'AN AMERICAN REFLECTS ON ALBANIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY' By John L. Withers II, U.S. Ambassador to Albania (November 28, 2008)

One year ago today, I was privileged to attend ceremonies in Vlora marking the ninety-fifth anniversary of Albania’s independence.  As I watched President Topi raise the Albanian flag in the city’s historic square, I thought of the heroes and heroines of the past.  They had assembled here in 1912 in dire circumstances.  They had gathered without an army to combat the foreign troops invading from all sides.  They had arrived with few resources.  All they had were a flag, stitched by the hand of Marigo Posio; courage in their beliefs; and a noble idea.  But in the end, that idea would prevail and Albania would be free.
 Today, I would like to share my personal reflections on this day’s meaning to me, a visitor from afar.

On occasion, I have seen an extraordinary photograph from the early days of Albania’s independence struggle.  Scholars, I understand, debate whether it was taken on November 28, 1912 itself, the day Skanderbeg’s proud banner once again waved over Albanian soil, or whether it was taken a few days or even a year later.  What cannot be debated, however, is that the photograph captures a gripping moment in Albania’s freedom struggle and that it still conveys, these many years later, the powerful spirit of those historic times.
 The photograph shows a simple, two-storey building with shuttered windows and a plain design.  A few meters above the entry way hangs a small wooden balcony crowded with men.  A large group of onlookers, many wearing traditional qeleshe , is gathered below.  Banners of various design swirl overhead.  Despite the fact that the image is in black-and-white, the atmosphere is palpable:  the bright sun, the restless murmur of the crowd, and its growing anticipation of what is next to come.
 Among those clustered on the balcony, I recognize one individual immediately.  His snow-white hair and beard, contrasting sharply with his dark headgear and clothing, tell me at once that he is Ismail Qemali, the leader of the uprising, the man who raised the flag in Vlora and whose democratic convictions propelled him to become Albania’s first Prime Minister. 
There is something striking in Qemali’s pose.  While those around him either peer downward at the crowd or across at each other, Qemali gazes beyond the teeming mass  below at something distant, as though he is discerning at that instant some sign, some signal, perhaps some portent on the future’s uncertain horizon.
 No one can ever know what he was thinking then.  But we know what he thought later when he looked back on those tumultuous days.  He wrote:
It is possible that one can say that since [independence day], the government may not have done certain things that it should have done, or that some of these things, it did not do well.  Rest assured, however, that it did all it could.  But there is one thing of great value that the government has done that no one can call into question:  that is, it has hoisted high the flag of Albanian freedom.

His words are powerful, and touching.  They are not those of a mythic figure, but of a flesh-and-blood man, who made mistakes, was conscious of them, and was, thus, also conscious of the long road ahead for Albania to genuine independence.  Later generations might invoke his mythic stature to sustain themselves through decades of war, dictatorship, and strife until true freedom was attained, but it is for his humanity that he is really admired.
       
In the White House in Washington, D.C., hangs the portrait of another man.  He is slender, elegantly dressed, and exudes an aristocratic air.  On his long aquiline nose rests a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.  One of his hands lies gently on the arm of his chair; the other clasps a large volume bound in red.  His head is turned slightly so as to face the viewer.  But there is also in his eyes that distant gaze, reminiscent of Qemali’s, as though he too is lost in a vision beyond the now.  He is Woodrow Wilson, the twentieth-eighth President of the United States.
 Nor can we know what the man in the portrait is thinking.  Could it be of those lofty ideals that the world would forever after dub “Wilsonian?”  Could it be of his great address to the peoples of all nations, The Fourteen Points, among which he called for “international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states”?  Or could it possibly be of his promise to Albania, the country in which I now serve?  Before the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, he said:  “I have but one voice . . . and that voice I will use to the benefit of Albania.”
 
I sometimes like to imagine what would have occurred had these two remarkable men met.  From his Memoirs, we learn that Qemali traveled to Paris as the representative of the Albanian-American community at the very Peace Conference that Wilson would also attend.  However, we do not know if they ever met and it seems unlikely that they did.   
How different the two men were!  To my knowledge, they shared no common language.  As far as I know, they never communicated directly, either by letter or telegraph.  I cannot establish whether they ever mentioned each other’s name.  Yet, I believe that they shared a bond stronger than the divides and distances that separated them:  the bond of common hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and a mutual commitment to freedom’s future that was the central theme when another great Albanian patriot, Fan Noli, spoke to Wilson face-to-face in the summer of 1918.
 In that discussion, when told that Wilson would raise his voice for Albania in Paris, Noli commented:
 “That voice will be sufficient for the Albanians. . . They will forever be grateful and completely assured of their rights.”
 “Do not tell them that,” the President replied, smiling, “because they could then leave their work and slumber. . . . what is required is that they work harder than ever before.”

Ismail Qemali would well have understood the President’s words.  He would have grasped Wilson’s meaning that freedom is not a discrete event, established one time only and then neglected, but rather a continuum of effort and vigilance and struggle.  The two men would have agreed that self-rule is not the creation, let alone the provenance of governments or the property of elites, but the birthright of the people as a whole, nourished, sustained, and preserved solely by their will.  And they might have concurred that their shared lesson to us, Albanians and Americans alike, is that democracy is not only about what is today, but about what can be tomorrow. 
Or, as a soon-to-be American President might put it, democracy means, “Yes, we can!”
  So, November 28 is indeed a day for us, Albanians and friends of Albania together, to recall the champions of Albanian independence – they who continue to inspire us with their sacrifice and courage in making this country free.  It is also a day for us to rededicate ourselves to the ideals – freedom, democracy, the people’s inalienable rights – to which they devoted their lives.  But in the end, it is perhaps most a day for all of us to do as those great past heroes did and lift our gaze to the horizon.

Gëzuar Ditën e Pavarësisë!