By: Arlind Sherifi
Arlind Sherifi is an aspiring Albanian Orthodox political activist, currently doing his PhD studies in the University of Kansas (USA) in the field of molecular spectroscopy.
Positions of the organisation ‘Boshti Kombetar’ (National Axis) on the foreign policy of the USA regarding the Albanian nation in Kosova and Albania. (RMV to be analyzed at a later date)
Boshti Kombetar is an Ultranationalist Political Organization in Albania that is advocating for the solution of the existential moral crisis that exists in the Albanian nation since gaining its independence from the Ottoman empire in 1912 under extremely difficult circumstances.
The main superpowers Great Britain, Tsarist Russia, Germany, France) wanted to dismantle the newly formed Albanian state in the conference of London in 1913 by giving our lands to the Greeks and the Yugoslavs but the intervention of president Woodrow Wilson coupled with local resistance against the Italian occupation of Vlora, and support from Austria-Hungary saved the existence of the Albanian nation under a newly formed state with incomplete borders.
From 1913, the political battle of the Kosova Albanians and the rest of the Albanians to achieve liberation & unification continued until it was cut short by the end of WWII when the communists came into power. The communists had engaged in a sustained campagin of subversion & sabotage against the elements who wanted to achieve the political unity of the Albanians under a single nation-state. Josip Broz Tito came into power in Yugoslavia and Enver Hoxha came into power in Albania.
The Yugoslav Communist Party assisted heavily in the creation of the Albanian Communist Party in 1943 up until the end of the war in 1945. Enver Hoxha was a vassal of Tito until 1948. Yugoslavia wanted to annex Albania but this failed because the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia, consecutively Enver Hoxha sided with Joseph Stalin because he did not want to become a vassal of Josip Broz Tito. A downside of what ensued, was that Tito managed to form an uneasy alliance with the Collective West, while Hoxha continued with his eastern friends and made Albania a member of the Warsaw Pact.
Nonetheless, Kosova remained part of Yugoslavia until 1999 when the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) with the help of USA and NATO bombed Yugoslavia and secured the liberation of Kosova from the oppressive forces of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime who was a remnant of Yugoslavia’s communist regime.
NATO’s intervention in Kosova was supported a lot by the Israeli lobby in the USA. The Albanian nation aided the Jews against their persecutors during WWII, worth mentioning here are also the efforts by the collaborationist government of Xhafer Deva in Kosova who refused to hand on any Jewish person to the Nazi troops of Germany. This was done by the Albanian nation collectively because of our code of honor – the Jews have never forgotten about the beneficial actions done to them in behalf of the Albanian people.
It is well-known that communism was a well-planned operation to crush Christianity in Eastern Europe at first, and then globally, though the steps taken to complete this accursed endeavor failed. the Cold War was won by the collective West because of the intellectual struggle of Christians and our non-christian allies around the world who stood alongside us through the difficult mores of the last century.
Christianity was eradicated in Albania by the communist regime in a fierce manner, starting since 1946 with the first arrests enacted upon Christian clerics and intelligentsia. They were accused as enemies of the state and saboteurs of the “People’s Committees”. Most of them were charged with the death penalty and executed because of their faith in God.
This wave of anti-Christian terrorism was intensified as the years passed and the communist regime in Albania placed its State Security agents within the administrative structures of the Church in order to monitor the activities of the believers and Christian clerics during their time of worship and everyday life.
The harassment of the believers in their everyday life by the State Security agents became a common practice in Albania and this repressive climate intensified to the point of culmination in the dark year 1967 when the State Security Directorate in Albania carried raids statewide in order to force Albanian families into instigating their sons and daughters to carry torches and pitchforks into the religious institutions of Albania.
If they refused to submit, then the whole family and their descendants would be sent to internment camps and be considered second class citizens generation after generation. Of course, a considerable amount of Albanian families resisted this heavy legalistic psychological pressure and chose to suffer the legal consequences until the communist regime fell in 1992. 95% of the mosques and churches were destroyed during the communist era in Albania and the communist regime abolished every term related to spirituality, metaphysics and God by amending the Constitution in 1976. The doctrine of atheistic dialectical materialism was declared the constitutional law of the land until 1992 when a provisional code of laws was compiled until the ratification of the new constitution that would reflect upon the modern legal framework of human rights.
Another important fact about communist Albania was that abandonment of the country without a special permission from the authorities was considered high treason against the country and it was punishable by 25 years in prison and/or the death penalty. Tourism was scarce and decreased into a minimal level after 1972. The communist regime in Albania pursued a staunchly anti-western agenda by going so far as censoring even classical music, regulating hairstyles and censoring Western scientific research. The same repressive apparatus against the traditional family and its future would be enacted by sending them to internment camps among other punishments.
The internment camps were abolished in 1992 when the Democratic Opposition came into power in Albania. The communist repression in Yugoslavia was smoother compared to Albania (with the exception of Kosova) because of the soft policies of Tito. To conclude, the establishment of democratic institutions under the rule of law has failed in Albania but at a greater extent, we can say it has failed in the Balkans entirely.
Kosova is under the auspices of the international community and NATO, the influence of the USA has contributed to the de-Yugoslavization of Kosova, by removing the cadres embedded in Yugoslav power structures and mentality but more should be done in this direction to oppose self-destructive tendencies which come in the shape of an anti-Israeli sentiment inspired by the intensive work of foreign agencies, anti-nationalist discourse employed by European NGOs, and also the radical Islamism, ever-present in the margins of society which is supported and financed by the Serbian BIA in order to create an international image of Kosova as a “failed state”.
A strong component and figurehead of nationalistic unity among the Albanian people is the historic figure of Gjergj Kastrioti (Skanderbeg) who fought the Islamic Caliphate of the Ottoman empire for 25 years in the 15th century in alliance with the Respublica Christiana represented mainly by the Vatican, Hungary achieving the union of Albanian principalities under the common symbol of the double-headed eagle against a crimson field.
It needs to be mentioned that Gjergj Kastrioti had a spiritual alliance with the byzantine Patriarchate of Constantinople under Patriarch Niphon in his time and Mount Athos (the monastic state in Thessaloniki under the auspices of the Patriarchate of Constantinople). Niphon had a close friendship with the family of Gjergj Kastrioti and Mount Athos owned a lot of properties in Southern Albania where the majority of Albanians were orthodox Christians while the northern Albanians were Roman Catholics. The foreign policy of Gjergj Kastrioti ultimately managed to bridge the differences between eastern Christendom and western Christendom.
This resistance gave time to the rest of Europe to prepare militarily and morally to defeat the Ottoman troops in Vienna 2 times by stopping the colonialist expansion of the Islamic Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire. In this manner, Europe preserved its Christian culture and Christian identity. Gjergj Kastrioti is an indisputable historical figure who saved and in a peculiar way provided the foundations of modern Albania all while saving Europe by proxy.
Gjergj Kastrioti lived in the times of the ultimate decline and fall of the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium at the hands of the Ottoman Empire which achieved their intention in 1453 A.C. Gjergj Kastrioti we believe, represents the byzantine culture and mentality in the Albanian nation. By Byzantine culture we mean the Christian continuation of Greek classical culture. Unfortunately, a big part of Albanians converted to Islam in the 18th century for political and economic reasons, promulgated by the unjust legal framework of the Islamic Caliphate of the Ottoman empire.
The Ottoman empire annulled the cultural progress of the Albanian people that had happened under the framework of independent Christian princes of medieval times. The Slavic people converted to Christianity in the 9th century under the cultural influence of the Byzantine empire. The Slavic people took a completely new culture and a new alphabet by Saint Methodius and Saint Cyril who are considered the patrons of Europe.
Serbs belong to the Slavic people, who were established in southeastern Europe in the 7th century but they possess a certain moral inferiority towards the Byzantine Christianity because the Slavic people never managed to absorb it fully over the centuries. Communism also contributed to this moral inferiority and political savagery. The Byzantine empire guaranteed the peaceful co-existence of the Slavic people with other populations for centuries but this peaceful co-existence was disrupted by the emergence of Stefan Dusan, a man possessing strong local imperial ambitions which created heavy frictions with The Eastern Roman Empire.
Later on, the arrival of the Ottoman empire further diminished the presence of Byzantine culture in the Balkans because the Ottoman empire tried to convert the local populations of the Balkan area into Islam through force, discriminatory policies of taxation towards the local Christian population the forced displacement of peoples from Anatolia and Arabia into the Balkans, in order to change the cultural and ethnic landscape of the local Christian population in the Balkans. This policy affected Kosova Albanians a lot and the local Albanian population in central Albania. Albania broke away from the Ottoman Empire in a very unique way, linguistic nationalism prevailed among the religiously-diverse population in the 19th century, a nationalism propelled forwards by the nascent National Renaissance forces, supported by Austria-Hungary.
This National Renaissance brought Enlightenment-era ideas in the Albanian lands even under heavy pressure by the Ottoman empire which did not allow these philosophical and cultural ideas to flourish, because they would have surely pushed out the orientalist mentality embodied in the concept of “Divinely-inspired predestination” of submission to various temporal powers, which is still present even today.
If the collective West wants to root out corruption from the political elites of the Balkans through rule of law, it needs to root out the cultural influence of the orientalist mentality by promoting the Byzantine cultural mores in the Balkans.
Gjergj Kastrioti has gained a significant posthumous reputation in Western art and science. The French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire highly respected the Albanian military leader in his works. Ludvig Holberg, a Danish writer and philosopher, regarded him as one of the greatest generals in history. The Italian Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi even composed an opera titled ‘Skanderbeg’ in his honor.
The English poet Lord Byron wrote admirably about him and his warrior nation in his epic poem ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’.
All of the above historical analyses were done to bring into the surface the truth of the Balkans in a radical way, the reasons for its moral decline, infused by the influence of the communist empire which destroyed the Nationalist cultural identity of the Albanian people even further, especially that of the Albanians in Yugoslavia.
The present US Administration should pursue a foreign policy that preserves the Christian culture of Gjergj Kastrioti in the Albanian lands in order to counter the doubled-edged blade of a Intrastate Security apparatus which has gripped the whole of the Albanian people in its claws, which promotes none but the flourishing of organized crime, and subsequent money laundering into decrepit political and state institutions that pose a threat to the Western political orientation of Albania, and indeed to our very future.
Recommendations for the Diaspora and adjacent parties:
Reevaluation of the official history of Albania where the byzantine culture of Gjergj Kastrioti must be emphasized and promoted as a cornerstone of the Christian identity of the collective West.
Reevaluation of our stance regarding the massive exodus of the Albanian Christians from the Albanian lands, especially the Orthodox and Roman Vatholic Christians who represent the most pro-Western faction of the Albanian nation.
The Christian population of the Albanian nation represents a highly pro-western intellectual force that can serve as a very important catalyst for the economic and political development of the Albanian nation, including the Kosova Albanians. Albanians need to lobby for a Christian pro-western leadership in Kosova and Albania in order to adopt policies that strengthen the cultural alliance between the Albanian nation and the collective West in order to push out the orientalist mentality from the Albanian nation inherited by the Ottoman Empire and Communism.
In this way, the current endemic culture of corruption will be eradicated because the promotion of the Christian byzantine culture of Gjergj Kastrioti sows moral idealism in the Albanian nation and this moral idealism will make people fight for their rights even more as time goes on.
The USA and Israel must put heavy pressure on the current Albanian political elite to create a legal framework which opens the economic market to potential foreign investors that are coming from the USA and Israel in order to bring true economic prosperity for the local Albanian population in Kosova and Albania.
Albania and Kosova are fertile grounds for potential economic investments that can generate a lot of income for the local Albanian population in Kosova and Albania. This policy will strengthen the pro-western attitude of the Albanian nation in ways unseen before.
The Diaspora Albanians must take a very close look on the mass migration of the Albanian Christians towards the collective West and the reasons why it is happening. Current political circles connected to the left-wing political spectrum of Albania attacked the late Archbishop of the Albanian Orthodox Church by labeling him as a person who is trying to subvert the Albanian nation since he came in Albania in 1991.
These political attacks have created an atmosphere of psychological terror towards the Orthodox Christians in Albania who feel marginalized in their own country, these attacks are also being perpetuated by servants of the former communist regime in Albania who have a deep hatred for Gjergj Kastrioti in his true historical and political dimensions.
This is the reason why the Albanian Communists manipulated the official history of Albania where they removed the Christian background of his policies by emphasizing a skewed image of Skanderbeg as a “guerrilla warrior”. Also, several socialist MPs in Albania since 2013 like the atheist Neo-communist Ben Blushi have attacked publicly the Catholic population in Albania by labeling them as collaborators of fascism during WWII, on the same grounds used by the Communist regime in Albania to persecute the Catholic population.
The Diaspora and adjacent intellectuals need to become the guarantors of the presence of the Christian population in Albania by politically protecting the Christian clerics in Albania and applying pressure on the current political elite in Albania to encourage the mainstream media in Albania not to embrace the political attacks towards the Christian population of Albania that has diminished significantly in number since Prime Minister Edi Rama came into power.
Also, the US administration need to encourage the Albanian diaspora to come and invest in Albania, especially the Albanian Christians who live in the USA but the USA always needs to keep its doors open to the Albanians because this strengthens the pro-western attitude of the Albanian nation.
The diaspora and the current political class must not promote policies in the Albanian nation that go against the social ethics of our nation: LGBTQ+ agenda, abortion, euthanasia, surrogacy, gambling and the rampant promotion of hedonism through various means and mediums.
The promotion of these policies is used as an argument by the left-wing Neo-communist political spectrum of the Albanian nation to diminish the nationalistic pride of the Albanian nation by presenting every aspect of our Christian past as backward in a way that preserves the Neo-communist mentality in the Albanian nation. The complete De-communistization of the Albanian nation can happen only through the promotion of the nationalist culture of Gjergj Kastrioti.
There is a need to pursue a policy of promoting Albanian Christians in public political leadership positions they understand very well the byzantine culture on its entirety related to its development since the time of Saint Constantine the Great until the 20th century.
These are the only people that can “negotiate” with our enemies and convince them to change course.
Furthermore, the US administration needs to put maximum pressure on the serbia political elite to establish law and order in Serbia. The Serbian BIA is exercising a control of censorship on the political speech of Christian clerics towards the promotion of byzantine culture in Serbia because the promotion of byzantine culture in Serbia poses a threat to the power of the former Yugoslavs who exercise concrete power.
Beyond the region:
The conversion of Russians into Christianity into the time of Saint Vladimir of Kyiv is the moment when Russia adopted byzantine culture until a certain degree and this is why the Russian communists tried to eradicate the byzantine culture – in order to enslave the cultural DNA of the Russian people,
The promotion of the byzantine culture in the Iranian population will contribute even more in the intellectual enrichment of the Iranian society which has a very rich culture because of the legacy of the Persian empire and this additional enrichment of the Iranians by the byzantine culture will just accelerate the fall of the Islamic regime in Iran.
The promotion of byzantine culture in the Middle East will bring down Islamic Jihadism in a much faster way because the whole Middle East was affected by the militaristic expeditions of Alexander the Great who brought Greek classical culture heavily where he went and the promotion of the byzantine culture in the Middle East will liberalize the societies of the Middle East much faster.
Furthermore, the promotion of the byzantine cultural mores in the Middle East will trigger the intellectual curiosity of these societies to search for their own common cultural roots even more by building further collaboration that extend even to non-Arab populations by pushing even for an economic union in the Middle East like the EU in order to prevent the wars in the Middle East much faster and stabilize the region under law and order influenced by byzantine culture which is the Christian continuation of the Greek classical culture. v. Alexander the Great managed to conquer even some parts of India which means that he brought the Greek classical culture even in those lands, so the promotion of byzantine culture has a valid cultural basis to happen even in India in order to break the mentality of the caste system in that country is dismantled once and for all by establishing a more just system of governance in India to bring it much closer to the collective West through cultural development in order to contain the expansionist communist influence of China much more effectively.
The promotion of byzantine culture needs to happen wherever the byzantine empire existed and wherever Alexander the Great went in order to push these societies much closer to the collective West.
In this way, even Russia will come much closer to the collective West in order to counter the Islamic regime in Iran, the expansionist attitudes of China and the completely immoral dictatorship of North Korea that has turned that country into a complete unapproachable place for any western investment that will benefit the consolidation of cultural power of the collective West in North Korea and the prosperity of the local population of North Korea.
To conclude, the promotion of the byzantine culture by the collective West can happen with the assistance of the philosophers of the Eastern Orthodox Church in order to strengthen the collective West by forming these new dynamics which I have described above in order to bring real progress in the new world, under law and order.
