In this article
A dinner and questions about the future
For many of us, the ordinary citizens of this city, encounters with important people or well-known personalities are not an everyday occurrence. Say you are with your friends at a restaurant on the outskirts of Tirana, and suddenly the person opening the door in the background is a former prime minister.
Short in stature. The same features as in the early 2000s, but a somewhat older face, somewhat greyer hair… It is Fatos Nano, courteously accompanying his wife.
Dinner for two. They sit at a table by the wall. Not the slightest discomfort at being surrounded by ordinary people, as though he too were ordinary now…
But can that be true? Can a former prime minister like him really have become an “ordinary person”? Does such a metamorphosis really exist for politicians?!
Outside, a car with that same symbolic number plate… his “007”… making you think there is nothing ordinary here. Nano is still Nano. And yet…
A bottle of red wine. Salad… risotto too, I think. A table simple in appearance, but rich in presence.
Enough of the details from the table over there. Meanwhile, at ours, the discussion that began was the one we ordinary young people in this country have.
“What are we going to do about our future?! Will this country ever get anywhere or not?! Is it worth staying here, or should we leave for another country too?!”
As our doubts and arguments were challenged and reinforced by one another’s examples and counterexamples, what troubled me as I looked across at the other table was: “Does this subject trouble the former prime minister at all? What would he think about this? What advice would he give the five of us, five educated young people in our mid-twenties who, like our peers, are being worn down by the lack of hope and meritocracy that dominates this country?”
I was little when I first saw Nano. I remember it was at an event at the Pyramid, by the Peace Bell if I am not mistaken. An event for children.
It was the turbulent time of “Muçi-Naçi-Baçi” and the well-known political conflicts within the Party.
Who could have imagined it then. 15 years later. Though only 66… here he is now, spending his evenings outside politics, outside the media spotlight or journalistic pressure.
Meanwhile, the question we friends ask one another remains: “Where will we be spending our evenings in 15 years?”… in Tirana, Munich, Amsterdam…