Why listen to this first Albanian interview? Because the perception we have of Albania is the distorted fruit of the immigration of Albanians to Italy in the post-communist period.
In fact, from 1946 to 1990, Albania lived under an extremely isolationist and Stalinist communist regime that completely cut it off from the world.
With prisons full of disenfranchised political dissidents, the first waves that broke against Italy were the result of the desperate situation of those who had nothing to lose.
Today, this prejudice about Albania still accompanies the feeling towards this land that has belonged to the Illyrian people since the Stone Age and is now inhabited by a simple-hearted and generous population.
Pinuccia and Alfio's words lead us by the hand into a life-changing experience with exciting results. Having rediscovered a peace and tranquillity of living is the reason for their full satisfaction.
Hailing from the Bergamo area, Pinuccia and Alfio chose their new destination after assessing the advantages in terms of taxation and experiencing the genuine welcome and friendliness of the Albanian people.
Albania does not consider pensions as income, showing, in my opinion, great civilisation. So, non-taxation also concerns Albanian pensions. That is, what happens in other countries, where it is pensions from abroad that enjoy privileged tax regimes to attract pensioners, does not happen. Here, even domestic pensions are not taxed, because they are not considered as income.
But beyond this undoubtedly advantageous aspect, what convinces Pinuccia and Alfio in their choice is the newfound serenity of living in a society, slower, less organised perhaps, but with very marked connotations of humanity that can be seen in everyday relations.
I have to say that where everything works, where everything is exasperatingly regulated, where, above all, the population conforms to strict legislations, respecting them and considering them to be the safeguard of their well-being, everything works perfectly. The appearance of the cities is of impeccable cleanliness and efficiency, everything seems to offer the utmost well-being, and perhaps in many ways it does.
Yet, a certain uneasiness hovers, in my opinion, in these places. One has the feeling of always being subjected to the judgement of efficiency, as well as to the merciless judgement of the cameras and controls of a police force that is becoming increasingly aggressive and invested with the absolute power to safeguard the law. What is worse is that this extremely legalistic system of things often establishes relationships of distrust and even delusion among citizens. People become suspicious and cold, all intent on preserving the civilised state of things, losing sight of the very people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of that civilised state: it is as if the instrument adopted to guarantee well-being becomes well-being itself and its preservation more important than the results it is supposed to generate and guarantee.
We confuse, that is, the well-being of the individual with that of the system. Or we replace the well-being of the individual with that of the instrument that should guarantee it.
Everything takes on a strong aesthetic connotation and the very reasons for having reached that state are lost, people are no longer at the centre; at the centre is the maintenance of what is supposed to be the instrument of their well-being.
In Albania, all this is light years away. Everything is left, rather than to chance, to the initiative of the people, with more literary taste I would say to their heart. There are rules and they are obviously dictated by the state, but the state is not perceived as the supreme and infallible entity whose word or law is not to be contradicted. In fact, for the common good and the individual, the real regulations are agreements between people. In Albania, there is, even today, more trust in the initiative of the people than in that of the state.
Is this a scale of values I am talking about? Am I outlining one society better than the other? No. I am not. The future seems to beat in a precise and unchanging direction. I am just trying to say that one can be more comfortable in a society that still has characteristics that are considered 'retrograde' compared to the efficient and hyper-regulated West.
This is, very briefly, what I think Pinuccia and Alfio felt, this is what we felt when meeting people in Albania.
And I am solely responsible for this interpretation, which we will elaborate on in future interviews and reports, with no accomplices but Barbara.
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