Why Is Skopje’s Kim Opposing Vlora’s Jewish Museum?

By Ylli Pata

Kim Mehmeti, an iconic pro-Berisha opinionist, has taken up the stick of antisemitism, joining some fanatics who, as fanatics, aren’t even worth considering.

But the alignment of a name that for years has been at the top of pro-Berisha editorialists against a Jewish museum in Vlora is nothing other than a political signal.

A signal clearly showing that the opposition — of which Kim Mehmeti is the vanguard — holds a political stance.

“Albania doesn’t have much to remind it of the past and the wounds from that past, but it has a faithless Prime Minister whose only God is money and staying in power. Likewise, Albania has no museum for its brightest era, that of the Renaissance and the Rilindas, but it will have a Bektashi state,” says Kim.

For whom the one who decided on a museum showing an important history of Jewish life in Vlora is faithless. But why is he faithless?

Because this is not normal logic; it is a position aligned with extremists, for whom all who are not of their faith are considered faithless.

Kim further says that “In Albania, Albanian memory is being erased, because it has no museum of its own, but it will have a Jewish museum, and because it has no thinkers, no academics, no writers, no hoxhas, no priests… who would publicly support the young people protesting.”

A statement without logic and with much spite, since Albania’s museums are by now an established anthology. Kim need only go to Kruja, to the Gjergj Kastrioti museum, or even to the “Trëndafilat e Çamërisë” Monumental Cemetery in Kllogjer, Konispol.

Naturally the museum topic is an issue to be discussed, since there really is a problem — a big one — starting with that of the Frashëris in Përmet and many important sites that need enriching.

Kim is a writer who was quite active during the old Yugoslavia, but he never raised the issue of museums of Illyrian and Albanian heritage in our lands in North Macedonia.

However, that is another matter, since this signal brought today by an important name close to Berisha doesn’t reveal his antisemitic views. That was known — but to the political circles close to him…