Consider how the traumas of Communism can be healed

Voice of America: Professor Amy, you are writing a book that can be summed up as an analysis of the wounds he left behind the communist regime in Albania. What have you found?

Prof Lori Amy: There are two ways to think about wounds. First: What happened, specifically, what caused our wounds? But what I care most about is the effects of these wounds. Fifty years of a vicious totalitarian dictatorship have made people feel helpless. One of the effects of this dictatorship, where people feared for spying on them, whether they were imprisoned or killed, is that they created a double conscience. This makes some people not feel themselves, lose the ability to tell the truth.

Voice of America: So, basically, we're talking about the effects of the trauma that Albanian society has gone through and that remain untreated?

Prof Lori Amy: To resolve them, the first thing we need to do is deal with them with integrity, courage, and honesty - to look back and see how the structure of terror created a double conscience, causing people to lose hope.

Voice of America: But who holds the responsibility that these traumas continue to be treated improperly?

Prof Lori Amy: To be honest, this is a responsibility we all bear. So do the Albanians, but also the internationals. In this case, responsibility means having the courage to face honestly what happened. When we fear, then we deceive ourselves, deny things we do not want to know, and keep them inside. Even the internationals are their fault. Because once the transition took place, they came to Albania with their economic plan, saying the country is now a free market. At the same time, people did not have time to analyze what had happened, but they quickly passed from one ideological framework to another.

Voice of America: Let's talk about the crimes of the communist regime. It seems that politicians today and generally people in power try openly to prove that the crimes of communism can be forgotten now for so many years. They try to get this idea into the minds of young people, telling them to enjoy life and forget the past. Do you think the scene of the crime of state violence still exists?

Prof Lori Amy: We can forget concrete historical details, for example, that people who have lived that time can forget concrete details, people who have died may not be able to tell their own stories. But the effects of those events continue. Half the population is under 30 and many may not have learned what their parents or grandparents went through. But the truth is, the whole country, every inch of it, was built by forced labor: prisoners or volunteer work that was actually forced. The whole country is a crime scene. Nothing can be forgotten. The point is how this past should be remembered in a way that we should not remain in guilt, accusations, and victimisation, but in a way that has healing effects. To do that, we first need to analyze what happened and then raise the question of how we can rebuild relations with each other.

Voice of America: What is your experience from conversations in Albania with people who may have been imprisoned or sentenced to forced labor.

Prof Lori Amy: Many are deeply traumad. Do you know how someone who has been traumad can recover? First, the other side must accept and say: I'm sorry about that. A simple admission that this suffering has existed has a huge effect. But pretending that things haven't happened can't heal anyone.

Voice of America: Perhaps a good example to illustrate what you say is the recent election as president of Mr. Gramoz Ruci, former interior minister in the last year of the communist regime, when some very sad things happened in Albania. Can you tell us what this can mean for society in Albania?

Prof. Lori Amy: That's exactly what they talked about. If we do not see our past with courage and integrity, then we will not be able to see that we are repeating it. Here we come back to the feeling of hopelessness, which comes from thinking that whatever we do will not change. In recent years, however, we have seen very real possibilities for change. For example, a commission has finally been established to open secret police files of the communist regime. What will be done with this commission? What should be done for the commission to work with transparency? How should we train people who are going to study archives? This is an opportunity, which, if exploited, can bring hope.

Voice of America: Even this commission you mentioned needs support from many people. Because, from past experience, many people have expressed disbelief that even this commission will do nothing.

Prof. Lori Amy: The commission is not just the few people in it. It's all of us going to their offices, looking for documents, starting to study them and talking about what we find.

Voice of America: There are many people who say we are too weak to face the communist past because those in power are quite powerful and some of them come from the past. How would you answer that?

Prof. Lori Amy: I had an extremely nice lunch a few days ago with Ambassador John Withers, for whom many people have respect in Albania. He reminded me of the Jewish history during World War II in Albania. None of the Jews who went to Albania at the time were killed. They were all protected. A people who did this are not weak. The people who did this are people of trust and hospitality. These qualities are the essence of Albanian identity. There is an extraordinary force in Albanian identity, which I am 100 percent sure will find the responsibility, courage and hope to take advantage of the opportunity we now have to actually start healing society, which should have been done over time.

Voice of America: In recent years you have been involved in a project called WTO and aimed at preserving Albanian cultural heritage. Tell us more please.

Prof. Lori Amy: The concept is to preserve the best values from the past and present, from the East and the West. Albania is at the heart of the birth of Western civilisation. Albania gives you the evolutionary map of human civilization from prehistoric times to today. There are now so many people in Albania who have turned their eyes to the European Union and want to become part of the West. But Albanians themselves are more than that. The history of ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, all these great civilizations are summed up in Albania. Albanians are not a single thing, but they are a lot together. Therefore, preserving this heritage helps us to preserve even the basic elements of Albanian identity, which are commitment, hospitality, courage, hope.