The Return to the Folds of the Natural Family

By EDI RAMA
We have turned a leaf on a new chapter in our history. We are invited to return to our natural family. The Albanian people were extended historical support of the United States and its Euro-Atlantic allies, while Albanian politics was charged with a new duty, which for us socialists and progressive forces, is a brand new challenge; Joining NATO in 2009!
The road traversed to reach the current point is evidence in itself of the cost the Albanian people have paid for the obsolete politics of the divide and rule of the Albanians, simply for the sake of the interests of the politicians and to the detriment of the interests of the country and people. Way back in 1992 Albania was summoned to the Council of Cooperation of the North Atlantic Treaty, but it took no less than another sixteen years for the much-desired invitation to be extended, although the Albanian citizens, socialist and democrat alike, have never lost sight of their aspirations for Albania to join NATO.
Therefore, at the moment of the crowning of an important component of the mission of our generation, it is a day on which we can be proud of the contribution of the Socialist Party, which, via an entirely new policy for an Albania torn asunder by the old politics, initiated, led and enabled a political process where the strategic and fundamental interests of the country can not be interfered with or threatened by the interests of the partisan estimates of a given moment.
This is the day when socialist and democrat citizens alike, all over Albania, but also throughout the world, felt the hand that defends the Free World on their shoulder; the hand that is raised to halt evil in its tracks whenever the values of democracy of the countries of NATO come under threat, or peace and security of our planet; the hand that the old politics prevented us from shaking many years ago.
It is in the interests of Albania and of the Albanian citizens to radically reform the system of representation and the entire electoral infrastructure. We will represent this interest with devotion and resolve and we will request that the other side meets all its obligations as well, because we are convinced that the more free and fair elections are, the more spectacular our victory will be; and the more guaranteed the will of the sovereign people is against the ugly tradition of vote distortion; the more stable and qualitative our government will be and the better defended our citizens will be from the perils of today.
Without doubt this is a Fine Hour in our history, which in the past brutally divided us from our natural family of the people alongside whom we fought, shoulder to shoulder in World War Two. That war remains our brilliant page of the XX Century, which always makes us feel such great pride for our veterans, before whom we bow our heads in profound respect in this our Fine Hour. Other pages leading up to the Hour of Liberty of December 1990 are dark and painful, saturated in blood and tears, martyrs, innocent victims who have such dramatic histories, the unpaid sweat and toil of an entire people, who for forty five years achieved an enormous volume of slave labour throughout the whole of Albania. Seventeen years after the collapse of the communist regime, today our people have the legitimate right to savour this Fine Hour, which back in that distant December we all expected would come much earlier.
Yes, we can enjoy this Fine Hour together and hope for a future where the life of every Albanian woman and man will be a good life, protected against the dangers that threaten us all today due to the absence of a functioning State; a life replete with opportunities and possibilities to fulfill dreams and desires, natural ambitions which today, for the majority of us, remain mere attempts, because of an old and obsolete kind of politics, that for seventeen consecutive years became an impediment to the development of democracy, individual freedoms and equality before the Law.
In this Fine Hour we cannot close the eyes of our hearts of Albania today without remembering all the lives lost on the job, on the streets, at family celebrations; because only by looking towards the future through the eyes of our minds and at the present through the eyes of our hearts, will we be able to clearly discern that between us and the future we want for our children, stand the obsolete politics of the past and a Prime Minister, who would have lent dignity to the Government of the Albanians in this historical moment for all of them, if he had stepped down following the explosive collapse of his government, precisely in the name of those new political and moral standards that Albania and her people today deserve.
Today, the problem we face is putting justice in place and for every damaged family and/or individual to restart life as usual; our job is to carry to every village and township, to every city quarter and to every door, the message of a new unification to close the chapter of old politics of the past and to pave the new road of the future by means of a policy which has eyes for looking, ears for listening and a heart for feeling the pain, the problems and the desires of people, the means to make European Albania a reality, constructing Europe in our villages and towns, in our kindergartens, schools, hospitals, in our homes where no parent should feel reluctant to spend the money on a birthday gift for his/her child, this is our victory!
We will win for those who did not manage it through to this Fine Hour. We are going to win for all the children of Albania, so that the future can be their lives. We will win for all the young men and women of Albania, in town and countryside, so that they don’t have to flee their country of birth and abandon the property of their parents, but receive sound schooling here and build a worthy life, making an outstanding contribution and taking produce from the soil of Albania, which today is all purchased many miles away. We will win for all the parents of Albania who, in this Fine Hour on which the sun is now setting, frown with concern on the routine of the new day that dawns with its high prices, the power bills, medicine prescriptions they can’t afford, the long queues of unemployed, all the land now barren or with no access to irrigation, they frown because of the lack of hope that weighs so heavily on their mornings.
The invitation to join NATO, is not the end, but the beginning of a new chapter of relations and obligations that must be fulfilled before Albania is accepted, as an equal amongst equals, at the tables of the NATO member countries. And Albania, all of us, will be assessed not on what we say and will say in the future, but on what we do and will do in the future. Precisely because, whether in Opposition or in Government we will do everything we say and because we are ready to uphold this historical responsibility, next year Albania will be admitted into NATO, we will be governing it and it will feel sound and safe on the job, in the street and in celebration.