The price is life

By Alba ȥla
One of the participating movies in Tirana Film Festival 07, a Kosovar production which was praised and prized quite highly was ‘The Iron Mungary’. The movie features a father and a son who collect scrap metal to sell and make a living. The only ray of light in their family is their son’s schooling. The school is organizing an event in which it will inaugurate a bronze statue honoring the national hero to which it owns its name. However, the father, upon learning that bronze is sold at profitable prices, steals the bronze head to use it as scrap.
This Saturday a powerful blast rocked Tirana, the one-million Albanian capital city from its physical, mental and political foundations. The death toll kept rising ever since as if the crater of Gerdec, formed by the explosion of thousands of tons of ammunition, was sucking in the human lives and hopes of the inhabitants, passer-bys and the population at large. After the first dust settled on the death fields still covered by dangerous unexploded shells, a vast array of public actors such as analysts and opposition politicians rushed to point blame fingers and sought transparency, responsibility and accountable investigation.
Colored metal such as bronze yields better profits for scrap metal traders. ‘Alba demil’ head, former fiscal evasion convict, former excavator driver, Mihal Delijorgji knew this. Cheap uninsured labor especially from minors and women adds up to the bottom-line. He knew this too. Some of these generous profits have to be shared with supporting actors in the high level decision-making field. So far so good. Delijorgji did not appear recently, he has always been there, the emigrant laundering money, the businessman climbing the stairs of power, stepping on the hands of those 13 year olds who disassembled weapons in Gerdec, to reach the power-brokers. Mihal Delijorgji is not an individual, he is a phenomenon. This is Mihal Delijorgji’s state, the rest of us are just living [and dying!] in it.
Some months ago a powerful explosion demolished the burning furnace of the Kurum steel factory in Elbasan. It also hurt the lives of the employees on the site. One of the investigation paths claimed that there was a shell among the scrap metal that was melting in the heat. People shrugged their shoulders, narrowed their eyes and said “What kind of animal would purposefully put a shell in the metal?” Got it now?
The bronze selling kind, both business and political species.
The mountains of Albania were not enough for the state of Delijorgji, its safe military zones in remote areas where nobody lives were no good. Where would the fun be? The site had to be conveniently located close to the airport to host the complacent American partners under whose name they took warm shelter. It had to be right there by the only highway so it could be easily assembled and transported perhaps to Elbasan to the furnaces of metal. It had to be right in the middle of an intensely populated industrial area from which to draw convenient labor, to abuse the ignorance and poverty of the mob, few kilometers from the capital. If Delijorgji had to collapse, the state, the airport, the highway, the people would have to go down with it. It was only natural.
The Albanian state does exist. Contrary to what its critics say, its presence is felt. It kills its constituents and then weeps for them. It is the father who robs his son of all future dreams, plans and opportunities or a better life. It trades bronze shells at the price of life.