Editorial: Lost in translation

A discussion on efforts to modernize Albanians’ views on LGBT rights.
Gay rights are human rights. Any form of discrimination against members of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community anywhere are wrong. Albanian society clearly needs to evolve and be more accepting of this community, not just have laws it has copy-pasted and translated from EU templates.
That said, we need to also have a discussion with our own audience as a newspaper – which is largely made up of international readers, expats in Albania and others who look for a smart view of events in Albania in English.
Many of these readers come from countries that have been part of a strong international effort to push gay rights globally. It’s the right thing to do, particularly faced with the fact that many countries still criminalize homosexuality, while in others, like Albania, there is still a strong stigma associated with it and the fear of discrimination, real or perceived, is so high, that few gays and lesbians come out publicly to discuss their sexual orientation.
However, we are concerned that the process of modernizing Albania’s views on homosexuality is now being perceived by the Albanian society at large solely as an international project not as local one.
That perception is not being helped by the fact that foreign activists and members of the international community in Albania made up almost half of the people who rode bikes on the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on May 17.
The international community in Albania has also been a strong supporter of the country’s civil society for years. In fact, it is fair to say it is its main sponsor.
Over the past few years, there has been a sizable shift in funding from generalist civil society organizations to niche organizations that deal strictly with LGBT issues. These organizations are the driving force behind efforts to increase awareness of the plight of the community they represent, and largely do a good job at it. But they have clearly not succeeded in giving the project a local feel to it or convince more than a handful of the community’s members to take a public stance.
There is also some indication that the shift in funding has also hurt, and perhaps alienated, other parts of Albanian civil society in Albania, organizations that focus on modernizing society and protecting human rights in general. Their argument is that general efforts to create grassroots projects of tolerance and acceptance for all could be more successful in the long run in making Albanian society more accepting of all its minorities and unprivileged parts, including gays and lesbians, than solely focusing on the LGBT community in particular.
On this issue, the two sides – the international community and Albanian society – are being lost in translation and time.
Monitoring public reaction in Albania to the latest ride against homophobia last week – there is a clear a generational, educational and urban-rural divide in relation to social attitudes towards the LGBT community. The majority of those who support LGBT rights are young, well-educated and live in Tirana, but they are a minority in the prevailing rigidness among the older population which tends to argue its position in relation to values, tradition, family and religion. This is not unique to Albania, but is shows that things are already changing and will continue to do so with time.
Just look at attitudes toward the LGBT community in Western democracies a decade, two or three, ago to see how attitudes can quickly shift, generally in a more progressive direction.
It will happen in Albania too. Opening one mind at a time.