Nano: My love for PD
Forgiveness, not punishment, is the best justice
Prime Minister invites Berisha to the rally for Mother Teresa: "I wished she were here"
Prime Minister Fatos Nano yesterday took advantage of the beatification day of Mother Teresa’s two clerics to pronounce a prayer of reconciliation, cooperation, prosperity and peace. Reservations and discontent were softened for one day, in the hope that Mother Teresa and her humanism would ease, to some extent, the political anger and divisions in Nano’s camp, especially with opposition leader Sali Berisha. In a completely surprising move, given the unacceptability of hatred toward an opponent, the Prime Minister also invited Berisha to today’s rally in honor of Mother Teresa in Skanderbeg Square.
"I considered it an honor to invite them, certainly all my collaborators whom I call colleagues in governing the country, but without doubt also Mr Berisha, who leads today’s opposition in the country, which unfortunately is sunk in a climate of total distrust, hatred, convulsions, where hatred, revenge and the stabbing apart between comrades, friends and brothers, where the nullification of peace, wisdom, love, non-participation — all these evils — is the message that, with Mother Teresa’s prayer and blessing, has reached Albanians," said the head of government.
At the festive rally held yesterday in Tirana, this message from the head of government was followed by the Minister of Culture Edi Rama. "It is a great fortune for us Albanians to rise tomorrow to another quiet morning. It is a great fortune for us and for our children to give hearts more strength and light and to forget political battles a little, and to open our hearts to human mercy and love," said the head of Culture yesterday on the occasion of Mother Teresa’s beatification.
On the other hand, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, more than prayers for a day of independence and peace, issued a threat alongside the accusations the government levels against the opposition. "We need a quiet day. It is a blessed day, it is peaceful, but the clergy’s invitation to participate should not be interpreted as if we are the same as everyone else, because we know that there is an anti-state in Albania," said Luiza Xhuvani yesterday with great sincerity on the main stage in Tirana.
Then the prayer of peace and hatred against the opposition continued with Fatos Nano on the big podium, as he addressed the rally saying: "Please let us speak softly, do not shake your fist, walk with your head down. God grant that the day may become calm, quiet."
Then the Prime Minister spoke about Mother Teresa’s work. "I was abroad, but somehow I felt it. Being in emigration, I observe that, just as on this day the world collapses on your shoulders, people lift their lives into the sky when they see people like Mother Teresa among the poor and the ruined. She looks like an angel. Perhaps because even the rays of sunlight that pierce through a shattered sky over the collapsed rooftops, she too, with humility, above all beautiful, gave a human light and guided us upward. It was her great fortune and part of her culture that her origins were beautifully Albanian," said the Prime Minister yesterday on the occasion of Mother Teresa’s beatification.
At the end, the Prime Minister also made a belated remark about relations with the Catholic clergy. "I have been here, but I have not abandoned it very often. I have seen here, to confess, I feel a civic duty and my conscience for what I have said and thought about this church. I have never agreed to enter this church, but since, forgive me, I will come to thank them that day and night they advise with wisdom, with genes and with light. Today you forgive the hatred against those who have killed, burned, destroyed. You will also forgive those who have devastated and crippled this country and this state in the name of hatred," the Prime Minister and Nano tried to conclude yesterday’s rally at the end of his speech.
Berisha with his wife commemorating a tribute to Mother Teresa’s death