Waiting for results, Albanians fear census findings on ethnicity, religion and immigrants will be flawed
By ANDI BALLA
TIRANA, Nov. 3 – Albania’s census workers have officially ended the process of gathering data around the country and are now analyzing the information, a process that will yield its first results in about a month. But as the results are prepared, many Albanians fear the census findings will be flawed – particularly when it comes to questions on ethnicity, religion and Albanians abroad.
In a process similar to censuses in the European Union and North America, Albania’s Statistical Institute, a state entity, gathered information about the number of people living in each home as well as other demographic and property data.
The importance of the census in a modern country remains unquestioned; however Albania’s 2011 census became controversial before it even started particularly due to newly-introduced questions that sought self-declaration on ethnicity and religion.
Fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts?
Originally scheduled to start in April, the census was postponed to October due to strong opposition to registering ethnicity through the census. Tens of Albanian organizations and thousands of individuals wanted the question scraped, but managed to get the law amended instead.
The big worry is that the self-declaration of ethnicity would artificially increase the number of ethnic Greeks in Albania as many Albanians would declare themselves Greeks thanks to perks like pensions they receive from Athens. Faced with economic hardship of its own, Greece recently announced it will cut off thousands of recipients of pensions in Albania, but the practice of pensions for residents of southern Albania is still widespread.
These fears were not baseless, since census workers found for example that an entire village in the southeastern district of Kor衠declared itself Greek despite having no Greek ethnic or religious background, according to an investigation by Top Channel, a private television station. The Greek consul in Kor衠was also quietly transferred after he drew public ire for pushing other cultural minorities such as Aromanians, that have no Hellenic ties, to declare themselves Greek to inflate the numbers.
Official numbers put the Greek minority in Albania at 2 percent of the population, with some non-Greek sources going as high as 6 percent. There are also tiny Slavic minorities. But for a country that is officially roughly 92 percent made up of Albanians, the fear that Greece will exert its influence to get minority numbers higher, is very real.
“Albania is and will remain a unitary state and not a multi-ethnic state,” says Shpetim Idrizi, the head of a small party in parliament that represents mainly the Cham Albanian community, a population forcefully deported from their homes in Greece at the end of WW2.
The Cham party, a member of the ruling coalition, managed to introduce amendments to the census law that made sure self-declaration only counts if it is truthful.
“These amendments are the only tool that we all have on hand to stop the abuse of the census. They say anyone who would claim a false nationality will be faced with checks that correct the declaration based on official data found in the National Civil Registry,” says Idrizi.
The amendments met with opposition from the ethnic minority organizations, but call to boycott the process entirely did not materialize.
People opposing the ethnicity and religion questions from the beginning also included a group of intellectuals headed by former presidents Alfred Moisiu and Rexhep Meidani. The questions were dangerous and offered no added benefits, they argued in an open letter.
But perhaps the fiercest opposition came from a recent arrival to the Albanian political scene, the Red and Black Alliance, which is named after Albania’s national colors and sports a largely nationalistic agenda. Its activists have opposed census questions about ethnicity and religion, calling on Albanians to refuse to take part in the census, a move that would render the entire process invalid if as little as 5 percent of the population refused to answer.
“This (the ethnicity question) goes against our national interests,” Adriatik Llapaj, an activist leading an alliance protest told reporters earlier this year as the organization protested in front of parliament.
The alliance argument is that questions on ethnicity, religion and language are not included in the questionnaires of most European Union countries. They say out of 27 EU member states, only 10 have questions on religion and ethnicity.
A question of religiosity
Ask most Albanians what their religion is, and you are likely to quickly get an answer based on their grandparents’ or parents’ faith. Even more telling is a typical answer from mixed marriages: “Half and half.” But ask the same people the last time they went to a mosque or church, if ever, and the nature of the census question on religion becomes much foggier.
Of course the picture is blurry as it is because last time Albanians were asked about religious numbers was back in the 1930s, splitting the country at about 70 percent Muslim and 30 percent Christian. Decades of official atheism have also left a strong mark.
Eduard Zaloshnja, a well-known Albanian analyst, wrote about the subject in the popular Albanian blogging platform ResPublica.
“When told that they had the option to answer that did not belong to any religion, but they were believers, some Albanians were surprised,” he writes. If the question about religious affiliation would be done fairly, he adds, only about 30 percent of Albanians would be practicing members of any particular religion, with the 60 percent simply being deist – believing in the existence of an omnipotent being outside organized religion and many other would be atheist.
Who counts the breadwinners abroad?
As much as one third of the total number of citizens of the Republic of Albania live outside the country as immigrants, and the largest group of these immigrants live in countries like Greece and Italy were the economy is in decline.
The census by definition does not count this large population group as Albanian residents. Census interviews do ask people if they have family abroad, but for the purposes of the census population results, the Albanians abroad don’t exist.
INSTAT says it uses projections to compensate for data changes between censuses, and that other entities track emigration and returns.
But experts note that any census data that does not include better information about Albanians living abroad would be flawed fairly quickly if the return of workers back to Albania continues to increase as it has in the past year, and the findings would not address their needs.
An important process
The interviewers knocking on doors last month were part of an army of nearly 15,000 people hired for the census by the Albanian Statistical Institute, INSTAT, the official body in charge of the census. They ended up producing 40 million pages of printed materials, according to INSTAT, and each interviewer was paid 300 euros for six weeks of work.
Officials say the Albanian census is a technical process, which counts individuals, dwellings, households in an area at a given time. The census is the only statistical operation that provides detailed and exhaustive data on population structure, characteristics and living conditions. As such, officials argue getting those details will assist government in offering services.
The census counts all people living in Albania, including foreign residents that are not diplomats. And all residents are legally required to answer most of the questions and do so truthfully. The law sanctions fines for those who do not, though it is not entirely clear how or if these will be enforced.
INSTAT says the census aims to provide a statistical window in all aspects of Albania’s economical, social and public life: How many people reside in Albania today and how do they live? What services do they need, and many other aspects of society. Furthermore the census data allow the comparisons between countries and regions, so that Albanian and international institutions can follow developments easier and plan their activities more precisely.
“The census takes place only once in a decade, that’s why it is so important for every family to participate,” says INSTAT director Ines Nurja. “We need to know how we live, and how to plan a better future for us and generations to come.”
Prime Minister Sali Berisha says the government, businesses, the EU and civil society need the census information to best manage changes in Albania’s population. He adds the census will bring to light social and economic reality of Albania, but above all will help in the fight against poverty.
“After the census and digital registry of families in economic assistance, we will eradicate misery and extreme poverty that still exists in 10-15,000 Albanian families,” Berisha said in a news conference last month.
