“Reading the future through the lens of the past, narrow-minded minds and toxic rhetoric from political and media arena, not just here in Greece but also in Albania and elsewhere in our region, feed off the rotten fruits of Balkan nationalisms and vent the poisons of history used as weaponry. This only benefits outdated policies and politicians who turn their backs on the future,” said Rama.

Meanwhile, Rama added, “reading our shared history with Greece through the lens of the future gives us thousands of reasons—just as many as the years that Albanians and Greeks have shared the sun in this part of our continent—to see in each other a value and an added strength on the inseparable path to the future. We should see each other’s territories as spaces for cooperation, development, and shared prosperity, rather than as fragments of old maps where the twisted trees of folkloric nationalism are cultivated.”

/sm/