The False Apocalypse

by Fatos Lubonja

  At that moment, Blendi Gonxhja, who had never been far from me, came up to me and Dash Peza, who was at my side, to tell us that we had better run for it. We were in great danger. There were snipers on the roofs. His face was ashen.

  ‘We have a meeting at the Rogner. Journalists are expecting us.’

  It was true that we had a meeting, but later. Seeing Gonxhja’s determination, I hesitated. Perhaps I would have gone with him, but at that moment, a protester close to me who had heard what Gonxhja had said turned to me with a serious expression.

  ‘Fatos Qorri, we want you to lead us.’

  I told myself to ignore him and keep going, but before moving forward I felt in my guts that familiar conflict between fear and shame at my fear. In the midst of such a mass of people, the shame inevitably won. And so I walked on with a sense of shame which was forcing me to face down the fear. There are some people who say that this shame derives from a sense of self-respect, and perhaps this is the best way to describe it. Dash set off alongside me, and at that moment I felt he was my closest friend.

  I have always been averse to merging myself with a mass of people, ever since the time when we were forced to take part in compulsory rallies on Liberation Day or 1st May in Hoxha’s time, below the feet of the leadership who waved at us from their rostrum. The dictum ‘I think therefore I am’ has always been very important to me. It reminds me that I am an autonomous individual, while these compulsory rallies seemed to undermine this conviction, replacing it with, ‘I am part of a mass. I am, because I don’t think. I allow myself to be led and I shout without thinking.’ I think that this is why I also refuse to become the leader of a mass. But now my situation was different. I was neither more nor less than an individual demonstrator, a foot soldier who would cover himself in shame by running away. There are situations in which we run away from ourselves and shed our personal responsibility by joining a mass, but at other times merging with a mass is an act of responsibility and courage. This was a moment in which it was a duty to join the mass and an act of courage to lead it. These people had overcome their fear and passed through ranks of police with body armour and truncheons in order to come this far, and they deserved respect. This was not a demonstration ordered by the regime. It was against a regime.

  Gonxhja had vanished. Apparently his fear had got the better of him. We all feel fear. What is important is not to surrender to it. Yet sometimes you have to obey fear to save your skin. Now go figure out the golden mean. Anyhow, it was self-respect that kept me there, or in other words, fear of the shame that haunts you after you commit a squalid act. I could feel that shame, from the look in the face of the protester who said to me, ‘Fatos Qorri, we want you to lead us.’

  In fact, at the front was a substantial vanguard of people I did not know, who seemed ready to fly in the face of danger. They must have been the ones shouting for Scanderbeg Square. Perhaps they felt important for the first time in their lives, or found this rebellion especially intoxicating. Or perhaps the loss of their money had banished any sense of fear. Whatever their reasons, these people were the true leaders that day.

  Soon we faced a barricade of policemen with shields and helmets. What now, I thought. Before I could think of an answer, our vanguard hurled a terrible hail of stones in the direction of the police. The barrage lasted a few seconds, or minutes, I don’t know. To me it seemed like the blink of an eye, only long enough to see the trajectory of the stones flying through the air. The police vanished either before the stones reached them or as soon as the first stones fell. Our front line surged forward.

  The square was taken and the mass of people celebrated the victory at once by burning the parked car of the director of the Student Union. The black smoke from its burning tyres rose into the sky like the crown of a cypress, and some of the crowd danced with joy around the vehicle as if intoxicated by the stench of burning rubber.

  Most of the students had abandoned their dormitories when the disturbances began. But the crowd did not feel their absence. Only one or two windows facing the square were left open, from which a few remaining students watched what was happening. After burning the car groups of protesters danced and shouted slogans.

  A group of about ten people surrounded me and almost lifted me aloft to carry me through the seething square to an improvised dais, where there were several other leaders of the Forum. I could sense their need for leaders and symbols in the way they touched me and spoke to me. Somebody shouted about the absence of loudspeakers. We had to speak to them, without fail. These people wanted to hear a message.

  There was no way I could speak. I could not even join the rhythmic chorus of ‘Hang the dog’. We didn’t have loudspeakers. It was better if they just danced and sang, and that is what they did.

  Soon a number of men, formerly a part of the vanguard that had put the police to flight, came to the rostrum. One of them, still short of breath, said that they had chased the police a long way, throwing stones at them. They jostled like children in front of us, each of them drawing attention to himself. One man, a ringleader who looked the strongest of all, said he had lost all his money in the pyramids, and was scared of nothing. He was ready to die. How sorry we felt to dampen all this energy.

  ***

  It was time for my meeting at the Rogner. People were still celebrating when I set off with Dash. We crossed Democracy Square, which was totally deserted. We found ourselves in a frightening void. We walked on as far as the railings of the U.S. Embassy. The only person visible on the street was the policeman on guard.

  To reach the Rogner we took one of the three side streets leading away from the embassy. As soon as we turned the corner, we were faced with the astonishing sight of the entire street packed with armed policemen with truncheons and shields, lined up on both sides. They seemed to be in readiness. We stopped dead in terror. Should we run that frightening gauntlet or turn back? Could anyone pass through and survive? But silently we agreed that turning back would be even more dangerous, and walked on. About half way one of the policemen recognized me, and said to his colleague, ‘Isn’t it that Qorri guy?’

  I pressed on without turning my head, pretending not to care if they recognized me. None of them made a move.

  We came out of that frightening tunnel with the thought that the other side roads off Elbasan Street must also be full of Special Forces, and that these squads were there to prevent people coming out on the boulevard and heading for Scanderbeg Square. But that evening I learned that this was not true. These policemen were not there to keep order or even guard the embassy. They were waiting to punish the protesters who had humiliated their colleagues. When the stream of demonstrators came down from Democracy Square to the city at the end of that long afternoon, with their emotions now spent, the squads came out from the three side streets and forced their way among the demonstrators like wedges, separating them into three groups to weaken their numbers. Then they had struck them mercilessly with their truncheons and crushed them under their shields.

  Many people suffered broken ribs, Kalakulla among them. When I phoned him he could barely speak for pain, but he was angrier about his wife, whom they had also manhandled and who was in shock.

  When I returned to the Kindergarten that evening I turned on the television to hear the official version, which seemed to describe an entirely different event. According to ATA, after the rally on the Ali Demi field, a group of a hundred protesters had attacked the nearby police station and assaulted two officers on duty. One of them had barely escaped with his life. This crowd, composed mainly of teenagers, had broken the police station’s doors and windows and stolen some police shields, breaking them in front of the video cameras of foreign correspondents. Some students had tried to come to the aid of the police but the crowd would not let them. The crowd had thrown stones at the dormitories of the women students when they had refused to join the demonstrators. After the intervention of the police the protesters had left Democracy Square and some had gathered ro
und the U.S. Embassy. There they had again attacked the police forces protecting the embassy and the nearby residence of the Italian ambassador.

  Chapter XXVII

  State of Emergency

  There were no more Saturdays, Sundays, or normal days of work and rest. The rally on the Ali Demi field was on 1st March, a Saturday. On the following Sunday, under pressure from the international community, a meeting of all the political parties was held at last at the Palace of Congresses. That same afternoon, the parliament met in an emergency session.

  In the Palace of Congresses, besides the parties in the Forum, there were also gathered representatives of the parties allied to Berisha: the National Front, the Monarchists, and the Social Democrats who were Gjinushi’s rivals. Godo of the Republicans, who occupied the middle ground, was also there. A PD representative was expected, but nobody knew who it would be, because the party’s deputies were at the parliament, where the PD was the sole party after the departure of the Republicans. .

  The tables were positioned in a large circle with an empty space in the middle, and chairs and microphones in front of each place. The PD’s representative finally arrived, just at the moment when it was decided to start without him. Everybody saw at once that a puppet had been sent, merely to register a presence. It was Albert Brojka, the mayor of Tirana, a man who counted for little in the party and enjoyed the reputation of a petty bureaucrat who had fixed up his friends with building permits for kiosks, depriving Tirana of all its parks and public spaces.

  When he saw that all eyes and ears were concentrated on him, he greeted everybody with the grin of a devilish halfwit and hastened to add that he had just arrived from Paris and was present only to listen, because he had no mandate to represent the PD or make decisions. Qorri was irritated by the silly way in which he scattered innocent smiles in all directions, while admitting that he represented nobody.

  Nevertheless a discussion started. To the astonishment of the Forum’s leaders, even the parties allied to the PD said that they did not want to solve the problem through violence or declare a state of emergency, as it was rumoured the parliament might do that same afternoon. This helped mutual understanding. The parties agreed immediately to sign a declaration opposing any state of emergency and asking for a political solution through dialogue. Qorri wrote the declaration in ballpoint on a loose sheet of paper, incorporating various people’s suggestions. He read it out, and passed the sheet round the huge circle to be signed by the party chairmen.

  As the paper passed from hand to hand, a whisper also went round the circle, probably started by Brojka, who was talking to his people on his mobile. It was hard to believe at first. The PD, the single party in parliament had just voted for a state of emergency. The declaration they were signing was useless. A single party had taken the decision against the will of all the others.

  The representatives of the parties stood up, looked at each other in silence, and filed out. Even Berisha’s allies felt the humiliation. Qorri saw Godo making for his car and hurried after him. He knew that Godo was one of the people still in contact with Berisha. He had already got into his car, but when he saw Qorri he left the door open.

  ‘You’re still talking to Berisha,’ Qorri said. ‘Go and tell him not to do what he’s planning.’

  ‘I’ve told him,’ Godo said gloomily. ‘I told him that nothing will be able to wash his hands clean again. I’ve got nothing more to say and I’m not going to him again.’ He paused for a moment, looked Qorri in the eye even more confidentially, and said, ‘But I’m scared of something else, that he’ll let loose his northerners in the south and set them looting down there.’

  He set off without a further word.

  ***

  At the moment when Godo left Qorri on the pavement by the Palace of Congresses, Albanian television interrupted its programmes for a special bulletin. President Sali Berisha was speaking:

  ‘Groups of terrorists, former communists, and former secret police agents of the old regime, aided by foreign forces, have destroyed our town halls, burned municipal buildings, killed policemen and innocent citizens, attacked banks and stolen money, and now they are looting homes and shops...’

  ‘I have gone to impossible lengths to persuade them to see reason, and will continue to do so. I have spoken to all the leaders of political parties. I invited the opposition, but they did not turn up. They prefer to spread hatred, accusing us of appropriating the money from the pyramids. There is no truth in this accusation. Now is not the moment to discuss this matter...’

  ‘Albanians, we succeeded in building a democracy and we won’t allow anybody to take it from us. I ask you to keep calm. Help the police to re-establish the law and stand by the army.’

  Berisha’s speech was a cold shower for the entire country. It meant that the army would be sent south to quell the rebellion that was no longer just of the ‘strong men’ of ‘the free republic of Vlora’ but had spread to Lushnja, Fier, Saranda, and Berat. The army was to take over internal security. The secret services, i.e. the SHIK, would go under the control of the Interior Ministry.

  The television next reported that the Public Salvation Committee at Vlora, created in the last few days, had sent an ultimatum to Berisha in the early hours of the morning: ‘If you do not agree to early elections and the return of 100 per cent of the money our citizens have lost in the pyramid schemes, our forces will set off for Tirana to re-impose order and liberate the country.’

  Who had sent this communiqué to the news agency? Who was behind this ‘committee’? Some people believed that it was a fabrication, and others that it was genuine.

  The news reports intertwined with each other ever faster as the evening wore on. Some were confirmed and others proved false. The official news broadcast stated that Vlora was in flames, murderous gangs were in control of the city and its surroundings, issuing threats, beating, looting, raping and killing. Foreign news stations too reported that a large number of insurgents armed with Kalashnikovs and with stolen army vehicles were marching on Tirana. They were said to be waiting for reinforcements and heavy weapons near Rrogozhina, about 60 kilometres from the capital.

  ‘Could this really be true?’ people asked.

  One report was generally believed: Fatos Nano, the former Socialist Prime Minister who was imprisoned for corruption in 1993, and held at a prison in Tepelena, had been transferred to the Tirana gaol. This news too suggested that the South was out of control.

  Fear gripped Tirana. The streets of the capital were virtually empty. Hardly a soul ventured out to the little bars and innumerable kiosks. There were more policemen than ordinary citizens in the centre. People shut themselves up in their houses and sat by their televisions and radios trying to work out what fate held in store for them. For some people, a neighbour who had moved in after the fall of the old regime, who had seemed a good friend until now, suddenly became someone to steer clear of.

  The countless Mercedes that drove round Tirana dwindled to a few, mostly rented by foreign journalists. Alitalia and Swissair flights arrived full of correspondents, photographers, and film crews from all over the world. There had not been such a massive influx of the ‘news force’ since the fall of communism. This was another sign that the situation was about to explode.

  The first to suffer under the State of Emergency were precisely these foreign journalists. Two groups, from the German TV station Prosieben and the BBC, were stopped in the street by military armoured vehicles and ordered to turn back. The journalists demanded an explanation and were told that their broadcasts spoiled Albania’s image.

  These two incidents turned out to be neither accidents nor the whims of a group of fanatical policemen. The people anxiously waiting by their televisions and radios had another surprise in store that evening. The Albanian-language broadcasts of the BBC, the Voice of America, and Western TV stations were suspended. The European Broadcasting Union, based in Geneva, which distributed the programmes of Western TV stations abroad, cea
sed co-operation with Albania at half-past five following an order received from the Albanian authorities. Under the State of Emergency, an oral order from a representative of the Albanian Post Office and Telecommunications revoked the licenses of the BBC, CNN, ARD and ZDF, RAI, TF1 and other Western channels that operated through the EBU. They ceased broadcasting immediately.

  Only Albanian Television was left. In its first news that evening, a sombre general prosecutor appeared and spoke about a special meeting to discuss ‘duties’ and ‘measures’ to do with the State of Emergency. He had ordered the immediate prosecution of armed bands that had looted shops, attacked military units, and burned public buildings in southern cities such as Vlora, Saranda and Delvina. The police also had orders to shoot stone-throwers and to arrest anyone whose papers were not in order. A curfew was imposed from eight o’clock in the evening till seven o’clock in the morning. The President’s counsellor told an Austrian radio station that this was a rebellion of common criminals and political criminals trying to overthrow the legitimate government and that armed insurgents would be shot without warning if they did not hand in their weapons by one o’clock on Monday 3rd March.

  Armoured vehicles and tanks were now moving on the main highways. According to Albanian television, local headquarters to oversee the State of Emergency had been created in all the towns.

  As they went to bed that night, people imagined their country as a slaughterhouse. But nobody could tell what was happening because of the media blackout.

  Returning to the Kindergarten that evening, Qorri envied his cat Nusi, who sat down quietly on his chest like on any other day. For her, nothing at all had happened. She had no inkling of what was going on. Usually it calmed him down and relieved the pressure of his thoughts to stroke her soft fur, but that evening it was impossible. His brain thudded like a hammer, imagining what would happen. Albania had entered deep into a dark tunnel. Qorri’s eyes stared at a part of the wall where the plaster had fallen most and a patch took the shape of a tank. He fell asleep only towards dawn.