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By Teodor KEKO Whenever I happen to read or hear songs about emigration, I stop and think about the endless oddities of modern Albanians at the end of this century! Once, Albanians sent their men abroad to work on foreign soil and earn bread for their families, who stayed in Albania. Most of these Personally, I smell something bad in all this! If the Albanian state wants to be honest and fight corruption, it has no reason to favor people without families and with divided loyalties for its senior officials. First and foremost, it needs devoted and patriotic people, so let it choose from this category. Our state is not a cow to be milked by certain types, who make modern in this turn of the century. In the past, Albanians would send the men abroad to work on foreign soil, to provide these men, who toiled beyond the border, would return as soon as they had earned a little money, then put that money to work in Albania. This was, in essence, traditional Albanian emigration! But today the opposite is happening! Today, “clever” Albanian men like emigration, but in the opposite sense: they send their families abroad in all sorts of ways, from lotteries to securing personal finances, while they themselves stay in Albania, in order to... “put bread on their families’ tables”! Usually, this group of men, who make all this “sacrifice,” work in government jobs! But who would believe that some “x” civil servant, or minister, or prime minister, or president of Albania can support his family of four in the USA or the United States of Europe with a salary of at most 500 USD a month (not including rent, insurance, personal expenses, etc.)?! This phenomenon raises some questions: How much money is flowing from work in the Albanian state? How much does the Albanian state need certain Albanian officials, who, through their personal life choices, bring to mind that verse about Ali Pashë Tepelena: “The head in Istanbul, the body in Janina...”? What kind of clarity do these officials have, who send [we did not even know their names], that the Albanian state cannot ask for their contribution? Such people are divided and without families! The state needs, first and foremost, devoted and patriotic people, so let it choose from that by certain types who pretend to make sacrifices, sniffing out tenders and every other source of profit like dogs, so they can keep their families across the sea supplied with every comfort. Fine, nobody is driving us to ruin, but at least our state should not make fools of us! If Mr. Majko wants to introduce a new concept of governance in Albania, free of filth, let him start with administrative reform, so there are no more migratory birds who, as soon as they fill their pockets, fly across the sea! This current reality has also tied the prosecutors’ hands. “And how can you open a case against these people? the prosecutors tell you. Before you can properly open the case, they fly off and leave you alone!...” We must give up this brothel-state! And the first step is to do away with a form that clearly states what a state employee must fulfill. Anyone who violates this regulation should be immediately dismissed from state employment and fined, because they are not doing us some great favor by working more for themselves than for the state and for us! Given how things have turned out here: “With or without a father, the orphans are always last!” So Majko need not think too hard! The professional best suited to him right now, and the one who would be useful to us, would be the state administration’s street sweeper, clearing out these two-headed, two-minded people, like our flag’s eagle!

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