Anti-Americans in Tirana

Alfred Lela

Many of you are familiar with the 'Americans' series. The fable is simple: foreign agents who, to perform the infiltration perfectly, must return to the United States.

The end, like all the ends of assembled things, is known.

Although the Cold War is over, and the winners are known, in Albania it is still not clear who is 'American' and who is anti-.

In Tirana, we have a long history of pro-American simulations.

Many things have changed since 1991 when Labor Party leaders appeared in the rostrum with Secretary of State James Baker, and to this day when DP lawmakers say they will step down if the party becomes anti-American. And at the same time nothing.

It has not changed, for example, the fact that Americanism is used as a mask for political needs.

The confusion of the American idea with the American administration has not changed either. There are examples when these two are not the same thing.

The first sketch of the American Embassy has not changed. Arbitration of Rruga e Elbasanit is liked only when it gives a penalty in our favor.

The articulation of 'sovereignty' by the political elites as a political thesis has not changed, even though they are insistently required to join the EU, NATO, and so on. Which means loss of sovereignty.

The protagonism of the American ambassadors has not changed either. And some of them. Who is blinded by the light that Albania offers them and is exposed so much as if they want to become light themselves?

Those who are not anti-American even though they do not prefer to play American, have fun with seasonal Americanism fanatics. Listening to the famous Neapolitan song Tu vuo'fa l'americano.