The issue of pace-making process in Albania

The narrative essay aims to explore some leading debates about reconciliation efforts in our modern practice and experiences. These include the narratives of Gordon Allport’s contact theory (1954), Andrew Schaap’s (2005) liberal-democratic understanding of the issue and Jean Paul Lederach’s (1995) interpretation about the role of the individuals in the perspective of psychological and cultural awareness. In the second part of the essay, there is an academic case study related to modern conditions in peace-making processes in Albania. I conclude the essay by proposing a personal reflection, based on the theoretical debate and Republic of Albania Committee of Nationwide Reconciliation’s practice.

Theoretical debates

Hughes introduces the analyses of reconciliation efforts in different levels such as state, NGO, civil society and personal attempt to understand the role of conflicts in concerned regions. The practice shows that, the 1980s and 1990s are perceived, as the transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Democratisation bounds with the peace-making process. Reconciliation projects seek violent national ethnic conflict, connected peace process mediating between the groups and social reconstruction. There is an address towards specific goals, such as needs of the victim, commitment to funding institutions and culture of tolerance. There is an interrelation between reconciliation and transnational justice. The project aims to sustain peace against antagonistic identities and build a better-shared society (2018:624-5).

The peace-making study involves several fields, such as theology, philosophy, psychology, law, history, political science, IR and sociology. Normative theory of peace-making is associated with positive, transformative, tolerating and atonement, harmony. Illiberalism and nihilism are the antitheses of reconciliation. There are two views of expectation about what reconciliation ought to achieve. Whereas, the minimalist seeks only a peaceful coexistence, the maximalist aims to attain the top level of harmony. There is a critic that, the minimalist expectation is insufficient and can turn to a negative result at the end of the peace-making process. The coexistence model includes the presence of domination between different groups of the society. The domination increases the level of segregation and severe inequalities in wealth. Therefore, the maximalist view considers the shared values, individual identity, general trust, mutual respect, reduces prejudices, shared society recovery to justice (Hughes, 2018:625).

Most critics of liberal idealism relate Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s ‘No Future Without Forgiveness ’ (1999) work about social harmony. Tutu’s ideal picture is thoroughly impractical and politically unrealistic. There is no implementation or practice in political order, where the author’s method can be replaced. Tutu considers nations like ordinary people with an individual psyche that can be healed once at the same time. There is ignorance of various interpretations and perceptions in the same conflict event. The concept of relation is incorrect between the individual and the group, victim and the perpetrator. Philpott classifies three transformational limits, where sceptics have ground to liberalism. These are the state’s moral challenge to apply the laws for its injustice, accountability and practice of the rule of law, where the legal framework is weak with the competence of the state itself (2012:75-89).

Whereas Peter Schaap (2005) places reconciliation into the context of liberal democracy, and Bashir suggested reconciliation, where requirement and mediation cannot be pursued unless it is fulfilled in deliberative democracy (Hughes, 2018:626). Liberals assume that, the issue of exclusion and injustice has always existed and there will be in the future. In this sense, liberal democracy is the most suitable model of governance to fix the problem of discrimination in the society (Digeser, 2006:830-2). Bass further argued that, liberalism sets several qualities that improve the condition of handling past war crimes and victims. The academician rejects the realism idea about defining the power. For instance, liberal regimes ensure traditional legalism, the adaptation of rule of law and retribution of trial by governed fair procedures (Philpott, 2012:78).

Contact theory proposes the idea of dialogue in peace-making achievement and assumes that, there is room for shared identity between native and non-native citizens. Gordon Allport further claims that, dialogue efforts can come to social conformity, whereas some would argued that, the structure of conflict setting relies on the elite contribution, and it has an exclusive role in resolution talks. Consequently, the reconciliation negotiation excludes society on most events. Jean Paul Lederach (1995) stresses the importance of psycho-cultural impact on the society and that the individuals can handle settlement challenges better than politics or institutions. The author criticises the top-down approach, which has an absence of constructive change and, therefore, there cannot be long-term non-violent relationships between divided groups. The trust receives a highlighted role regarding residential segregation against diversity challenges. The social capital term indicates that, bridging and establishing a relation between the groups is more valuable than bonding capital that based on blood and family network. Uslaner (2011) argued that, diverse social groups are more confident in trusting each other in properly integrated cities, as opposed to segregated with the same kind of inhabitant networks. Residential segregation maintains discrimination, social inequalities and a racist value system (Hughes, 2018:628-31).

Case study with Albania

There is a debate whether the Thessanoliki declaration has failed to improve the condition of reconciliation in the Western Balkan regions. The public evidence further shows that, war crime has yet to improve between the groups of states. Accountability is the issue, and the reconciliation can be sourced from democratisation and the Europinesation (Kostovicova, 2013:101-2). Notwithstanding the relevance Thessanoliki declaration, the Albanian recent history is out of crime war and significant ethnic hostility and can be traced by multi-ethnicity and coexistence rather than reconciling past tragic events (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:185).

The Albanian case analysis shows that, society shares 2 per cent of minorities in the population. There are two kinds of groups: linguistic and ethnic. Whereas Vlachs and the Roma are different by language origin, Greeks, Montenegrins and Macedonians present a variety of ethnicity in official aspects. Albanian state pursues the European integration through agreements such as the European Convention on Human Rights and National Minorities of the Council of Europe. (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:185-6). Segregation can be understood, as the key cause of reconciliation demand (Hughes, 2018:630).

Albanian state tends to be partially successful in the path of developing minority rights. There is a firm legislative framework for minority autonomy within the society in Albania. The Albanian constituency contains the criteria of prohibition for race, language and ethnicity discriminative perspective. The Code of Administrative Procedures determines the legal equality for all the citizens, and the Criminal Code aims to maintain non-discrimination, violent speech and other offensive steps toward national minorities. The minorities are allowed to use their native language in legal administrative processes. The Anti-Discrimination Law includes the protection of national minorities in discriminative cases. The State of Committee for Minorities promotes the interest and rights of national minorities. (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:185-8).

However, there is criticism that, there is no special law for minority policy. The national minority fails to secure the implementation of measures and achieve the desired goals. The absence of special protection and obligation makes the policy structure incomplete for improving the minority rights and their integration into the public sphere. One example is the educational system. The education system fails to consider the minority's native language for study purposes, and that generates significant disadvantages at the school stage of the minority life. The state has not produced the European Charter for regional and minority languages (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:186-7).

The Roma group is the most fragile minority in the aspect of economics, social and politics. These challenges are housing issues; unregister of birth, lower educational level, higher unemployment rate, and poor level national language skills. The state faces this challenge in regards to EU accession negotiation, as the Roma group integration is a requirement from Brussels. There are other minorities with everyday life obstacles, such as Egyptians and Greeks. Notwithstanding that, the Greek people officially are subjected to a national minority and they are the largest non-native group with an influential network in politics, the diaspora faces dispute issues in the south of Albania (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:187).

The concept of reconciliation by the citizens in the Tirana focus group explains that, the stimulating environment is crucial for coexistence. That can be seen, as a standard of living for all the citizens. Two groups of citizens seek an agreement to live peacefully together. The citizens of Tirana focus group refer the third party involvement. The common ground between the two groups can be achieved by a political interpretation of the third side. The reconciliation seeks understanding in forgiveness to injustice in the past rather than forgetfulness of the conflict. That is based on the assumption that, the fellow citizens find it less problematic to forgive the foreigners, especially in Albanian society. Citizens of Tirana’s respondents aim to focus on economic development to shift the issue of segregation by creating new jobs and information channels between minority citizens. (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:188-9).

The youth is a significant social group for reconciliation achievement. The younger generation plays a leading role in social climate change, where the existing conflicts can transform into peace. There is a debate whether the younger citizens can maintain a respectful and emphatic relationship with the older generations. The concept of reconciliation by citizens in the Tirana focus group points out that the young fellows are a vital social resource for further democratic development. The youth is a key driver of educational development, and they are excellent investment opportunities. Formal education is a vital way to transfer the values of tolerance and coexistence for youth in the society (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:189-90).

Therefore, there are mainly three areas of barriers: educational, policy and economic. The focus group emphasises that, the current educational model fails to contribute to the development of the young citizens. The different nature of reconciliation projects can produce non-formal educational activities such as the exchange of young people programmes in the Erasmus program. The cultural exchanges can improve the quality of multiculturalism and better tolerance towards minorities. Therefore, the focus group assumes that, the concept of reconciliation focuses on the dialogues and cultural understanding of each other that can establish peace between native and non-native nationals (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:190).

The focus group believes that, general advocacy and awareness-raising campaigns of the issue and phenomenon are efficient tools in public spheres. Albanian society faces the challenge of perceiving the importance of reconciliation, because there is no recent history of armed conflicts, and the past does not relate to violent and ethnical negative experiences. There are two understanding of reconciliation importance: national and regional level. Whereas interviewed focus group asserts that, Albania has great progress at the regional level. The private sector summarises that, the Balkans is a hotspot region and there are several issues to be resolved (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:190-3).

The second barrier is the dissonance of interest between the society and policymaking. The cause can be seen in the short length of democracy development in Albanian society history. The elite implements old practices to stay in power and minorities are marginalised for the political and state purposes (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:197-8).

The economic dimension is the third barrier to reconciliation and social capital. Alongside severe poverty concerns, the middle class is weak in the Albanian social fabric. The quality of democracy seeks a stable middle class. Society cannot accommodate various citizens, who may find alternative views in nationalism that further regress pace-making efforts. (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:198). The Western ideas and European Unions promotion of democracy are not influential in Albania, and the importance of reconciliation is not recognisable either in the society. The issue of blood feuds still exists culturally, although it is prohibited in the legal aspect. The solution is to create cultural and advocacy programmes through institutions to support the minority policies. New projects can establish a more stimulating environment for the public policies (Adamovic, Gvozdanovic and Kovacic, 2017:199-202).

Organisational and personal reflection

In organisational perception, the Republic of Albania Committee of Nationwide Reconciliation ‘CNR’ represents the major work contribution in Albania. The organisation contains various NGOs, and as the academic analysis ascertains the Albanian society that has a different experience with reconciliation inquiry as compared to the neighbours country’s population. There is not burning past happening that has to be forgiven or healed in the contemporary perception. The Kosovo Albanian hostile confrontation has no impact on society in psychological and social aspects. But, the longstanding historical reconciliation obtrudes the issue of blood feud: ‘Gjakmarrja’. Some families are in enmity, and the practice of murder revenge has roots in the 14th century. Therefore, the cycle of retaliatory killings still exists in Northern and rural societal regions. The cultural attributes are significant in this practice, and Kanun represents the Albanian social code for traditional moralism. Involved families seek honours and respectability through taking the blood of the adversary’s family member (Pajtimi: 2011).

The blood feud tends to be a psycho-cultural dilemma. Therefore, the modern legal framework is incompatible with tackling effectively, such as the difficulty of ancient societal phenomena (Shkurtaj, 2020:445). CNR aims to lead the Albanian people to a group of civilised nations. There are goals such as respecting the rule of law and promoting the prevention of blood feud in concerned regional territories. Members are part of the visiting team like police, local administrative workers, education directories and missionaries. There is some large conferences hold for dissemination of the issue. The project team shows a common strategy and methodology for the elaborated work process. CNR has approval declaration from all the North and some unsettled villages in the South. The reconciliation plan follows Puke 2001 statement, which stresses the legal prosecution by state mechanism (Pajtimi: 2011).

In personal reflection, I consider the blood feud as a philosophical challenge for reconciliation success. I agree with Jean Paul Lederach that each individual ought to go through a personal journey to reach a higher civilised division, which is not a Kanun-oriented one in that case. The group may fail to force an individual to acknowledge the peace transformation without a personal determination. The institutions play an important role in cultural advocacy and psychological education, and unethical politics that may provide the positive influence of healing transformation at the same time. However, the blood feud imposes the critic of the modern state as well. The well-equipped state seems to be powerless with official legal rules against a cycle of retaliatory killings. There is a contrast between the old written rules of Kanun and the modern constituency of the Albanian state. The culture of the ancient code of law continues to contradicting contemporary societal circumstances of everyday life, and reconciliation efforts cannot succeed for a few centuries in the issue.

In the integration aspect of theoretical debates, I would argue that, the first generational goal of reconciliation may meet only the minimalist expectation. Coexistence is the crucial starting point to develop further and more equal societal relationships between diverse groups. The reconciliation outcome aims to measure maximalist division for social harmony that has to come through a few successful generational cycles. Each generation has its function in a five-step triangle, and no one group ought to exceed the rational boundaries. The healing and simultaneously the integration course takes multigenerational time patience, even though there will never be an ideal shared identity relation at the end. Herein, the tradition of minority ethnicity comes to power over and over again for survival by instinct.

As shown above, the approach of reconciliation and the philosophical purpose of healing broadly divide academicians and experts concerning the most appropriate determination. There is a significant gap between the minimalist and maximalist expectations in the perspective of conflict management. The minimalist satisfaction of coexistence tends to be insufficient, as there is the inclusion of group domination over others that retain the issue of segregation at the residential level. But also, the Desmond Tutu arises several questions about the ideal of social harmonies such as state’s competency, accountability and the relation between single citizen and community. Gordon Allport’s contact theory becomes irrelevant about the importance of social dialogue in a peace process, as the existing knowledge shows that, national leaders and elites negotiate conflict resolution without civil society.

The case study reveals that, Albania has various contributions to protect non-native inhabitants and are backed by legal state’s policies, but specific law is absent for defending national and official minorities in everyday life circumstances. The education system ought to be the most applicable sector to improve the issue of integration, raise cultural awareness, and mitigate the discrimination problem for the few oppressed youths in the aspect of language and employability skills. The state has yet to resolve the existing educational challenges and face an obstacle in regards to meet the criteria for EU accession. The Tirana focus group identifies the disagreement of interest between the state policy and society that refers to the short term democracy development in Albania. The reconciliation demand receives a different and less dramatic perception in Albanian people than other neighbour countries with criminal hostility experiences. Nevertheless, the blood feud shows the long history of unresolved psycho-cultural issues from the Kanun traditional code. The modern conditions of rule of law fail to answer the solution for family murder in Albanian society.

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