Pre-fourth of July events

July 4^th, Independence Day

So much has happened since I last wrote!  I will quickly backtrack.  Thursday, June 30^th was the day of the Embassy’s big 4^th of July bash for the Tirana community.  About 800 people were invited; most were Albanians – politicians, businessmen, leaders in the community, etc.  100 or so of them were VIPs – about 20 ambassadors from other countries, all of the Albanian ministers, President Bamir Topi and Prime Minister Sali Berisha, etc.  The event was held at the National Gallery of Arts in the center of town and the Tirana police, together with Embassy guards, blocked off a huge swath of the downtown area to keep the curious locals away. It felt funny to see crowds of people lining the edge of the cordoned off area watching to see what was going on.  The American Ambassador, Alexander Arvizu, gave a speech; the American national anthem played followed by the Albanian anthem, and the Marine Corps (stationed at the Embassy) did a presentation of the colors.  A very swanky event, and another intern (who hails from Kazakhstan) and I had fun chatting with the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Russian Federation. 

On Friday, July 1, the American Chamber of Commerce put on a Fourth of July party that was a little less stuffy, and another 800 or so people showed up and enjoyed free hot dogs, hamburgers, beverages, ice cream, and a display of fireworks.  I hung out with a few Embassy people.

The American-Albanian connection

But let me explain something that I should have before… Albania and the US have a very special bond!  Truly, to a great extent, Albanians love the US.  Here is a very brief, and potentially slightly inaccurate (sinc e as I’m writing I’m not connected to the internet), history lesson…  Way back, one, two, three thousand years ago, the beautiful, mountainous area known today as Albania was sparsely settled by tribes.  At that time, the region was known as Illyria, and it was conquered by Alexander the Great, then the Romans, and visited by the Apostle Paul (see Romans 15:19). For centuries, starting roughly in the 1400s, the Ottoman Empire controlled the entire Balkan region and Albania was very much under the thumb of the Turks.  The Albanian language, from the Indo-European language group that is unrelated to any other language in use today, was banned.  Still, the Albanian language and culture remained alive, and in the 19^th century, as the Ottoman Empire grew weaker, and revolutions were spreading across Europe, the Albanians also began thinking about independence.  In 1912, when the Ottoman Empire fell, Albania finally declared itself an independent nation for the first time!  This new state called itself “Shqiperia” – Land of the Eagles – and its symbol, featured on the Albanian flag, is a two-headed eagle. BUT – at the conclusion of World War I, once again Albania’s fate became uncertain.  At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the Great Powers (Great Britain, France, and the U.S.) and other victors of the war met to decide the fate of Europe- including the Balkans. The consensus was that Albania should be carved up and divided among neighboring countries (to Greece and Yugoslavia, mostly).  Had it not been for Woodrow Wilson, who put his foot down and insisted that Albania remain a unified nation, the Republic of Albania would have ceased to exist right then and there.  The Albanians have never forgotten this and even after 50 years of Communist rule during which time dictator Enver Hoxha (pronounced Hodja) did everything in his power (and did a great job of it) to isolate Albania from the outside world, Albanians still love the U.S.  You even run across men whose first names are “Wilson.”  And when a sitting U.S. president, George W. Bush, visited Albania in 2007, he was received with excitement (you may remember from an earlier posting that a street in Tirana is now named after him).