The Song Festival and Albania’s Institutions Of art and nationalism

By Maklen Misha
It is human to feel embarrassed at one’s own actions, but at times one also happens to feel embarrassed at other people’s actions, as for instance when they make fools of themselves. And it is safe to assume that embarrassment is what many Albanians feel on a yearly basis when watching and listening to that so-called greatest of artistic events organized by any of Albania’s institutions: the Albanian Public Radio & Television National Song Festival. And the organizers of the event did not let us down in 2007 either. But besides poor taste and pitiable artistic quality this event demonstrated a number of things about the Albanian state in general such as the inefficiency and corruption that reigns in many of Albania’s state institutions.
For instance anyone at all would have been hard pressed to compete with the Albanian Radio & Television (or TVSH in Albanian) in organizing something less artistic or more appallingly unprofessional than the Song Festival. It seems as if every year the organizers go out of their way to find the weirdest, less talented singers and song writers. One would also be justified if getting a feeling of dꫠ vu when watching and listening to most entries. They are remarkably similar from year to year, whether in music or lyrics, to the extent of making one believe that the authors have been selected after committing themselves to respecting the Festival’s golden rule: never to use more than 10-15 clich顷ords in their lyrics – such as love, tears, father/motherland (!) – and just as limited a number of accords and notes. If one exceeds these TVSH Commandments it seems, one automatically fails.
Now, one may be tempted to justify this failure called the Song Festival, by saying that this is the level of artistic expression in Albania, but nothing could be further from the truth. Private television and radio channels have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to organize very successful song competitions. The reason for these different outcomes? Well, private media outlets have to earn their money by producing good quality programs, otherwise they cannot survive. The TVSH one the other hand does not have such problems: it is financed by our taxes and its main purpose is not so much to please those who pay for it, as to cater to the political whims of whoever happens to be in power in Albania. As long as they meet this last requirement TVSH employees and directors do not have to worry about modernizing its services or improving their quality, because they are assured of retaining their post however poor their performance. And isn’t that exactly what happens in many of Albania’s institutions?
Then there is that other problem with the Festival that is just as characteristic of many of Albania’s state institutions as their inefficiency: corruption. Year after year, although some of the singers may change, most of the songwriters and producers remain the same. Indeed some of them seem to do nothing else, but ‘compose’ for the Festival and one would be justified in calling them the Festival Clan or Guild, who have managed to gain absolute control of the event and are not likely to let go any time soon, no matter how incompetent, unskilled and hopelessly untalented many of them have proven themselves to be. Well there’s money to be made in the Festival and ever since Albania started taking part in the Eurovision Song Festival the stakes got higher and just as in any Clan or Guild worthy of that name, an almost tacit spoils-sharing agreement seems to have been reached between the Festival organizers. They always stand up as a group against any criticism of one of their own and they have made sure to cut out anyone so foolish as to threaten their little world.
The 2007 Festival illustrates this phenomenon very well. The Artistic Director of the Festival, a veteran of many a festival, had ‘somehow’ managed to include his own song in the competition list, without even competing during the selections. A classic case of conflict of interest and abuse of one’s post it would seem. To make matters worse this gentleman had no qualms about stating beforehand that he was sure to win! To his great chagrin however two members of the jury refused to go along with his little arrangement so his song came in second. Blood, fire and murder, the director screamed and although the two ‘rebels’ claimed that they voted the way they did because they did not like the director’s song, the latter did not hesitate for a second to accuse them of corruption! And indeed if one looks at the world through the director and the Festival Clan’s skewed perspective they were probably guilty of it.
The Artistic Director’s weirdest accusation towards the two rebels however was of betraying the national interest! The two singers who sang his song were from Kosovo and given the fact that the winner is expected to take part in the Eurovision Song Festival to be held in Belgrade next year the Director had expected to serve the national interest by presenting the two Kosovar girls in Belgrade as a in-your-face to Serbia (and pocketing a significant sum of money in the process of course.) Compared to this major cause the musical preferences of the jury should not have mattered, he claimed! However strange this might seem to me and you, these kind of accusationsjustifications are not unheard off in Albania. In fact the Director was simply borrowing a line from the government which has repeatedly attempted to justify the alleged abuses and accusations of corruption on the Durr쳠- Kuk쳠Highway (linking Albania to Kosovo) by dubbing it the Patriotic Highway and accusing the opposition of betrayal for tarnishing the reputation of projects that serve the national interest by subjecting then to scrutiny. Hiding corruption and abuse behind a veneer of nationalist rhetoric apparently has become a well established way of creating a smoke-screen and putting your critics in the defensive. And if the government does it, why shouldn’t a mediocre artistic director do the same?