In a social media post, academic Artan Fuga has sharply criticized comparisons being drawn between student protests in Albania and student movements in France and other European countries.
Fuga criticizes propaganda that, he says, seeks to portray these protests as part of the same movement, disregarding the protesters’ different motivations and demands.
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The academic recalls an episode from 1968, when dictator Enver Hoxha compared student movements in Europe with Albanian youth campaigns to build railways. According to Fuga, the same propaganda tactics are being used today, as protests in Albania are compared with European movements and given labels that do not reflect reality. “When I hear, read and see how they equate protest movements in Tirana and elsewhere with student movements in France or elsewhere in Europe, I smile bitterly and say: Forgive the fools, Lord, for they know not what they say!” Fuga writes.
He stresses that propaganda and strategic communication can produce misinformation and disinformation, creating misguided interpretations of political and social events. Referring to 1968, the academic recalls that Enver Hoxha went to Gradishtë, where young Albanians were working on railway-building campaigns, and spoke to them about the student protests that had erupted in France. According to Fuga, communist propaganda portrayed European students as participants in a proletarian revolution against capitalism, while presenting young Albanians as builders of socialism through voluntary work.
“In fact, two lies rolled into one. Young Europeans were not overthrowing capitalism or carrying out a socialist revolution, and the volunteers on these work campaigns were not building a society free of exploitation, but were being pointlessly exploited for unpaid slave labor!” the academic writes. Fuga links this historical episode to today’s debates about protests in Albania, rejecting attempts to equate them with European student movements.
HIS RESPONSE:
The propaganda that equated Gradishtë with Paris
(From the absurdities of Albanian history)
When I hear, read and see how they equate protest movements in Tirana and elsewhere with student movements in France or elsewhere in Europe, I smile bitterly and say: Forgive the fools, Lord, for they know not what they say! It is appalling, but propaganda and international strategic communication make a mess of everything! They muddle everything, producing misinformation, disinformation and all sorts of other nonsense. And my smile almost turns to laughter when I recall an example from sixty years ago that I experienced as a child but later studied in depth. In 1968, the student movement erupted in France and Europe, transforming the entire world and creating, for better or worse, the world we live in.
Our Enver goes to Gradishtë, where young people were taking part in railway-building campaigns, just a stone’s throw from the internment camps he had set up. He delivers a speech to students who, with scarves around their necks and revolutionary fervor, cheer and applaud his claims that students in Europe were carrying out the long-awaited proletarian revolution. Meanwhile, they were building socialist railways!
In reality, this was nowhere near an accurate interpretation. A proletarian revolution was the last thing European students wanted; they had also risen up against Marxist ideology. But that was the propaganda we were fed. That was how people came to believe that students were bringing capitalism down. Then the speaker said that revolutionary youth in Albania were doing the same thing. They were not overthrowing capitalism, but building socialism. Through voluntary work. The same revolution!
In fact, two lies rolled into one. Young Europeans were not overthrowing capitalism or carrying out a socialist revolution, and the volunteers on these work campaigns were not building a society free of exploitation, but were being pointlessly exploited for unpaid slave labor!
That is what comes to mind today when I hear that students in Europe are doing Antifa like us, or whatever the hell these ignorant autocrats call it, and that we, like them, are doing Antifa. What do the demands of French and European students and their aspirations have in common with those of our peaceful protesters, students or otherwise, who can barely contain their anguish when they officially learn that dozens of jackbooted thieves are stealing even their chances of a bare-minimum existence! And I smile bitterly, not at those spreading propaganda and lies because they are defending the collective theft in which they participate, but at those who repeat it like idiots, and those who believe it out of a need to soothe their slumbering consciences!
