The Unofficial View of Tirana (61)

Current EU Ambassador Ettore Sequi in traditional Albanian costume. Photo by Roland Tasho for the exhibition European Portraits.


 
Sometimes a photo just hits you in the face. Like this one. Ettore Sequi, the EU Ambassador to Albania is a man with an attitude. It’s a man that loves to hear himself talk. It’s a man who melts for press conferences. But it’s also a man who loves to dress up in costumes from eras long gone, from the times Lord Byron “discovered” Albania and wrote about its beautiful boys that “they […] have painted complexions like rouged dowagers, large black eyes & features perfectly regular. They are the prettiest little animals I ever saw” (Letters I, 231). If there is any photo that has captured both the obsession of the EU for its Balkan backyard, its neocolonial streak, its vanity and utter madness for some sense of old-fashioned pride, glamor, and veritable power outfits, this is it…
 
Update:

EU Ambassador Sequi posing for the May 2013 issue of Elegance. Notice the cheap pun on the EU (in Albanian BE) slogan, Just Be

The Unofficial View of Tirana (60)

Sample ballot paper, color coded by yours truly


 
Already some time ago I found online an example of the 2013 ballot paper to be used during the parliamentary elections of June 23. It was a model issued by the KQZ (Central Election Committee), which currently consists of 4 majority party members and 3 vacant seats with no solution in sight. I think even the internationals are a bit tired of it all… and we haven’t even started! So what I loved about this ballot paper is that the names on it are not entirely random. Clearly someone in the KQZ has been hammering away on a keyboard in an utmost attempt to block out any active knowledge of the current political system. Let’s see what happened:
 
In the far left corner we see (turned 90 degrees) the names of the different coalitions. Like in France, the main parties form their own coalitions, in this example the Koalicioni i Hfgostewq, the Koalicioni i Cvdfffff, the Koalicioni Indftresdfgj, and last the Koalicioni i Loest (lowest?). The process used here is the one of the monkey on the computer. Clusters like hfg, ewq, cv, tre, dftresdfgj are all close on the keyboard, alternating between left and right hand “randomization.” What is more interesting are the moments of lapse, of tiredness (fffff), or of the suggestion of a word (“Ind…ependent”).
 
It becomes even nicer in case of the “nonsense” names. The author clearly started out with some organization, alphabetically proceeding from party Alxxxcvbmlpnjklfdreputserklqpertfdsa, whose name starts with “A” and contains the “unrandom” sequence repu…blican at a distance from the clusters fd and tser. Also interesting is the sequence kld, which is the acronym for the High Court. The next party on the list, Bmlpnjklfdreputserklqpertfdsa, starts with B, but when we arrive at C the author clearly chose to break the order by preceding the sequence with xxx, which is also inserted in the First name, which then suggests an analysis Al-xxx-cv-bmlpnjklfdreputserklqpertfdsa: Al…bania-xxx-cv (adjacent keys or curriculum vitae?) ending with the string bmlpnjklfdreputserklqpertfdsa that seems to be included in all “fake” names.
 
This string, with its “republican” core, is subsequently edited both in the beginning and the end in order to generate party names of different lengths, such as party 3, Bmlpnjklfdreputserklq[pertfdsa]; party 4, Bmlpnjklfdrepu[tserklqpertfdsa]; party 8, [Bmlpnjk]lfdreputserklqpertfdsa; and party 9, [Bmlpnjkl]fdreputserklqpertfd[sa]. These truncated strings are then preceded by the alphabetical series a, b, cv, d, and e, with the infix (xx)x. The rest of the party names become increasingly less “random,” as the author abandons the semi-alphabetic progression after party 12, fo, and starts introducing elements of actual party names, such as in the unique name of party 17, lëvizja pë… perhaps a reference to the LSI (Lëvizja Socialiste për Integrimit); party 19, partia de…mokratike; party 21, partia ko…mbëtare; moving to party 29, and again party 30, partia dem…, and then only at the bottom parties 32 and 33, partia so(c)…ialiste. The list is closed with the shortest and the longest party names, party 36 adding the letters vbasd.
 
So even this, theoretically “random” and “neutral” example for an Albanian voting ballot contains very visible traces of the political commitment of its authors, the majority-dominated KQZ. Whereas elements suggesting “Democratic Party” already explicitly appear as high as number 19 (and possibly even the double d in parties 9 and 10, references to the Socialists appear only in the bottom. Notice also that no random initial elements contain the letters s(o) before party 32.
 
All of this came to mind when today I read the news that an audit group reviewing the voter lists has found no less than 33,690 double entries and that about 403,387 potential voters still haven’t been registered. Moreover it audit group found 4,038 “coded” entries, that bear a striking resemblance to our sample voting ballot. There must be some really funky typists around at the KQZ…
 

 

 

The Unofficial View of Tirana (59)

The King's Song… with new nationalist symbol


 
The last few days, finally on a short holiday in Istria (and my dear are these Croatians afraid to enter the EU on July 1!), I’ve been trying to think what to write about, or at least, where to start on reporting about the current Albanian pre-election situation. A small recap: about two weeks ago the left-wing LSI party announced to leave the coalition government with the PD and team up with opposition party PS for the upcoming June 23 elections. The LSI immediately vacated their ministerial positions, leaving basically a PD minority government in place. This also had an immediate effect on other governmental levels, as throughout the country PS and LSI starting voting together, thus shifting the political balance in the entire country.
 
In a countermove, the PD started a parliamentary procedure to remove the LSI nominated member in the Central Election Committee, which is supposedly politically neutral. In spite the fact that the electoral law does not give parliament the power to remove any of the CEC members, PD pushed the vote, managed to secure a majority for it (which I found surprising considering the fact that they are in the minority now), and put somebody else in the CEC (again this is legally impossible), upon which the two PS nominated members resigned. Although the electoral law demands a replacement of vacated CEC seats during election time within 48 hours, no new members have been nominated, leaving the CEC fully in the hands of the PD and its allies, with only 4 of 7 seats filled (two vacated, one contested). The idea to “restore political balance” in a supposedly apolitical and procedural body (no CEC member is supposed to have had any party affiliation in the last 5 years) has thus resulted in a wonderful clusterfuck with every single “international” panicking and the elections basically ready for yet another brilliant series of fraudulent and illegal moves. I am still surprised now and then at what PM Berisha is able to pull off, although this surprise is slowly starting to be accompanied by a profound sense of alarm. I have never seen such utter disrespect for the rule of law from up close, nor “lived” it. The overall mood is pessimistic; most of my friends expect a terrible post-election situation, no matter who wins.
 
Yet, that there is no way back to the politically “stable” backwaters of the Netherlands is now more clear to me than ever. As the country is readying itself for the crowning of the new King Willem-Alexander on April 30, the mediocrity of its general taste levels (and thus the mediocrity of the kingdom) is surfacing once again, this time in the form of a national (or “nationalist”) anthem thrown together by some cheap musical guy to celebrate the crowning ceremony (and this crown prince must have approved of this. woe the arts for the coming 50 years!), including a brain dissolving rap sequence. Here it is. Beware.
 

 
Some Dutch guy made a rough translation of the pathetic, incoherent, and moreover ungrammatical lyrics, from which I quote:
 

There you are
You’ve seen this moment often in your dreams
And here it is
The day that you knew who (sic) was coming is finally here
Are you ready?
Can one ever truly be?
 
There you are
Everyone has a calling in this life
You’ve done everything to prepare yourself
And here it is
You promise you’ll give it your all
Every step you took was leading to this
And look around you
We’re walking with you […]
 
(Rap)
One battle! Two lives!
We have each other’s back! Unbreakable!
One flag! Two lions!
Together, come rain or shine!
Side by side! Standing tall!
Proud as a peacock! This is our sound!
It doesn’t matter we’re small!
Our actions speak loud!
We won’t fall in an awkward manner!
For you, my child!
For my dad, for my mom!
For you, I’ll weather wind and rain!
And I’ll have your back!
I’ll wear a banner with your name!
I’ll believe in you, as long as we exist! (WTF!?)
I’ll build a dyke with my bare hands! (!)
And keep the water away from you!

 
I don’t think this text, or the “music” that goes with it needs any of my sarcasm for my point to be made. I invite the unwitting listener to compare this absolutely anti-intellectual polder-terror, sad excuse for a “song” with the timeless grandeur of the following nationalist Albanian songs, “Rrjedh në këngë e ligjerime” (Flows in songs and stories) by Vaçe Zela and “Për ty atdhe” (For you, fatherland) by Mentor Xhemali. Yes, the Albanian political system still has to develop (and it’s about to crash), but at least its national songs have taste. Even the Aleanca KuqeZi party anthem is a celebration of good taste compared with this Dutch fart. And as long as there is good taste, there is hope!
 


 

The Unofficial View of Tirana (58)


 
On Sunday I woke up around 11 am to the sound of the nationalist song “Xhamadani vija vija” (YouTube terror). Somebody was playing it loudly on a car stereo or maybe the wind brought it to my window from Skënderbeg Square where nationalist party Aleanca KuqeZi was holding their “peaceful” rally “against” Berisha. I had planned to go there to sniff up some of the atmosphere, but the incessant rains of the last few weeks still hadn’t stopped and moreover I had ruined my back the previous day carrying a garden table to my balcony. In other words I was too lazy/in pain to bother. But when I saw this picture of the rally on the Aleanca KuqeZi site, I felt I’d really missed something. In Holland I’ve seen quite some interesting people become nationalist figureheads. First a bald, gay professor of sociology who publicly chatted about his rendez-vous with Moroccan boys in gay saunas. An overweight, chain-smoking movie director. And now, already, for quite some time, this guy with the bleached Mozart hairdo and (immigrant) Hungarian wife.
 
But this picture, it hit me. The tragic plastic flowers above the Boulevard of the Martyrs still hanging there from the “Summer Day” celebrations of March 21, a summer that still doesn’t seem to come. Then the two banners repeating the AK election slogan “Zoti është i pari, Shqipëria mbi të gjitha” — “God is the first, Albania above everything.” It reminds me a bit of the PD slogan for the last municipal elections “Tirana is the first, you are the first ones.” It all sounds dreadful, not only in English. The first part of the slogan is in black, the second part in red. Because the way the image is cut, the slogan reads as “Albania above everything, God is the first.” They clearly didn’t think about how the parade would look through the lens of the average Albanian photographer. Because the line of mostly long-haired girls that is holding the banner on the left is seems to be slightly ahead of the banner on the right, it seems as of the red capitals of “Albania above everything” are even bigger. Don’t let the grammar fool you. This God part slightly baffles me. There is nothing about God in AK’s party program. It is true that he breaks something of a taboo by mentioned the Lord in a party slogan, but did he really think that sexing it up with a line of non-scarfed girls would bring him closer to the religious Muslim part of the population? Or maybe he is convinced that Lord+sexiness=victory? If I were a Muslim I would have preferred “Allahu është i pari,” so maybe he is aiming for the Catholics and Christian-Orthodox?
 
And then there is Kreshnik Spahiu himself. Quasi-filmically walking in front of all (above everything?), without umbrella. The crowd behind him shelters under a mass of umbrellas but not the great leader. He walks a bit off center, which gives the whole picture a weird asymmetric feel. The picture doesn’t capture him in a flattering pose. His glasses seem too thick and the shade of his Albanian flag cap makes it more difficult to read his expression, but he doesn’t seem happy. The corners of his mouth are hanging, his lips are not fully closed. His mouth in general seems rather weak. Did he talk to much? Why didn’t he wear the same cap as his girls? Maybe they were out of AK caps and he wanted to put something on his head last minute so his hairs wouldn’t get wet? Like his cap, his jacket seems entirely impromptu, he really didn’t expect this rain; the day before the weather was so lovely. The jacket is a bit sporty, not the thing you wear to a political rally. Maybe he was cold. It’s also not a jacket you wear your Albanian flag pin on, that’s more something for a suit jacket. He probably moved it last minute from his jumper to his jacket once it started raining. It’s also positioned too low, it would have looked better on his revers. Maybe it’s a bit overkill too. An Albanian flag cap and an Albanian flag pin? The jacket itself is too large. It hangs from his shoulders and his hands disappear in the sleeves. The entire ensemble, the flag cap and pin, the oversized jacket, the sad face, the glasses, it makes him look like boy whose birthday party just got ruined but still has to pose for a picture with all his friends.
 
But then still this boy decided to put it on his website, for all the world to see. Maybe he thought he looked good?

The Unofficial View of Tirana (57)

Social trust in Europe according to SOROS/European Social Survey. Albania on the far left with the lowest score.


 
To join a climbing gym has definitely been one of the better decisions I took so far this year. Not only is my fear of heights drastically decreasing (at least up to 5 meters), it also teaches me to trust my body, which for an anti-physically oriented person like me can be quite exhilarating. Yes there are blisters on my hands and the muscles in hips are dancing the samba without the rest of my body, but as long as my blog posts don’t suffer…
 
Now, as the election draws ever closer, a host of NGOs is coming out with new statistical research, independent questionnaires, and we’re (we who are following these things — there’s always free coffee) walzing from pre-electoral conference to pre-electoral conference. I would like to share with you some of my observations from two of these meetings. The political context in which they seem to be happening indicate a fundamental atmosphere of distrust that seems to characterize this tense pre-electoral period. Practically nothing is known yet in terms of representatives and programs, and it seems the goal is delay informing the public as long as possible. So all we get through the media are snippets in which one deputy is blackmailed by the other, the father of another one arrested by the police, threats and promises based on non-existent evidence unsupported by any economical calculation. All of this while the World Bank has warned the government recently for Greek situations and the Bank of Albania has already warned that the government is severely behind on paying its private contractors. The Ministry of Finance only responds to these warnings by taking more loans. This shouldn’t come as a surprise once we take into account that Minister of Finance Ridvan Bode is (since 2005) exactly the same Minister of Finance that “guided” Albania into total financial and political chaos in 1996-7. Perhaps he confuses not making the same mistake twice with ignoring the second mistake. Any government that will take power after June 23 will most probably fall into a financial hole deeper than the potholes in the mud road in front of my apartment (will it ever be fixed?), but that’s something for later posts…
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The Unofficial View of Tirana (56)

Yes, we're in that place again. Free euros and stars running in circles…


 
It has been a while since I posted for the last time about Albania, but now that finally the first rays of real spring sun are shining through the window of my study and the new washing machine has been installed, I feel ready for some political commentary. Two days ago when I was going for a raki and a plate of baked liver at one of my favorite bars, I found some postcards which apparently have been spread around Tirana, depicting on one side a 100 euro bill, and on the other side an enormous amount of bullcrap propaganda, starting in the center, then clockwise from upper left corner:
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The Unofficial View of Tirana (55)

Since its first edition, Kosovo 2.0 has been a groundbreaking, border-crossing, and taboo-transcending initiative. Not only is its website a platform for many young creators and writers, it is also one of the few initiatives that refuses the ever increasing nationalism in Kosova and Albania, and consistently publishes in the three official languages of Kosova: Albanian, Serbian, and English. From an Albanian perspective, we can only wish that such a wonderful initiative would sustainable here, as the thematically organized editions on matters such as Religion and Corruption, and now, Sex, are truly pushing forward in unknown territory. Read here the letter from the editor for the Sex issue.
 

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More Conservative Party Coprophilia: Britain’s New Budget

Yesterday the Conservative chancellor of Great Britain gave his Autumn Budget (yes, in winter). As the image here shows, Autumn is the leafy, golden one, with people picking apples, bottom right. Winter is the snowy, ice-hockey one, top right. chancellor osbourne (he doesn’t get capital letters) might need such nursery learning resources so that in the future, if he has one, he can deliver his budgets on time. As most of the country trudged through austerity, even the weather turned austere, with blizzards and ice confirming the prophecies of the picture above.

 

Usually it would be a travesty to subject anyone to a discussion of george osbourne, but at the moment every budget in a major economy is important. France’s budget, with the election of Hollande, was important because it hesitated over austerity. Germany’s budgets are important because they tell you what the lives of most Southern Europeans will be like for the foreseeable future. Americas budget… blah blah blah. China’s five year plans… blah blah blah.

 

The British budget, piling into this, isn’t important because suddenly our rulers have decided to step back from the neoliberal edge; when even credit ratings agency Fitch is telling them “don’t jump!” they are intent on diving off in a Thatcherite somersault; no, the British budget is important because it is nothing but a continuation, and even extension, of the same austerity plans drawn up in the immediate aftermath of 2008. It is important because it shows the continued hegemony of neoliberal governmentality and class consolidation. It is a confirmation of German policy, without the global political power (but with the economic depression-contagion effect).

 

The usual reaction to the British parliament within Britain is that it resembles the Victorian children’s puppet show, Punch and Judy. A more apt description is chimps in a cage throwing their faeces at one another. Actually, this does an injustice to chimps, which are rightly known as “great apes”. None of the apes in parliament yesterday looked particularly great; and chimps throw faeces out of boredom and frustration at captivity. Parliament is captive to neoliberalism, but they don’t seem to be bored by it, even if the masses increasingly are. The politicians sling shit because they have nothing else to hand.

 

This is all said in full awareness of the psychic synonymity Freud established between faeces and money. Unfortunately, despite lots of grunting, groaning, and quantitative easing, there still isn’t much money around (or there is, but somehow the money the State printed ended up as bank bonuses and dividends; it’s now comfortably in accounts in Barbados, Panama and Luxembourg). Consequently some turds had to be polished not just slung – our illustrious rulers had to pretend they were doing well, even though neoliberals set their stall by economic growth and such a thing hasn’t been known now for four years. None is on the horizon in the UK either, or in the Eurozone, whilst America’s 4% growth is only 1% above recession level, whilst China’s growth drops quarter on quarter.

 

Neoliberalism is a particular mode of accumulation, a certain balance between industrial capital, finance capital, mercantile capital and good old primitive accumulation. This mode of accumulation is still (quite obviously) in a crisis (the only people who disagree seem to variations on the Dickens character Bounderby). Neoliberalism has never been very good at making new value, relying on State capitalist China to do so, or financialisation/fictive capital, or else expropriating anything it can, from the entire ost-bloc to national health services, from Cochambamba’s water system, to California’s energy grid. This isn’t working at the moment – there isn’t enough value around to back up all those “toxic assets” that popped up four years ago, and which continue to pop up. “Austerity” simply names the continuation of this strategy (trying to create value by asset stripping and selling off national services), whilst the only reason growth figures don’t look even worse in the UK is because financial services have been growing (because someone hurled money at them). The only other area of economic growth in the UK is the so-called “green economy”, wind farms, insulation etc. osbourne mentioned nothing of this, instead tying his boat to fracking. Making all this look alright is a serious turd-polishing act for osbourne.

 

Neoliberalism is also a consolidation of class power, partly through the redistribution and consolidation of wealth. This is also a difficult turd to polish. However hard he tried, chancellor osbourne couldn’t make his proposed tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations look particularly shiny given the week-old tax avoidance scandals rocking Britain, and the constant, Schumpetarian reports of record profits we keep getting from around the world.

 

One of the few useful things the Labour party opposition pointed out was that even osbourne could not help but smirk when he said “we’re all in this together”. I finished off that sentence in a previous post.

 

Much of osbourne’s message, about tax cuts for the wealthy, austerity, Britain being “open for business”, going cold over tax collecting, not increasing funding for greening the economy, was code for: “fellow millionaires, you are safe and secure”; – but then they knew this already.

 

As Foucault said, neoliberalism is also a “veradiction”, a speaking of the truth – not a truth which reflects reality (we’re in post-modernity here, not a book by Popper; nobody would be so stupid as to have a reflection theory of truth any more, even C/conservatives). No, this truth speaking is the speaking of socially effective truths, the making of truths which intervene in the world. True to form, Osbourne’s speech was a masterclass of neoliberal ideology. Take most of neoliberalism’s jargon, throw it into a pot with some statistics, then deliver it as if your doing the world a massive favour, and you will have just recreated the last 30 years political spectacle (yesterday’s budget included). “Hard working families”; “best practice”; “sustainability”; “competition”; “the needs of business” etc. etc. There was a lot of it, a steaming pile of it. A new nugget was “improving Britain’s competitiveness in the global race”. This is a neoliberal-Darwinian twist on old colonial capital’s “White Man’s Burden” and its notion of race. osbourne seems to think he’s still at the London Paralympics, where, as it never gets tiring to reiterate, he was booed. This is, however, only one of the excellent responses to anything he says; another one is removing osbourne (and other neoliberals) from any kind of position of power.

The Unofficial View of Tirana (54)


 
Thus was the main event of Albania’s 100th independence day. A cake fight. Thousands of people had gathered at the central Skënderbeg square as Mayor Basha of Tirana cut the giant supercake (a world record) with an extended pizza knife and presented the first piece to Kosovar president Jahjaga. After several pieces of cake were presented — in the best (post-)communist tradition — to folkloristically dressed-up girls, the cake was utterly destroyed by the bystanders fighting to get a piece. No distribution had been put in place (typical for the huge disorganization that was characteristic for the entire day), nor was there any cuttlery that could be used to consume the cake properly. As a result the masses consumed the cake on the spot, children throwing pieces around, plastic boxes being filled by old ladies, and so on. Although much fun has been made of the scene already, I would like to point out that Black Friday on the other side of the ocean looks quite like it (or for that matter try to give away free stuff on a Dutch street…). Nevertheless, it definitely put a blemish on the celebrations.
 
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The Unofficial View of Tirana (53)

Wilson Square in Tirana


 
As promised an update on the independence day craze that is currently spreading throughout the capital, the country, and neighboring countries such as Kosovë. Let’s start with the fate of the 1000 sheep and 1000 lambs that were supposed to be slaughtered for the 28th. Although announced by the Prime Minister’s office, both Municipality and the Ministry of Culture, in charge with the organization of the festivities, deny any knowledge of the precise status of the slaughter. In the meantime, the Minister of Agriculture, Genc Ruli insists that his ministry has been able to locate “first-quality meat” in response to the “order placed by the Prime Minister.” As yet it is still unclear where and when the meat will be distributed among the hungry citizens of Tirana. As for the 4 “super-cakes” that have been ordered, it now seems to be the case that the Albanian government is aiming for a wold record, by having 150 volunteers working on the “biggest cake in the world.” According to patissier Alfred Marku, the cake contains 2397 kg flour, 38064 eggs, 1770 kg sugar, 20 kg vanilla, and 50 kg pomegranates. The center will be decorated with an eagle and the national colors, and olives symbolizing peace:
 

The cake is constructed in several layers. The first layer will start with ??? and doused with maple and grape syrup, it will be covered with pastry cream and pomegranate. The cake will have red and black Albanian flag symbols, pomegranate red color, but also contains its own symbol, as a symbol of rebirth and unity. It will be surrounded by olive leafs as a symbol of goodness, peace. The Independence Cake is dedicated to all Albanians.

 
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