Arthur Zheji, the friend who spoke to Kosovo

Periskopi

23 August 2025, 22:11(10 months ago)

From: Baton Haxhiu I don't want to write it as a memorial, because Arthur Zheji didn't enter my closing rituals. He was a man who always opened windows and confessions, even when they did not walk in a straight line, but they took strange turns. He was special in his nationalism. I have [...]

From: Baton Haxhiu

I don't want to write it as a memorial, because Arthur Zheji didn't enter my closing rituals. He was a man who always opened windows and confessions, even when they did not walk in a straight line, but they took strange turns. He was special in his nationalism.

I first met him in Rome in 1992, at the Radical Party convention.

We had been communicating by phone for two years and with that tired Internet of time, but that was where we looked.

The delegation from Kosovo demanded a resolution on independence, at a time when no one could openly utter that word.

George and Edi Rama wrote the text in Italian, and with the help of Marco Panella, the resolution became an official document.

It was the first time that the word “independence of Kosovo” was sealed at an international congress.

Zhei was passionate about this issue, like a spiritual debt coming from his mother, Besa, and from Petro Zajit, which in Kosovo were known names.

In the war years, we spent hours and days in Macedonia, at meetings with KLA leaders, with Arben Xhaferin of Menduh Thaci.

He viewed war, not as a chronicler, but as a participant. He wrote with the passion of a warrior.

After the entry of NATO troops, he joined me in Kosovo, stayed for weeks, and wrote down every burnt sign, every wound Serbia had left.

There I saw more clearly who he was - a journalist who was not at peace because he did his own drama to a people.

In Albania, there was a warm friendship with Fatos Nano and kept Rama as a friend without ever entering politics.

He's been running public television, shows, analysis. He has done many things earnestly, but he never found his long calm.

He was caught in passion for writing, conversation, debate, and more than needed food.

It was a desire that increased as an inner rhythm, perhaps to keep life's passion alive.

But his body could not keep up. He ignored his health, never bowed to the rule of diabetes, and he finally moved to the next snow.

Arthur Zheji was a friend of bitterness and reconciliation, but he was never angry. He always remained a gate that introduced me to his Albania, a Kosovo confessor of the trust his mother had taught him, and a friend who could not separate passion from life.

Today, when I remember it, I don't get any memory, nor do I have the last greeting. It just seems like a story that doesn't end. Because Raj never accepted closure. /Periscope/