Albania changes, Albania has already changed. Above all Albania continues to change in a way that escapes many, to us Italians first.
There is no need for particular sciences. Just take a trip to the center of Tirana between the buildings built by us and the pebbly pedestrian Murat Toptani. Just stop and have a coffee or a coffee raki among the passing people, always the same but every day different from the first one.
One step away is Piazza Skanderbeg, with the equestrian statue identical to that of Piazza Albania in Rome, in a forgotten corner of the Aventine. The national hero and champion of Albanian Christianity, like all national symbols of the former communist countries, was exhumed at the end of the regime of the "Supreme Comrade" Hoxa and put on the streets in his place.
Now another restyling is planned for the most central place in the capital, this time financed by a loan from Kuwait. Accustomed to a hard life, Skanderbeg cannot find peace in Tirana even in the form of a statue. And once again the reason is political. Placed like this in the heart of the city today it is too strong a reference to the historical resentment that the Albanians have for Turkey at a time when the wind of geopolitics pushes instead to highlight the link between the two countries.
A bond that despite the ferocious repression of past centuries, undoubtedly there is. The attitudes between Ottomans and Albanians are witnessed by customs, customs, but above all by that 40% of Muslim population (the highest in Europe) witness to the most evident legacy of a colonization of endless divisions for which the Balkans are proverbial.
The Serbian Christians, not by chance, call the Albanians (obviously also those of Kosovo) "Turks" and they confine in this sense an ethnic and cultural hatred that began at the end of 1300.Indicate the enemy of today with the name of the enemy of all time, is tantamount to assign a kinship with which Albania, even if recalcitrant, must somehow come to terms. 
Little to do, everything goes in that direction. Most of all we see in the investments that Ankara does hands down in Tirana and surroundings: the Albanian Telecom from 2007 is owned by a consortium in which Türk Telekomunikasyon and an Arab-Turkish holding have the majority.
Even more eloquent TAP (The Trans Adriatic Pipeline), the gas pipeline project that will bring gas to Europe from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and then Albania. The strategic importance of Tirana for Turkey and for Brussels (hence for America ...) in an anti-Russian function, comes to itself.
Albania takes Turkish money and therefore folds to the consequent political and cultural winds. With the entry into NATO in 2009 the meeting tables with Ankara have increased. Increased to the point that the new large mosque in the Albanian capital is financed by chance with lire ... It will have minarets 50 meters high and will host an important cultural center. The nuance with the Koranic school is never clear ...
For more than a year we have been talking about this section of the Islamization of Turkey. If the qeleshe Albanian is more and more like al did Turkish, the consequences are not difficult to understand.
The return of the Ottomans to the Balkans, helped by the United States for the past half-year '90, also waves with the crescent on the bridge of Mostar in Bosnia rebuilt with the money of Ankara. The taste is the same as in Albania. In an entire region disputed for centuries there is the feeling of a land closer to Islam every day.
Between a coffee and a raki then, perhaps the eye on the passers by Murat Toptani should be thrown better. With more attention in effect, women with Islamic veils are increasingly numerous. In Tirana, 70% of people are Muslims. Yes, there is no doubt, I am more than yesterday ...
Is Albania then Islamizing?
The contraction of Catholics from 19 to 13% of the population in just 6 years (2005-1999 data) speaks volumes. The stylized minarets of the monument to friendship in Tirana speak equally clear.
But the city, although the phenomenon is perceptible, leaves the time it finds. It is among the Katunari, the peasants of remote areas, who see the difference. Zall Bastar, a village of four lost in the valleys northeast of Tirana, can only be reached by off-road vehicle. From the top and from afar there is a mosque at the entrance and three minarets that sprout inside. The offer exceeds the demand. Bane oddities ...
The Muslim areas are distributed like a leopard spot. Difficult to understand, difficult to orientate. Albania is a crossroad of still and dark mountains, sisters of those further north where between rivers epic and Slavic blood flows hatred for centuries. Cross and crescent here are made of iron: sharp as swords or rusty like abandoned metal sheets; it depends on the periods.
Yet this time the crescent plays heavy. Since the end of communism it has been inserted into a void of references that someone has hurried to re-establish.
Only for "Mother them turks" it would be little. Kukes Airport, donated by the United Arab Emirates, is officially called Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Arabs like the Turks do low. Qatar Holding it is behind half of the new major works planned for the next few years. Albanian Qatar Foundation opened its doors in 2002 and with its headquarters in Tirana oversees the gradual entry of the Arab world into the country.
There's a lot of money and the loans all have an interest. The former Red Albania is becoming green Islam, as it was for Kosovo and as happens every day more in Bosnia. The Americans let them do, they even blow on the fire. Its part of the game. Everything happened in less than 20 years. Time to digest the end of communism is another Balkan order has started again.
We salute Albania leaving on the right Shijak, just left Durazzo, on the road to Tirana. The Islamic center of here is important and makes school, in every sense ...
What do we put on? Strictly speaking, we Italians. Here we were welcome, the least worst, the rich cousins that when there is the good wind you can see the Puglia ... Our history, our culture, our cross as important as regulators of the Balkan fevers, on the other side of the Adriatic have not arrived there. They are peaked with our pedantic cialtroneria.
Now there are others who in this unripe Paradise, make us gold business. There are others who, in exchange for a lira, impose a crescent ...
A special thanks to Umberto, shoulder to shoulder on trips of all kinds.
(photo: author)
