FROM MENTOR PETRELA
Sami Frashëri, an encyclopedist humanist, whose clones should be searched for in history like hermits, will remain an inspiration for the modern times of Albania. For nominative coincidences, his worthy successor was the humanist essayist Sami Repishti, who passed away on the eve of Independence Day. Anti-fascist, anti-communist, anti-totalitarian, he served the Albanian cause until his last breath with patriotism. He suffered the prisons and tortures of communism, but inspired by the monotheic religion and Hana Arendt, he knew how to forgive because he considered the persecutors of his torturers as Aishman in the Banality of the Devil.
Peaceful like any humanist, the ignorance that sows vanity, boasting and aggression according to Butler had experienced in the fascist-communist period, despising it, although he suffered physical and mental torture as a result. Among his conversations and writings, one can feel the terrible gentleness when addressing opponents or limitless tolerance, because for him the concept of considering an Albanian as an enemy did not exist. The solidarity of the prisoners of conscience with the martyred Catholic clergy with whom he was linked by formation, dialect and Abraham made him stand firm against any pressure. Ismail Kadare valued his humanity and expressed regret that for historical reasons he had not been able to get to know him closely.
With the patriotic wisdom that characterized him, he became a powerful voice of Kosovo in the USA, where his arguments convincingly influenced the American administration until its independence was achieved. We transcribed his thoughts in the dictatorship every night on "Voice of America" through variable messianic messages from Arshi Pipa, Nikolla Pano to Rexhep Qosja. His analyzes after the fall of the iron curtain in the developments in Albania, Kosovo, the wider region on all social and political phenomena will be documents for researchers, to serve so that in the future the mistakes that the Albanians do not repeat more than foreigners have done to themselves and their lands. Once, annoyed by derogatory comments towards him by some Stalinist scum in Albania, just like the Russian hackers paid by Putin, Dr. Darren, his son, advised him, begging him at the age of 97 to stop his brilliant writings and analyses.
"I can't" was his answer. What pushes clones like Sami towards Ukraine, utopia or fascination with Albania, Kosovo. We find the explanation in the Machiavellian state-forming formula (not Machiavellian which has a negative meaning), which is written in the "Discorssi te Tite Livit". Sami hoped that the state of harmony between the Prince, Paris and the People could be realized in the idealized ethnic Albania, which Tite Livy concluded. In his meditations, he tried to analyze the stagnation in a Gordian knot of the Albanian society.
The humanistic thought of clones like Sami, of the liberal-democrats, during and between the two world wars together with the national-democrats persecuted in communism, they tried to solve or cut the knot.
Is this an example that shows that the DNA of Alexander the Great, who untied the knot with a sword, continued to flow in the hearts of Albanian humanists for centuries after Skanderbeg?
The humanist, Enlightenment Sami could not be enthusiastic like Steven Pinker, because his Western education was built on an atavism that stuck to him in his youth with the suffering under totalitarianism and with the ongoing family persecution. Albania and Kosovo free from oppressive regimes finally became a reality, the construction of pro-Western democratic societies in a prosperous land remained the dream of Sami Repishti.
