Instead of controversy: Perspective is not bias

2026-02-14 12:21:00, Opinione Luan Rama

By Luan Rama

A friendly explanation for an unsolicited response from Dr. Skënder Brataj.

Not entirely for ethical reasons, more as an expression of respect for Kadare and respect for those involved in a debate about and about him (which for me was completely inappropriate!), I chose not to refer to names or argue with them, but to make a modest attempt at a treatment in a completely different vein, as to why eternity does not need protection.

It's not that I don't like controversy. In my conviction and from my long experience in the profession of journalism and throughout my time in political engagement, I have learned that without the ability to be a polemicist, both as a journalist and as a politician, you remain crippled.

On the contrary, I do not value the ability to be a polemicist either as superiority or as a chivalrous opportunity to challenge someone to a duel and corner them.

While maintaining this line of conduct as a principled choice, I must acknowledge the idea that I have not written only about literary eternity, as my concept of eternity is much more than that.

Anyone who has been able to read my article entitled: “Eternity Does Not Need Protection”, from which Dr. Skënder Brataj also took the opportunity to write an unsolicited and unnecessary response to me, since I have neither mentioned it nor addressed it, has not had difficulty understanding the meaning of the definition that works are not simply a product of time; they are spaces where the eternal man and the man of time come together.

Eternity is not a neutral space. It is constructed. The literary canon is not only the result of aesthetic value, but also of historical selection.

It is not without reason that in the article I cited above I choose to avoid the name Kadare and even more so the controversy with his name and work in the middle, because I consider it disgusting and immoral to treat the writer as a piece of loot placed in the middle, which someone takes and another protects. Such blunders undermine the essence of the initiative, even when it is based on fundamentally human feelings.

Therefore, as much as I must be grateful to the doctor in question, not only because he has found time from his inherent commitments in these busy and burdened times with numerous viruses, which the service he has been entrusted to lead must first cope with, to address me with his elegant writing, but, equally, I must express my regret that he thinks that I think that he lied! I neither thought this nor wrote it.

I appreciate the doctor's attention, because attention in my assessment is a superior sign of respect for the other.

But, I must say that it is not in my nature to describe or define others, especially those I do not know closely or have never met in my life, with definitions or attributes that affect their dignity, character or integrity. I respect the codes of communication very correctly, regardless of who I am addressing and with whom I need to communicate.

I wouldn't have written these lines for anyone, much less for the well-known doctor, if he hadn't taken it upon himself to reach some illogical conclusions in his response to me, which in fact don't match what I think and appreciate about who he really is.

The doctor writes, (I quote):

"You are biased because you are friends with each other and that is unfortunate because if you did not understand the objective of my writing, I am explaining it once again."

For the reader to understand, by "you are friends with each other," he is referring to Mr. Bujar Hudhri, a renowned translator and publisher of Kadare's work, journalist Menton Kikia, and me.

Bujar Hudhri and I are not friends. I would be honored if what Dr. Brataj says were true, but it is not. I may have met Bujar Hudhri a total of four or five times in thirty years, and on one of those occasions, together with Kadare.

I don't know where the doctor who makes me friends with Bujar is coming from, because I don't know if he has the above information or not. But, and if he does have that information, that is, the information about how many times I've met Bujar, are those 4-5 meetings enough to be friends with someone?

Meanwhile, for journalist Mentor Kikia, I can tell the doctor that I have known him for thirty years, we are colleagues in the profession, we respect each other fairly, but we are not friends. I would undoubtedly be honored to be friends with him.

If the doctor calls the three of us friends, based on what he has read of what we have written recently, I must end this article here, apologizing to the doctor, because without any intention and completely without my will, I have been forced to write a response that makes no logical sense and, moreover, does not fit his format. Or at least, my expectations for it.

But if I had written, for example, an article with a different approach and had said what the doctor says in the polemics between Mr. Hudhri and Mr. Kikia separately, that is, if I were not only in agreement, but also in agreement with the doctor in every word, would the doctor call my article biased and would this make me his friend? Of course not.

That the doctor may not have liked my writing is completely normal and it doesn't bother me. But, this does not give me the right to say that the doctor sees the problem from a very small perspective, as he expresses it to me.

The point of view is individual and depends on the position from which one sees or judges. It is conditioned by personal experience, cultural formation, emotional state, historical context, etc.

Two people can read the same novel and draw completely different conclusions, because each reads it through their own filter.

So, perspective is not bias, but a way of understanding reality in different dimensions.

Then, the enumeration of questions in the doctor's unsolicited answer that (I quote):

"What have you done specifically to protect and honor Albanian national figures?"

How many statues, memorials, or commemorative initiatives bear your signature or direct support?

What was your stance when Skanderbeg was reduced to a religious figure rather than a national one?

Did you react publicly when Mother Teresa was smeared for denying her Albanian nationality?

What have you done about the fact that many signatories of Independence do not even have an identified grave?

"Why was the statue of Ismail Vlora placed in Tirana only on the 100th anniversary of independence? Why was it hidden in a flowerbed?" etc., does not deserve any attention in this context, because it seems to me to be an inappropriate and unwise attempt if we lower the level of the debate to such rudimentary clichés.

Not that they are not topics that deserve attention, even for a face-to-face debate with the doctor, for which I am ready and completely open, but if we start and approach each other with how many statues or memorials bear the signature of one or the other, it becomes clear that we have not understood anything about what civic responsibility and intellectual engagement are.

I greatly appreciate all that Mr. Bujar Hudhri has done with such dedication in the service of Mr. Kadare, just as I appreciate with the same quality of respect the noble dedication as a citizen and intellectual of Dr. Brataj in honor of Mr. Kadare and in the service of Mrs. Kadare, but this merit does not place either of them in a superior position in relation to the rest of us who perhaps have not been as capable as they were.

I don't remember ever meeting the doctor. But we have many mutual friends. I met and stayed in Vlora with relatives and family members of the doctor, whose presence and friendship have been very important to me in difficult moments, and to whom I am infinitely grateful. Thus, even though I have never met him, I know and appreciate him enough not to misunderstand him and even to understand his completely legitimate reaction from his approach and the perspective he has chosen.

In closing, one more explanation; I chose not to polemicize with what the doctor wrote because I never polemicize with those who do not have the same profession as me or who do not belong to the same field of professional and intellectual interests. The reasoning for presenting my position on the unsolicited response, from a more linear stylistic and ethical level, is based on the lesson that comes to us from antiquity: “Ne sutor, ultra crepidam!” (Shoemaker, stick to the shoe!).

This too is a matter of choice, completely individual and unconditional by the choice of another./ CNA