How Albania Was Born of the Book and Congress of the Monastery

It says: Ben Blushi

HOW SUCH CAPIPIA FROM SCHRONURES AND MANASTIRIA CONGES

Today is the day of the Monastery Congress, which in November 1908 decided that the Albanian language would be written in a single alphabet.

The history of those days of the Monastery Congress is a synthesis of Albania's history. At the delegates' table that decided what alphabet the Albanian language would be written by was three possibilities.

A Latin alphabet, an alphabet in Greek letters, and an Arabic alphabet.

That is why the Monastery Congress was, not a member of the language, but a parliament.

That parliament decided that Albania would go with the West.

There was no Europe at the time, no EU, no institutions.
Albania was not an independent state and the only entity determining belonging to a political community was language.

Therefore, the Monastery Congress decision is the first pro-European act that Albanian elite has taken since Skenderbeu's death.

To understand how bold this decision was, it must be remembered that Turkey itself, the country that occupied us for 500 years, changed its alphabet from Arabic to Latin in 1928, 20 years later than Albania.

In a sense, the province also led its empire. As is true today and as could not be, there was a minority at the Monastery Congress that demanded that Albanian be written in Arabic script.

These were Albanian Islamists, whose remains are still in Albania today.

Fortunately, Muslims and Islamists were divided there.

Many bright hoes and Muslim patriots joined Gjergj Fish, Mithat Frasar, Luigj Gurakuqaj and Ndjeda to vote for Latin letters.

Muslims chose Albania, Islamists chose Islam.

The first picked the West, the Second East.

Imagine for a moment that the Islamists had won.

Maybe Albania wouldn't have, Albanian would be an Arabic version and our whole culture would be primitive warped and very poor.
We could have no literature, art, and movies.

Instead of an eagle, on the flag we would have an eye on the Koran, as there were many Islamists who have been looking for it with great zeal.

The monastery congress separated Albania from the Ottoman Empire, which is the biggest disaster in our history.

All those who say the Ottoman Empire saved us from assimilation because we did not become Greeks or Serbs are miserable Islamists.

This is an ugly thesis justifying the invasion and those with the invasion are even worse than the invaders themselves.

The opposite is true.

Albania was unjustly torn apart by Serbian and Greek neighbours because it was considered a small Turkey, which lost the war along with the Ottoman Empire.

When the empires fall, they break up like pieces of large mirrors, carrying with them and the little vases around them.

This is our chance.

We ran into ourselves and we were crushed.

If this hadn't happened, today Kosovo would be Albania, along with half of Macedonia, Janina, and part of Montenegro.

We lost these territories as collaborators of a losing and primitive empire that devastated Albania in a barbarous manner.

Europe accepted and certified our separation by falsely prejudiced as Ottomans.

This is the sad truth of our history.

My mother - in - law great - grandfather Simon Schuterqi was one of the 50 delegates from the Monastery Congress.

When I think he was a 25-year-old boy who voted against the Ottoman Empire, I am filled with pride.

A year later, the Turks took revenge and crippled him in Elbasan when they discovered that he was part of a secret society that was being organised to take up arms against them.

Remembering my ancestors is good to say that we have always chosen to be on the right side of history.

We've always been against the invaders.

This is also the day for the Albanian state to do its best to take over the collapsed Monastery Congress building in Bitola, Macedonia.

That building belongs to us. That's our story. There's our museum of resistance.

There I would work as a guide to teach young people how Albania was born of letters.