What Albania can teach us about trust | Hacker News Reader

What Albania can teach us about trust

bbc.com

60 pointshwayern57 comments

Albanian here. What the article omits, or misses is that most refugees during the Kosovo war were Albanians as well. Same language, same culture.

We had a large house and my parents hosted 7 people (two families), during that time. One of the families were actually long/distant cousins.

Now, this is not the same as hosting Syrians refugees. I think very few Albanian families are willing to host them in their own homes. Albania itself is a very tolerant country (religious wise, as most people are not religious themselves or are atheists), and we think of having a large amount of people coming from arab countries as a regress in the freedom and quality of life. They are a lot more conservative, and coming from a completely different culture which will not be compatible with a tolerant one like Albania's.

I think few Albanians would want to put up with that. Very limited numbers yes, massive 100k+ numbers, no way.

Albania itself is a very tolerant country (religious wise ... we think of having a large amount of people coming from arab countries as a regress in the freedom and quality of life. ... which will not be compatible with a tolerant one like Albania's.

An atheist or otherwise "religion tolerant" mentality implies compatibility with anyone.

It looks like you're "tolerant" only with atheists or somewhat less religious people. More importantly those people ran away from war risking their lives, religion and culture is of no importance to them when looking for shelter and food.

> It looks like you're "tolerant" only with atheists or somewhat less religious people.

Which totally makes sense given the paradox of tolerance: "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Interesting point on tolerance, though I can't see how it applies to albanian hospitality and war refugees.

My original point was that we may have cultural differences but we're all human with the same basic needs, and that it should be easier for an atheist to help any man regardless of religion or whatever.

EDIT: s/would/should

> An atheist or otherwise "religion tolerant" mentality implies compatibility with anyone.

You're referring to ethical relativism. Do you really expect me to be chill with female genital mutilation because I believe there is not a god? This makes no sense.

> It looks like you're "tolerant" only with atheists or somewhat less religious people.

Tolerance always has boundaries, and one's beliefs are irrelevant to judging others' actions. Are you really that surprised to find someone isn't literally endlessly tolerant?

I expect anyone to be compatible with war refugees, you paraphrased my words by taking them out of the original context to that of gender discrimination. Does it make sense to deny food or shelter to a family because of their country or religion?

If I took your phrase out of context, I apologize. I didn't see any context that would add to the phrase and I most likely misunderstood.

Being an atheist implies a religious belief. It does not imply anything about how you view or judge other people, especially not about how you view or judge their actions.

I did not interpret the top-level commenter as saying that Albanians were not compatible with the refugees because of their religion, I interpreted it to mean that at the sheer volume of refugees coming through, tolerance will be strained in spite of a normally tolerant culture. In particular, I interpreted that to be a cultural issue. While culture includes religious culture, there are many other aspects you may not be comfortable with (such as female genital mutilation, which I provide as an obviously controversial, but culturally grounded, example of western intolerance).

> Does it make sense to deny food or shelter to a family because of their country or religion?

Of course not, but I don't see that happening here, or even generally argued for in this HN discussion. Xenophobia is a powerful force we're all familiar with on some level, and reducing it to a matter of country or religion isn't helping to understand the problems and fix them.

Agreed on most things you said, but: Being an atheist implies a religious belief.

If I get this right, you're saying that's how religious people perceive atheists; on terms of believing, they just don't. Which is wrong, e.g I as an atheist refuse to believe, I solely rely on facts and proof.

Back on topic: Being an atheist implies a religious belief. It does not imply anything about how you view or judge other people, especially not about how you view or judge their actions.

Let's agree for a moment that it does not imply anything about how you view or judge other people, but as I said in another comment it should be easier for an atheist to not judge a refugee by his religion; his mind is free of all that.

It's an honest sentiment, at least. As much as I crave diversity and tolerance in my society, the simple fact is that the Arab world scares the shit out of me. All I see come out of there is hatred and violence, and nothing beautiful (art, science, etc). Official governments rarely condemn acts of terrorism, and too often encourage them. I believe it is justifiable to say to a refugee from a place that has harmed our people, "We're sorry for your predicament, but your countrymen and government have committed too many atrocities against us, and we don't want large numbers of you here, mainly because we don't want our culture to become like the one you are escaping."

The way they're portrayed by the media all over the world is mainly the reason we're all scared of them. A group of fanatics does not make a whole nation or a religion bad (though I don't endorse nationalism or religion - as an atheist myself).

The media didn't kill people at Charlie Hebdo. They didn't kill people in Orlando. The media didn't kill people in San Bernadino. They didn't kill people in Paris. They didn't issue fatwas to murder Norweigian cartoonists. The media didn't deny the holocaust or call for the total annihilation of Israel and it's people. The media doesn't run or finance Boko Haram or the Taliban. The media didn't shelter and fund Osama bin Laden and al Queda. The media doesn't launch rockets at civilian populations, and the media doesn't behead people.

It's not racist. The US police force is similarly scary. I'm scared of them not because of the media. It's because they kill people, and beat them up, and take people's money, and they get away with it. The media didn't do any of those things.

I don't believe all arabs are bad or police are bad. I know muslims who are great people, and I know there are good police out there too. But the harm that police and Muslims do is real, and is not because of the media.

My worldview is inclusive, and I believe in diversity, and in egalitarianism. But there are groups that are horrible. Nazis, The Children of God, Scientology, al Queda, ISIS, the Taliban, Boko Haram because I know what they've done, and the people they've hurt. Muslims are associated with a great deal of harm, maybe that's unfair, but that association is not the media's fault.

Clearly it's the media's fault when all the terrorist's attacks you meticulously mentioned where in Europe or the Americas[1]. Scroll down to the map "The Geography of Terrorism" for proof.

Your world view is inclusive but you failed to include that the dead from terrorrists were about 90% muslims. You're not racist and you don't believe all arabs are bad, yet you speak of the harm the Muslims are associated with.

Muslims are just another a false category for people by religion, they're humans like the rest of us and as I said before a group of fanatics does not make nation or religion bad[2].

We think we're not racist but we ignorantly are, and it's our fault by not educating properly around the facts.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/the-scale-of-t...

[2]: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/dear-west-muslim-s-resp...

EDIT: grammar

EDIT 2: re-reading this now, it's not very clear as to why the media coverage on terrorist attacks is at fault, so I'm giving a few more links:

"Days Before Brussels, There Were 2 Devastating Terror Attacks the Media Ignored" http://usuncut.com/world/brussels-media-ankara-turkey/

"Media coverage of terrorism ‘leads to further violence" https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/01/media-coverage...

"Disparity in Media Coverage of Terrorist Attacks Around the World" http://www.rcssmideast.org/en/Article/10788/Disparity-in-Med...

"Why is the American media mostly ignoring two other terror attacks that happened this month?" http://fusion.net/story/283391/why-is-the-american-media-mos...

Since Iran was mentioned in the article, it should be noted that Iran hosts 900,000 registered (& estimated 3 million in total) Afghan refugees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghans_in_Iran

I spent some time in Albania back maybe 15 years ago. It's an amazingly beautiful country, especially as you get away from Tirana. The people were open and welcoming, even in areas that are poor and desperate, whether that had anything to do with being seen as a rich westerner or not, I've no idea.

We were warned about besa before we went there, from the perspective of "You have to be very careful what you say", for example if you're a guest and you compliment the rug, there's a good chance they'll offer it to you and you'll have to take it or cause offense. I really dislike coffee, but offering "Albanian coffee" to guests (not too dissimilar to Turkish coffee) was a staple part of the culture. So I dutifully practised schooling my expression and drinking coffee, so that if the situation came up I could drink it without grimacing and even be appropriately positive.

A classic in those situations is "My doctor said I'm not able to ..." and then drink water.

There is a pretty big difference between taking in the people of the same kin and people from another culture far far away. How many Serbian Kosovars did the Albanians give hospitality?

This! Kosovo (and all of Balkan conflicts) are an ongoing tragedy, drawn around ethnic and religious lines.

The article doesn't appear to clearly state that the refugees were largely ethnic Albanians and of mostly Muslim faith, same as the host population.

That's very different from taking in large numbers of culturally dissimilar refugees and successfully integrating them into your society.

Religion is one of those things that doesn't really play a role in Albania. Granted, the majority of the population are officially muslim. However very few are religious. This is probably the result of one of the toughest communist regimes in Europe, which fought religion very aggressively, but also because Albanians have been forced to change their religion by the Ottoman empire, eventually reducing the extent to which people identified themselves with a religious group and giving birth to the phrase "albanians' religion is albanianism".

While it is true that most refugees that were hosted during the Kosovo war were ethnic albanians, and that nationalism is still present (expressed mostly as a disliking of neighbouring countries), the article does mention the case of jewish immigrants during WW2, who came from a quite different culture and religion.

Hospitality in Albania is one of those few older values that is still obviously present. As I already mentioned, nationalism still exists, but that is a whole different discussion.

But did they equally take in Serbs with the same hospitality?

I'm sure a handful of examples can be found, but I doubt it's quite as open as the article makes it sound.

As for religion, whether we want it or not, religion of our ancestors has a strong influence on our secular customs and norms. In this case, while being a practicing Muslim was not a requirement, shared identity and religious past definitely helped.

Regarding shielding Jewish refugees in WW2, most countries have examples of heroism, as well as atrocities by the local polulations.

I don't think they took in serbs (maybe a few, but definitely no number that is comparable to the kosovo albanians). I don't even know if any serb would seek shelter in Albania. I agree, the noble thing to do would have been for people from both countries to try and feel some empathy for each-other. But I think a better question to ask would be whether albanians from northern Kosovo protected serbs who lived there from ethnic albanian nationalists (which I do not know). Albania doesn't share a border with Serbia.

Regarding jewish immingrants in WW2, I don't think there are reports of any attrocities in Albania. The number of Jews before the war was 200. After the war it was 2000. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Alban... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Albania

Anyways, the article probably does make it sound a bit bigger than it is, and even somewhat emotional. I just think that it must speak at least some truth regarding hospitality as a value among the population.

Mind you, Albania was under Italian military occupation in WW2 - and Italian Fascists while repressive, and anti-Semitic, were not exactly co-operative with the Nazis when it came to carrying out the Holocaust. Their internment camps were prisons, not death camps. [1] (Until it switched sides, and was invaded by Germany.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Italy#J...

From the wikipedia article linked above:

"In 1944, an Albanian Waffen-SS division was formed, which arrested and handed over to the Germans a further 281 Jews from Kosovo who were subsequently deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where many were killed."

WW2 was a deplorable part of Europe's history and I honestly don't think there is a place not mired in some kind of tragedy from that period...

If you read the paragraph before that sentence, you'll se that this part refers to Kosovo albanians (so in Kosovo, not Albania). Though the culture and heritage between the two countries is similar, there are actually no cases of Jews that were given up in Albania, a fact which I find interesting, because no other country in Europe has such clear statistics. The way most people helped Jews in Albania was by not only offering them a home, but also giving them albanian names and teaching them albanian customs and the language, so they would blend in . Additionally, there have also been many reports of locals sending anonymous threatening letters to officials who were looking for the refugees.

> Hundreds of Iranian refugees are currently residing within the country, having been displaced from their war-torn homes.

I find this sentence weird for 2 reasons. Firstly "hundreds" is multiple orders of magnitude fewer than the number of refugees in Europe now or the number of ethnic and religious kin taken in by Albania in the 90s. Secondly, what Iranians are being displaced from their "war-torn homes"? There is no war in Iran. For me this calls the rest of the article into question.

What can BBC teach us about trust?

Yeah. The last war in Iran was with Saddam and ended in 1988. Although Iran has a military presence in Syria and an uneasy relationship with many of the countries in the region, there has not been any fights within Iranian borders since the Iran-Iraq war ended [1].

Maybe the author was thinking about Iraq.

[1] Well, there is the war on drugs and some separatist movements, but nothing enough to warrant calling any region war-torn.

> What can BBC teach us about trust?

Verify, verify, verify! :)

Either the author of this article is extraordinarily mendacious or horrifically uneducated (neither would surprise me given the shape of journalism and the media, nor are these two mutually exclusive). First of all, Kosovars are Albanians. Many people in Albania have/had family in Kosovo. The comparison with the migrant crisis is completely off base. Furthermore, the majority of Albanians are Muslims. This would make them culturally closer to migrants. However, as we know, most migrants aren't interested in settling in poor countries. Second, many migrants (per statistics) are not refugees from Syria. Many are merely taking advantage of the cluster fuck that is EU policy and exploiting the Syrian refugee crises to get into Europe. The Kosovars were exclusively refugees. Third, Jews were also killed by Albanian collaborationist forces, but the Jewish population was negligible in Albania before the war (between 24-300). In other words, they were largely unfamiliar with Jews, making antisemitism difficult. After the war, when communist leader Hoxha came to power, religious oppression caused many Jews to leave and move to Israel. Worth noting is that Kosovar Albanians were not as kind to Slavs, Jews, and Gypsies as Albanians in Albania, declaring jihad against them. All in all, somewhere around 600 Jews were killed in "Greater Albania". Give credit where credit is due, but let's not exaggerate. (Look at Poland for comparison: largest population of Jews in the world before WWII, no collaboration with Germans in general populace and certainly not at the official or state level, largest number of recognitions among Righteous among Nations, only country occupying Germans made harboring or aiding Jews punishable by death for entire household, etc, etc).

So perhaps the author shouldn't use Albania as some kind of fabled Shangri-La for shaming everyone else. The false comparisons and false characterizations are really in poor taste. If the author is so hospitable and open, then why doesn't he open his house to some migrants? This isn't a joke. Perhaps a posturing member of the white upper middle class divorced from the consequences of his politics has the luxury of moralizing irresponsibly, but for anyone with a clue, this migrant crisis was a complex and disastrous failure in EU policy and governance. Warm feelings about some simplistic straw man refugee won't fly.

Does anyone know how much 'besa' is related to (or derived from) the Islamic tradition of warm hospitality towards travelers?

That's cultural rather than religious. Probably the religion's tradition derives from the customs of the near east and eastern mediterranian.

“That's cultural rather than religious” is a rather sweeping claim to simply assert without support. The interplay between religions and culture is incredibly complex and deserves more than a facile dismissal.

I've made no dismissal, just a comment. The interplay between religions and culture is that the religions don't come from gods, but they are formed in the cultures within which they emerge. They are not a collection of some madman's dreams and aphorisms, but a fruit of their communities, they are doctrinizations of the customs and beliefs that form their culture. Christianity and islam are the only examples of truly international and intercultural religions, up until christianity every people had their religion. But even then, christianity and islam are not monolithic things, every culture they touched formed their own subreligions. The islam of an aegean anatolian is different from the islam of a yemenite arab, the christianity of an armenian is dissimilar to that of an irlandese. Culture forms religion, and if albanians weren't already inclined to be welcoming and guest-loving, their religion (i.e. their version of islam) would reflect that. We look at islam and christianity as if they were big monolithic things, but every people live them their way.

Albania is 60% muslim.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Albania

Yes I know; this is why I asked the question. It would be easier to suppose an answer if Albania was 98% or 2% Islamic.

Besa is actually a pagan (not religious) tradition, and predates some of the conversion of the country into muslim (when it was invaded by the ottoman turks).

Before the Ottoman Invasion in the 15th century, most of Albania was part of the Roman Empire, and Catholic. Before being invaded by the Roman empire, the Albanian (Illyrian at the time) were pagan.

The person that wrote the "Kanuni i Lek Dukagjinit", which is the codification of these customs into written form was actually a catholic Albanian priest.

"Kanuni i Leke Dukagjinit" which is where BESA originates, was the first attempt at governing the life of northern tribes in Albania at a time when a government did not exist. These tribes, even long after Albania was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, remained Catholic, which holds true to this day with regions such as Mirdita still inhabited by Catholics. This suggests that besa does neither relate to or derive from Islam.

> Hundreds of Iranian refugees are currently residing within the country

It is not very good example. Greece took 600K refugees, Hungary similar numbers, etc...

Problem is that those countries do not offer any social benefits. Refugee needs at least 600 euro/month to feel welcomed. Albania is actually very unfriendly towards refugees.

I think the article is more about the culture than the ability of the country to provide. When people host refugees in their home and try to offer them a life as good as their own, I think they're being very welcoming and friendly, regardless of how much they can offer in absolute terms.

> Refugee needs at least 600 euro/month to feel welcomed.

OK, I really hope you are being sarcastic. As a refugee, you make a choice to escape brutal violence, get a roof over your head, some (minimal) food and clothing, and you actually need some money also "to feel welcomed"?

Where's the line between refugee and economic migrant?

I would say there isn't. If your economic situation is so bad, that you are willing to throw yourself into the sea on a rubber dinghy, you are a refugee from severe poverty and life so horrible that you are willing to risk dying just to escape it.

If it was up to me, I would expand charter of human rights to include this.

Only if the host country has the right to demand for them to leave their culture, religion and customs at the door. Otherwise it could be a very bad deal for the welcoming country.

You are not entitled to a better life somewhere else, other than the country you are citizen of.

Refugee runs away from, economic migrant goes abroad to.

If I'm not mistaken, Isn't this a trend from other European countries too like Romania and Serbia/Belarus?

>Refugee needs at least 600 euro/month to feel welcomed.

There are tons of locals (in Greece and Hungary and Albania that would be like 20-30%) that make less than that. Like full 8-hour jobs for €400/month...

20-30%? Lucky Hungarians (although I believe your numbers are off). Median net salary in Poland is about 415 euro. More than half the population doesn't feel "welcomed" by these standards...

Yeah, was mostly extrapolating from Greece -- and only including employed people too. For Greece I should factor in that 60% of young people and 25%+ of general working population are unemployed, so they make 0 euros (if they're lucky, they get some welfare money for a year or so).

And the EU officials wonder why they aren't happy about thousands more mouths to be fed paid by taxpayers, spreading BS about racism.

It's not racism, it's economy.

Yes, but economy is a dirty word these days when it comes to the people's economic needs and demands.

It's all about what big corporations, banks etc need.

Most Albanians are making 150-200 Euros a month. Many make 100 Euros.

I think the article is more about the culture than the ability of the country to provide. When people host refugees in their homes and try to provide them with a life as good as their own, I think they're being very welcoming and friendly, regardless of how much that is in absolute terms.

Doesn't open for UK readers: "We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service" yadda yadda. Pity.

Why does BBC do that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_BBC_television_c... - "The BBC is forbidden under its charter to directly undertake any commercial operations on-air within the United Kingdom; however, no such restriction applies to operations in other countries"... perhaps "on-air" applies to the internet as well?

Pretty much, they cannot show UK residents any advertising so they block based on IP address. In all circumstances the content is available on the BBC just not via that page. It would be nice to see them redirect to the content for UK readers but I expect that is a lot of work for little benefit.

so in order not to show us any ads, they prefer to show us nothing? How weird/ wonderful.

Hopefully this works http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4ItGP5H...

works indeed - thanks.

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