Vérbosszú Albániában

Blood is to be revenged

Allahu akbar… sings the muezzin, and the speaker of the minaret amplifies the prayer making it thousands of times louder. The magnificent mountains around the town reverberate the sound of the song. We are in Shkodra, the biggest town of North Albania, on the land of hatred and revenge, where blood feud still daily, weekly claims for its victims and makes people murderers and mourners.

We have heard terrible stories from families who have been living in their home-prison for years because they do not dare to leave them homes fearing the blood feud. They are under ‘death sentence’. Like the man who had been living separated for many years and eventually could not stand it anymore and a month ago killed his own daughter and committed suicide right after. The mother and the three other children were with us at the church service. Or like that 22-year-old boy who visited the congregation and promised the pastor that he will help the work of the foundation established because of the blood feud, but was killed on the street with sixty bullets a few weeks ago. The pastor mentioned the plans of the died boy to his brother at the funeral but the later merely answered: the events overwrote it. Blood is to be revenged. And he will take revenge for his brother.

Or like the wife, the pastor husband of whom was killed at a central square exactly two years ago when he was taking his children to school. Instead of revenge, Elona chose forgiveness and decided to break the vicious circle. She turns against the ancient law of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ and does what she has learnt from Jesus: ‘does not repay anyone evil for evil’. A few years after the death of her husband she became the leader of her congregation and established the named foundation which visits and supports the families living in the shadow of the blood feud. She also tells us what goals they have set forth. First of all, they do a spiritual warfare against blood feud with regular prayers and the involvement of other congregations. Secondly, they wrote a petition towards the government asking it to deal seriously with the problem of the blood feud and to declare 8^th October Day of the Victims of Blood Feud (the day when Elona’s husband, Tani died). And thirdly, they aim to give spiritual advice to the blood feud affected families, a part of which is to play a conciliatory role between the families.

Elona, the young widow of the killed pastor and mother of two under age children said that blood feud resulted in sixteen deaths in the last two months only in North Albania. The youngest of them was a nine-year-old boy. The Word of Christ church makes regular demonstrations in the town. A few weeks ago, on the World Blood Donor Day, they made themselves seen by almost all of their members giving blood in the constructed tent spreading the message that blood needs to be given and not taken (the literal translation of the Albanian term for blood feud means: take blood). On the same day, early in the evening a grandfather was killed with his seventeen-year-old granddaughter who were working on the field. All of the victims were innocent as, instead of the killer, a member is chosen under blood feud to be killed from his wider family.

The origins of blood feud can be traced back to the middle ages. When the Turkish were islamising the Christian – mostly Catholic – population by force, those who were not willing to convert escaped to the high northern mountains. Their chosen leaders gave them laws similar to those of the Old Testament and used the ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ principle. This was the root of the tradition which considers it the gravest shame if the family of the victim does not take revenge for the murder. It is the obligation of the victim’s mother to remind the family each time they eat together to carry out the blood feud. The person chosen to be killed is safe only if he or she does not leave his or her home. Thus, now more than 3.000 people live in their house-prisons; in many cases ten-twelve families are crowded into a house. They cannot expect any kind of help from the authorities, except that the murderers might be arrested and be kept in prison for a while. This does not satisfy the vengefulness accumulated in the hearts and minds: blood keeps asking for blood.

Csaba Szakály