An Unpalatable Truth

By Frank Ledwidge
Living or even spending a short time in any city in Western Europe, one understands how these metropolises have lost their traditional national flavor. London, Rome, Paris, and other hot spots of Diasporas have turned into a mishmash of nationalities.
London as you may know is not really an English city. For that you can go to Manchester, Liverpool or Birmingham. It is a world city, like New York. As such it is a melting pot of dozens of nationalities, including Albanian.
Some nationalities are considered to ‘specialize’ in certain types of crime. Nigerians for example are often to be found dealing in passports or financial scams of one kind or another. Vietnamese are often found in growing or dealing marijuana or hash. When you see Romanian or Bulgarian citizens, often in fact of Roma origin, in the dock you can make a fair bet that they are accused of street crimes of one kind or another. Albanians are all too often accused of trafficking for the purposes of prostitution. Almost every case precedent dealing with that topic involves Albanian names. So what, you might add?
The answer is pretty obvious if you see it in the context of the major political goal of the Southeastern Europe, the EU membership. Next year Croatia is likely to be invited to join the European Union. Rarely mentioned in the western European press is the prospect of Albanian membership.
Albanians should start to be seriously concerned that the foul activities of Albanian criminals, a tiny minority of their compatriots in Europe, may damage prospects of entry to the EU. We have seen how popular antipathy has affected high politics with respect to Turkish entry, particularly in Austria and France. The huge majority of Albanian immigrants in the United Kingdom and elsewhere are hard working and respectable. Albanian gangsters have however given the country an appalling reputation.
Albanian patriots everywhere need to recognize this and begin to deal with it, not excuse or deny. We could discuss for hours how this problem is dealt with. The first step is to recognize it. Failure to deal with this now will lead to disappointment at the later stages of EU entry.
With the recent arrest of Karadzic we will see Serbia, formerly the pariah state of Europe, placed on a fast track to EU membership. This is amazing. Within a few years Serbia has gone from the pariah state to potential EU membership. It has done that by dealing with its remaining wanted war criminals. It recognized the problem. And dealt with it.
In the 19th Century, the Irish had a similarly poor reputation in the UK and United States. They were regarded as largely criminal. Similarly, until recently, the Italian Diaspora had the same problem especially in the US. Let us be clear, neither the Italians, Irish, Albanians nor any other nationality are criminal. As a small country, relatively closely knit, Albania is in a position to be seen to disown its traffickers, whether of drugs or women.
The kind of rhetoric which is all too often spouted by Albanian governments of every political persuasion will simply not do. No one believes it any more. Action is required. The country’s name and future may depend on it.