Ambassador Fatos Tarifa And His Philosophy Of Enlightenment – OpEd
On June 24th, 2024, Fatos Tarifa, a Former Albanian Ambassador to the United States of America and to the Netherlands published in Gazeta DITA an extremely long rant against the Prime Minister of Kosova Albin Kurti, entitled: “Populizmi, patetizmi dhe solipsizmi politik i Albin Kurtit”. As Tarifa’s discourse encompassed a myriad of nation building tenets for the Albanians across Dardania and Southeast Europe; his unapologetic perception towards Albanian statesman of Kosova Albin Kurti, deserves increased scrutiny. The former ambassador’s agile suggestions and ongoing analysis, his expressed understanding of Kosova’s current political elite is ill conceived and appears to have come from the political playbook of the Gerasimov Doctrine. The following are some of my succinct responses to his pungent, fetid statements.
Mr. Fatos Tarifa states: “A year later, in 2011, Kurti proclaimed again: "We want Kosovo to be sovereign [and] to have... the right to join Albania, because only through this arrangement we will become equal to other nations and states of a developed democratic world".
This style of political discourse is reminiscent of the language used by the Albanian patriots of the National Renaissance—Shahin Kolonja, Jani Vruho, Josif Bagëri, Nikollë Ivanaj—in the years 1908-1912, when they sought Albania's independence from the Ottoman Empire. I have read almost all their writings published in the newspapers that they themselves printed at that time in Cairo, Sofia or in Bucharest, and I notice that the language of Mr. Kurti today is not only as contemporary as their language a century ago, but his statement neither has the conceptual depth and content nor the charm of the Albanian language that Kolonja, Vruho and Bagëri have used in their writing.”
Response: Had Prime Minister Albin Kurti not used a highly poignant Albanian language nurtured within his visionary statecraft and public service legacy distilled from Albania’s founding fathers; Albania’s former Ambassador would not have spent countless hours in writing a poorly organized white paper with over 5700 words (only in the first part). With all fairness Mr. Tarifa’s collection of tenets is a whopper!
Mr. Fatos Tarifa states: “Something essential has always bothered me about Mr. Kurti. I don't know if it is a certain power lust, a certain political naiveté or, perhaps, his demagogy is more pronounced. I understand the latter because, often, politics and demagoguery are intertwined with each other. What has worried me and continues to concern me about Mr. Kurti is his union "platform" of Kosova with Albania, if one can talk about such a platform, or, more precisely, the blatant naïveté of the ideas that Kurti has connected with this tremendous issue, very delicate and very sensitive, so much so that I always ask myself the question: Does this man really believe in what he says?
Response: Over the last three years Prime Minister Albin Kurti has led his country with dignity and with the highest moral and professional values to make sure that he diligently confronts all international issues that are slowly pushing Kosova over a cliff. Prime Minister Albin Kurti is the fulcrum of Albanian XXI Century Renaissance aspirations; he embodies the genuine thoughts of Marcus Tullius Cicero on politics: “Let those who are to preside over the state obey two precepts of Plato, — one, that they so watch for the well-being of their fellow-citizens that they have reference to it in whatever they do, forgetting their own private interests; the other, that they care for the whole body politic, and not, while they watch over a portion of it, neglect other portions.”
Mr. Fatos Tarifa states: One of the occasions that Albin Kurti has surprised me the most with his behavior and rhetoric was a visit he made to Lezha, on March 2, 2021, just a short time after his Vetvendosja Movement had won the parliamentary elections in Kosovo and only three weeks before he was re-elected as Prime Minister of Kosovo for the second time. As the informed reader may remember, it was an unannounced visit, which is why Mr. Kurti was not received—nor met—in Lezha by any high-ranking official of Albania, not even by the mayor of that city. For a former prime minister of the Republic of Kosovo, who was almost certain to become the prime minister of that country again a few days later, such a visit was, from a protocol point of view, not at all dignifying.
Response: Mr. Tarifa is wrongly hell-bent on making rude statements against Kosova’s Prime Minister Kurti. Mr. Tarifa has become a dynamic rabble-rouser, personal invective and lacks a consolidated persuasion technique.
Mr. Fatos Tarifa states: “What Skanderbeg, thanks to his genius, managed to do in the 15th Century with the Albanian nobility and feudal lords at that time, uniting them around him to organize the legendary resistance of the Albanians against the Ottoman invaders, cannot be evoked as an example of a modern policy for Albanians of the 21st century.”
Response: Such an ill-conceived statement is a tremendous blunder that emanates from Serbia’s centuries old propaganda machine; a malignant campaign that has even convinced a former member of Albania’s top Diplomatic Corps - who was appointed twice as Ambassador of Albania to the Kingdom of the Netherlands (1998-2001) and to the United States of America (2001-2005) – to publish such a gargantuan misstep in European strategic communications tradition, that runs simultaneously against his fatherland’s foreign policy interests.
Mr. Fatos Tarifa states: “The question I rise in this case is: "Is this the way we are going to move forward, as a society and as a nation, we Albanians of the 21st century—looking back six centuries, when we were not formed yet as a single nation, meanwhile we are incapable to look ahead and know who we must be and what we should do even in the next decade?””
Response: Prime Minister Albin Kurti has a crystal-clear geostrategic vision – unlike any other statesman in Post Cold War Europe - as to where he aspires to take Kosova in the next two to three decades; meanwhile Tirana’s feckless post-communist foreign policy has pursued a pretzel diplomacy towards the Neo-Authoritarianism and neo-chauvinistic countries in South-east Europe and beyond.