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arnavuteagle (August 21, 2008 at 2:18 pm)
L' Italia rispetta la minoranza albanese dimostrando di essere un paese democratico.Invece gli arberesh della Grecia non hanno nessun diritto e non possono parlare la lingua dei loro antenati!
marrazz (July 19, 2008 at 2:12 am)
*Calabrese
lule500 (July 10, 2008 at 9:32 pm)
Very nice :) is it possible too find out the name of the last song on ur video please thanks
dpjaexp (July 3, 2008 at 3:32 pm)
YouTube is a democratic forum where everyone is welcome to voice their opinions. Some spread tolerance and understanding between peoples through restraint, rationality and thoughtful writing. Some work to undermine these contributors with extremism, hatred and xenophobic missives. In 2008, all of the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula need to come up with new ways to make the future brighter than the past. All of us need to work together to promote understanding and peace between one another.
dpjaexp (July 3, 2008 at 3:20 pm)
It's absurd to be told by Muslim and Catholic fellow Albanians that because of our Orthodoxy, (or even because there's Greek written on the icons in our churches) we're automatically sympathisers with Greek nationalist causes. Beautiful Arabic calligraphy adorns the interiors of Albanian mosques, and there are Latin inscriptions in many Catholic Churches. That doesn't make Muslim Albanians Arabs or Catholic Albanians Latins. Really, who needs enemies with friends like these fellow Albanians?
dpjaexp (July 3, 2008 at 2:21 pm)
No people is 'more holy' than another. It's who you are, how you treat others and what you do with your life which is imbued with holiness - or not. That's not the message in this video. This video is a celebration of the Arbëreshë. That it has caused such a firestorm of debate speaks volumes about the complexities of Albanian identity. It's insulting to Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics or atheists to state that you're 'in' if you're Christian and 'out' if you're not.
dpjaexp (June 30, 2008 at 6:11 pm)
Moreover, the Greek government has done the unconscionable and used the Greek Orthodox Church as a tool to spread anti-Albanian sentiment throughout Greece, terrorizing its own Orthodox Albanian congregants with threats of excommunication if they dared use the Albanian language for worship. That kind of behavior is unthinkable in Arbëreshë areas of Italy, where both Greek and Albanian are used in the liturgy.
dpjaexp (June 30, 2008 at 6:00 pm)
I can understand that Arvanites feel themselves to be Hellenes, Greek citizens 100% and I'm not saying that they're not, in the same way I would never say that the Arbëreshë are not Italians. After 500 years, they're as Italian as possible. The difference is, the Arbëreshë wholeheartedly acknowledge their Albanian roots and have cultivated their language and traditions for 500 years in Italy. The Greeks have pressured the Arvanites to forget their links to the Albanians, and their language.
dpjaexp (June 30, 2008 at 5:54 pm)
Contrast this with what happened to Arbëreshë from their arrival in Italy 500 years ago to the present day. There are even road signs throughout southern Italy and Sicily written in the Albanian language.
dpjaexp (June 30, 2008 at 5:51 pm)
Muslim Çams were branded en-masse as Nazi collaborators, used as scapegoats and massacred or deported to Albania and Turkey. They were pawns in the Greek government's ethnic cleansing program in Epirus, and their homesteads and farms lie in ruins throughout northwestern Greece. Orthodox Çams were forced to stop speaking Albanian and a strict Hellenization policy was implemented from the Albanian border to the Gulf of Arta. Today, it is rare to find citizens in this area who openly speak it. |
