A prime minister under pressure and a diaspora that must not be used!

By Nevruz Nazarko

To welcome with pomp a prime minister who is going through one of the most difficult political moments of his government — just as in Albania there is daily talk of corruption and scandals and citizens have been protesting for 105 days in a row — is perhaps the worst disservice that could be done to the Albanian diaspora in general, and to the one in Michigan in particular.

A host of questions come to mind, and here are two of them:

1. Why precisely now, when citizens in Albania are demanding accountability, responsibility and a change of the current electoral and political system?

2. What can a prime minister who cannot even convince the part of the people that remains in Albania possibly solve in the diaspora?

The Albanians of Michigan do not need a rally imported from Tirana. They need a functioning Albanian state; dignified consular services; institutions that respect investments and property; an economy worth investing in; and, above all, an Albania to which the diaspora has a reason to return.

It looks as though the goal is a packed hall, a few hundred applauders, nice photographs and a television report to be served tomorrow to the public in Tirana as the “magnificent support of the diaspora”.

This reception puts the Albanian community of Michigan in a classic no-win situation — only losers.

If the Prime Minister is welcomed with pomp, the impression is created that the Albanian-American community is giving political support to a government facing grave accusations and citizen discontent.

If the visit produces protests, clashes and divisions among Albanians, the community loses again.

In both cases, the bill is paid by the diaspora — especially the one in Michigan, among the oldest and most conservative in the US.

This visit goes beyond a debate between socialists and democrats. It is a matter of our reputation as a community in America.

The Albanians of Michigan have worked for decades to build a name and respect. We have entrepreneurs, professionals, academics and generations of young Albanian-Americans who want to be a serious part of American economic, civic and political life.

Successful diaspora communities do not measure their strength by the number of people they gather to applaud the politicians of their country of origin. They organize around their community’s interests: education, business, political representation, culture and the empowerment of the new generation.

The diaspora is and must be bigger than Rama, Berisha, the SP or the DP.

Governments come and go, but the community remains.

That is why we must not place the Albanian community of Michigan at the service of a prime minister’s political needs of the moment.

Respecting the institution of the Prime Minister of Albania is one thing. Becoming part of the Prime Minister’s propaganda is quite another.

Because if only the Prime Minister’s political image wins, while the diaspora takes upon itself the division and the reputational cost, then the answer is clear:

It is not Albanian politics serving the diaspora. It is the diaspora being put at the service of Tirana’s politics.