What means “being European” in Kosovo? An elder sexually abused!

Gjergj Erebara

Ervin Qafmolla

There is something really new in the way in which Albanians are now conceiving Europe and their “European Identity”. In 1930s, a Catholic priest in north Albania, considered a national poet, said: “Europe is an old whore”. Little schoolgirls learned that in their class readings.

This was to characterize the shifting alliances between different great powers and their pragmatist policies. The latter has a very strong psychological effect because in the Albanian customary law, whore stands for the one of shifting alliances and the man is the one that stands for justice.

In Kosovo, two years ago a hip hop song "T'amlin e nones" (mother's milk) was published, with a video clip where the cliché of Albania, represented by an elder with the national fez and an untrimmed beard, removes his fez, shaves the beard, and uses a lipstick…

So, seems that is prepared to become a homosexual, ready to accept the European Union standards and happy to be abused! The elder with untrimmed beard and the fez is the Albania's equivalent of Uncle Sam.

It has become quite popular as a song. On Friday evening, it hit 49k visitors since February 2008.

The text is written in north Albanian slang by a well known poet of the prewar Kosovo, while the musical motive is rendered through a strangely dark variation of a traditional wedding song.

It angrily speaks about being trapped in a conflict between East and West. It concludes that there is no way of escape and that Kosovo with have the same ugly fate whether if he/she chooses Saudi Arabia or France.

The viewers mainly from Kosovo offered different explanations on the meaning of the song. One said that the song is “about the Kosovo’s politicians and Thaçi above all. No East, no West! We need neither. Albania is enough!”

“It is about the religious fanatics so they can understand the piteous state of the nation. They should abandon Islam and Christianity and know better their national history,” says another. The debate then skips from the meaning of the song to religion and the clash of civilizations.

The song has suspense in the end. The music fades slowly. The old man representing the national effigy puts a bridal veil. The bride waits motionless, looking through the veil that covers her face.

And then the party begins. Drums and zamares (traditional flute) start the wedding song. The bride is ready to accept her predestined husband that in the customary law is someone unknown to her and from whom she had not other escape than death. It doesn’t really matter if he/she assents the advances of one party or the other.

The song and the text represent in fact a changed perception of the Albanians on Europe. Unlike the old whore of the 1930s, it has become a rapist.

Teksti shqip

Tomlin e Nanes

Lindje, Perendim, Perendim a Lindje
Si dele ne pazar po t'thone ne mes dy qyteterimeve
Dy konop n'qafe te vnum
Dyte po t'ngrehin e ti po qet shkume
Je shume i lodhun, gjate ki nejt n'zhurme
E ki nevoje me marr fryme se jon tu t'ngulfat
Zani s'po t'del e don me piskate
Krejt lomsh n'kry, t'kane hallakate
Eeeaah... edhe sa ka me zgate deri sa t'coptojne
Deri sa t'dajne e sa t'pervlojne
Deri sa ta kupton se sun vazhdon n'konfuzion
E beba sun e han ni pule t'pjekt
As sun e han ni spec t'djegste
E ti po don me shti me ngajte hala pa msu me hec
E ti ndaq jepi cucell t'Arabise ndaq jepi cucell te Frances
Ajo ka me lyp tomlin e nanes...bal.
Tomlin e nanes...bal
Tomlin e nanes...Bal