The Sunday times Editor!

Re: Albania, the land that time has forgotten

Sir,

It is with utter disgust and disappointment that I read the above article by AA Gill. Never have I seen insults and language of this calibre used against the Albanian people or any other people for that matter, be it in the British press or that abroad. I can understand that sensational journalism yields interest in readers, as a result more advertising revenue for you, nonetheless writing fallacy and non factual journalism can create the opposite reaction. As a proud Albanian citizen I have the moral obligation and the urge to set some things straight with regards to Mr. Gill's article. Sadly for me, I cannot use the same language content as him given as I am a polite and balanced person!

The article starts with a degrading comment on a world-renown figure and now Saint, Mother Teresa. In fact no major comments are required on Mother Teresa's life and accomplishments as this will be known to most of us. Her deeds, generosity and dedication were not in "helping people die" but in actual facts in helping them live! It is with great pride that we can say she was an Albanian woman, and a great one at that! I wonder if Mr. Gill ever helped one live or die for that matter! Quite shameful is all I can say. As for Albanian girls, their tops and peroxide Mr. Gill only needs to visit Glasgow on a Friday night or Essex on any given day!

With regards to the religious split in Albania, Mr. Gill is quite the "statistician" just as he is a "historian", "anthropologist", dedicated "phonetics researcher" "fashionista" and expert in "aesthetic dentistry". He is in addition quite the seeker for late night "entertainment". Little does he know that religion matters less to the Albanians than does their identity, one which they have fought for centuries to maintain. A component of this identity is the Albanian language, quite distinct as Mr. Gill mentions, and one we are proud to have as a nation. It is of little importance or concerns what he thinks of the language as it is the technicality of this very language that makes us able to pronounce other languages to the extent that most Albanians you meet will speak at least one more language in addition to their native Albanian. It is in fact quite commendable that we have kept our language given all the occupations and invasions Albania has been through.

Mr. Gill has made an observation on a country by briefly visiting one or two cities with his negativity already set as a bias. There are not 4 million Albanians in the world, one need to account for the Albanians in Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Italy and Montenegro without even adding those who have migrated following the communist era! You'd better check those facts before you splash on long articles, ridicule and generalize honest hard working people by casting them as criminal gangsters. By doing so, you have not only offended those 4 million Albanians but at least twice that number.

Crime is part of society and of course will be present in developing economies. But you only need to go as far as Finchley Road on London to get mugged, or Peckham to get killed. As far as pimping goes, it is a shame that all this demand is coming out of Britain. Basic law of supply and demand is what explains the fact that Mr. Gill was unable to find red light districts or "entertainment" shops in Tirana, because that Mr. Gill is not who we are as a people!! If however you are looking for such entertainment, you only need to go to the next Slug & Lettuce where you will find drunken people willing to do all after downing a few dozen pints. Yes we do value family, tradition and our values above all because that is what makes us Albanians, be it from the north, south or across the borders which were so horribly divided at the London conference in 1913, and the Paris Conference in 1919, but where you overstepped the border is you offended our identity and that Albanians cannot forgive.

Mr. Gill should leave old Albanian people and youngsters alone, they need no lessons from an angry pathetic imperialistic Scot on how to live their lives or maintain their teeth, and meanwhile he should worry about when to next polish his veneers and where to go next on holiday or buy his third house! Nor do we require teaching on how to dress by a man carrying such a hat or sunglasses. Surely we do not need lessons of the kind you are giving to Iraq, Afghanistan or Lebanon. It is no longer the thirties when you could write amusing comments about little Albania so you could fill your pockets and the rest their Sunday afternoons. One cannot possibly base judgments and cast all Albanians as drug-dealers and criminals. If that were the case how come so many Brits are trusting Albanians to invest their money, manage their businesses, carry out genome research projects at Oxford or Cambridge, teach at LSE, Imperial College, Exeter and Oxford Brookes University?! To be the biggest group of foreigners from just one country at the EBRD, Goldman Sachs etc? And this is only a modest minimal sample of Albanians in the UK alone, let us not even mention achievements in other countries or abroad. There is a strong Albanian community in the UK and one which shall respond to articles like this which are dangerous and only create hatred. I am quite positive you shall receive a lot more comments following mine, if you haven't done so already, but I need to express my shock at publishing such an insulting article with no clear balance and a distinct purpose of darkening the image of Albanians. There is no mention of Albanian hospitality, friendliness and kind-hearted attitude. No mention of the nature and the beautiful land that Shakespeare although he had never visited cast as a scene in his play "The Twelfth night". And enough of that Norman Wisdom stupidity, it is such old journalism it bores to death. I blame the editor as much as the imbecile that wrote this garbage of an article.

If you do the math’s: -100,000 * 365 = -36.5 million newspaper sales per year at the age of media consent, I suppose this could be the impact of this stupid clown's affair that Mr. Gill bothered to classify as an article. Perhaps it is the money language you can understand as there are 100,000 Albanians living and working in the UK, and I shall make it my personal business to make them aware of the lunacy written on their behalf in the Sunday Times. The minimal response we demand as a community is an apology and as a nation to be left in peace.

Edlira Gjoni
Albanian citizen