FLASH
Shkruar nga Auron Tare
It took a Hollywood film to remind us that Vendim Kapaj's fiddle and Albanian polyphony are world treasures.
Yesterday, in a wooden shack somewhere on the coast, a fisherman invited me to sit down.
"Sit down, director!" he told me with that respect that Albanians continue to retain for old offices.
I really liked that interview about Our Decision - he continued. - He's a great master. Do you know what he used to do with me?
"He sold fish on a bicycle," I said.
We used to clean up the garbage in Vlora, dad...
He said it calmly. Without anger. As a fact that no longer needed comment.
He is noble. He never complains. Good on you for remembering him and respecting him. Come on, let's raise a glass to the Decision!
We clinked beer bottles.
For the great artist we both love so much... As for these palaços... long live Kënua!
"But who is Khenua?" I asked, surprised.
The fisherman laughed.
I sang, I got a man... that brunette who came and stole our money!
We both laughed. But as soon as we parted, his words stuck in my mind.
I intended to dedicate these lines to my old friend, the master fiddler, Vendim Kapaj. A rare artist and a man who has held his dignity on his shoulders without making a fuss, without asking for favors, and without bowing to the courts of power.
For many years we have shared emotions and artistic paths. As usual, they remained far from the eyes of cultural bureaucrats. Because our bureaucrat has a rare gift, he never sees what is valuable. He only sees what produces ceremony.
But, as I took the pen in my hand, I realized that this writing no longer belonged to Vendim.
He belongs to our society.
That society that politics has undertaken to make "European" with such zeal that, in this rush to appear modern, it has forgotten to remain Albanian.
It took a Hollywood movie to remind us that Vendim Kapaj's fiddle and Albanian polyphony are world treasures. Ceremonial patriotism immediately erupted, with flags, statuses, declarations, photographs, and endless bragging.
The Albanian has an old habit. He doesn't see the treasure he has on his doorstep. All he has to do is seal it and he immediately declares it a miracle.
Where were these values yesterday?
Where were they a week ago?
Where were they a year ago?
They were where they had always been.
Vendim Kapaj, with his old bicycle, selling fish in Vlora.
Golik, the master of polyphony, with his goats in Bënçë.
The lepers, keeping alive the song that their ancestors left behind with their herds of cattle in the pastures.
No one stopped them from being great.
But no one cared about them either.
In Albania, the artist is remembered only when he has to grace a podium. He is called upon to sing at the inauguration of a road, to accompany the arrival of a minister, to become the folkloric backdrop to a Prime Minister's speech. But as soon as the ceremony is over, the politicians receive the applause, while the artist returns to his solitude.
Today I wanted to write about the miracle of our polyphony.
I couldn't.
Because a chronicle from 2022 came before me.
Vendim Kapaj, the master fiddler, cleaned up the city's garbage.
Don't call it the tragedy of the Decision. He worked his whole life with the nobility that only great artists know. He didn't complain. He worked to support his family.
The tragedy is ours.
It is the tragedy of a society that, generation after generation, is losing pieces of its identity and does not realize that it is becoming spiritually impoverished.
It is the tragedy of a state that cannot find a dignified place for an artist of this rank, but finds millions for spectacles that are forgotten as soon as the projectors turn off.
A Ministry of Culture that never tires of funding festivals of sweets, trahanas, lakroras, and other delicacies, as if it were the directorate of gastronomy and not the institution that should protect the spiritual memory of the nation.
A minister who never left the television studio without talking about "Këno", but doesn't find a minute to talk about Vendim Kapaj, about Golik, about the rhapsodists and masters who carry Albanian culture on their shoulders.
Why aren't summer schools set up for these artists?
Why aren't they supported in passing on their art to the next generation?
Why aren't they given the dignity they have long deserved?
Or do we only remember them when Hollywood reveals them to us?
The one who today enters the world temple of cinema with the sound of a flute, yesterday collected garbage to provide for his family.
And today we hear patriotic cries, as if the nation was saved only because the world finally heard the Albanian fiddle.
No.
The nation is not honored when the world applauds us.
A nation is honored when it knows how to honor its children before the world discovers them.
Otherwise, we remain who we have always been, masters of cheering after every success sealed by foreigners and equally masters of passing by our great people without looking at them.
That's why today I couldn't write only about Vendim and his art. Every time I tried to talk about the nobility of a great artist, the face of a society that knows how to applaud propaganda, but not value, came before me. And then I remembered the fisherman from Vlora, who raised his glass to Vendim and, with a piercing smile, said:
"For our artists... as for these others, long live the Khenna!"
Lini një Përgjigje