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| Bernd J. Fischer |
Today, on the 28th anniversary of the fall of the statue of dictator Enver Hoxha in the center of Tirana by the anti-communist student movement and the residents of the capital, the Institute for Democracy, Media and Culture (IDMC) commemorated the Days of Memory.
Along with many scholars, authors of memorial books and protagonists of those events, the IDMC leader Jonila Godole said that the collapse of dictator Enver Hoxha on February20, 1991, marks symbolically the fall of the dictatorship in Albania.The main study came from well-known historian Bernd J. Fischer with the theme "Albania and the Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe".
He said that the last in the line of former communist countries that knocked down that regime was Albania, according to him, the most violated country and the most isolated from all, and for many reasons was unique in contrast to others.
Mr. Fisher said the regime's brutality was so high that this brutality still hampers the course of the Albanian transition.
"There were many factors in these developments and one of them, was the fact that the country had little or no dissents. As Fatos Lubonja said, Albania did not had political dissents and there is a big difference between the dissident and the regime's victims, albania had only victims of the regime who did not inspire others, but on the contrary, with their condition they scared the others"- said Mr. Fischer.
"Without individuals and without internal disability institutions, Albania had as examples only the patterns and events that took place in other former communist countries of the East. And the Albanian citizens did this to end the communist regime; they followed the examples of the East and listened the advices of the external factors."
In the Days of Memory, the book "Between apathy and nostalgia" was also published with memories from the protagonists and victims of those events.
The collapse of Enver Hoxha's monument came after a long hungry strike by University of Tirana students seeking the removal of the dictator's name from their University.