultural and civilizing cultivation of his soul, which knows freedom in all its dimensions, which knows responsibility in the square of common life, which recognizes knowledge as the only way to deconstruct fraud, all forms of manipulation.
And of course, in most cases we repeat ourselves. We want to reveal the things we said earlier about our problems that seem to remain permanent. Albanians have had a terrifying and fatal journey throughout history. There have been many attacks and eclipses on the Albanian existence that have prevented a permanent defense towards the common European values, which as a space we belong to historically. Historically, we have been under the attack of others, that is why we had to build a fence against them to preserve the Albanian essence. Of course, this fact does not justify the tendency to always deal with others, because we will continue to remain in the role of victim, which really represents a lack of power to put a finger on our wounds. These wounds are countless and require a serious socio-cultural self-analysis to identify and avoid them while trying to affirm our being. The easiest thing is to blame others for your condition. We must now turn to ourselves, to face our defects unequivocally, with all those “black holes” that absorb energies as a collective. For this, we need to rediscover the thinkers of the 30s, who after the creation of the “ideal Albania” set out to create the “real Albania”. It is precisely this constellation of thinkers who dealt with all the defects of Albanian society with such dedication, with unparalleled wisdom and knowledge. This model of social criticism must be cultivated at present if we wish to save ourselves from ourselves. Branko Merxhan, Mit’hat Frashëri, Anton Harapi, Vangjel Koça and many others remain a model of social treatments, of a social and cultural thought par excellence on the Albanian problems that continue to degenerate us to the point of futility.
Undoubtedly, I want to say, without the burdens of actuality, that we must look for the first form of protection in culture, in culture in all its breadth, in all those emancipating essences of the human being. By creating an inclusive cultural movement, we can affirm our human nature, our identity, all that represents aliveness and permanence in the trajectory of collective progress, vision and common political and democratic interest.