The loss of Butrint and the silent ones

Marsel Lela

Two months ago, the Parliament of Albania approved, amid debates, the draft law for the management of the Butrint National Park, linked between the Ministry of Culture and the Albanian-American Foundation for Development. The same fate seems to await the Amphitheater of Durrës. In both cases, the scientific and cultural debate has been overlooked. The decisions were taken by the government, without involving the Academy of Sciences or archeology specialists at all. 

But even though there are still many questions and uncertainties about bills such as Butrint's, which concerns one of the greatest monuments of our cultural heritage, no voice has been raised to demand accountability, except Alliance for the Protection of Butrint.

I am talking about those voices of NPOs, NGOs and activists who did not let a branch fall from the Maskullore maple tree, or a plaque from the Martyrs of the Nation Boulevard, without sticking sensitizing banners on the doors of the ministries, or television studios. Where did those brave men and women who fought with the Police against the construction of the Artificial Lake Park of Tirana go? They were named after the flag pine of Llogara Park or the maple tree in front of the Art Gallery.

I am bringing only a similar case, but not as dramatic as that of Butrint. A 2012 project in Lezha Castle aimed to build some spaces near the castle that would serve tourists. At the time, this decision met with a strong protest from the Forum for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. The researcher Artan Lame, the architect Artan Shkreli and the archeologist Lorenc Bejko were the most prominent names of everything related to our cultural heritage. On another occasion, a year later, during their 'battle' for the protection of icons, Lame and Shkreli vowed that they would not stop until they put in charge of institutions for the protection of cultural heritage people who would serve them with true to this heritage.

Today, when who knows what fate awaits Butrinti, these voices who are themselves at the head of these institutions are surprisingly silent, or to be more precise, they have been silent for a long time about any case that has harmed Albania's cultural heritage. They are silent even though Butrinti will be given to a foreign foundation with a concession for ten years, although the government tries to hide this behind the word 'management'.

They are silent even though the Academy of Sciences spoke a day after this bill was approved in Parliament. In no country in the world does it happen that such a law is approved without first discussing it with the Academy of Sciences and specialists in the field.

They remain silent even though one of the team members of the Albanian-American Foundation is Richard Hodges, who has long questioned the identity of Butrint and Saranda itself as Hellenic land, not Albanian.

They are silent even though the decision was not made on the legal basis on which the internationals made the management plan, which brings about the change of the boundaries of some areas of Butrint. The deputy of the ruling party, Pandeli Majko, has even expressed concern about this.

All this silence reminds me of Migjeni's poem "Lagja e varfun". In this poem, he has as his main character a rooster that wakes up the misery of the people of this neighborhood every morning, until the poet warns him:

Shut up or rebel rooster

Of the slum, here,

That the light of day does not dawn for you,

We judged you, you are dead!

 Apparently, even our "turkeys", out of fear of dying, have closed their beaks and don't crow anymore, leaving the "poor neighborhood" to sleep in its cultural and urban misery.

In the end, a few words for those intellectuals who see the events on the 'right', or are and behave like the conservatives of the corner of the public debate table. Such as Aurel Plasari, Mark Marku, Rubens Shima and Parid Teferiçi. These, it must be said, are more modest than the "leftists" of the Lame type, who show every fence and leaf as heritage when they care, but in the case of Butrint, Durrës and so on, they have something to protect.

They are not doing well to sit so quietly, waiting for history to call them to the agora of more subtle issues.