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Writer and thinker, Bashkim Shehu was born in Tirana at the height of the Communist dictatorship. The Regime of Enver Hotxa persecuted his family as it did in relation to the majority of artists and intellectuals: his father was assassinated, one of his brothers committed suicide while in prison, his mother died after seven years of imprisonment and he, himself was arrested for a decade. He arrived in Barcelona in '97 and recently exhibited Tiran(i)a at the CCCB (Barcelona Contemporary Cultural Centre) where he showed the nefarious influence of totalitarianism on Albanian art. From his published works, "Confesión junto a una tumba vacía" – ´Confession together with an empty tomb´ - (Peninsula) and "L'ultim viagte d'Ago Ymeri" – The last journey of Ago Ymeri - (Meteora) have been translated to both Castilian and Catalan. Being a courageous person he is not afraid of saying what he thinks. And even though he has been through hell, he still believes in dialogue as an element of cultural development.Some say that globalisation is a threat to the minor cultures, but you defend that it brings wealth to culture. Enlighten us.The phenomenon of globalisation is something complex and I can't see how it can dilute differences. No, through contact among different countries, new combinations are created. One of the most prestigious experts on the subject, Arjun Appadurai, speaks of indigenisation: with globalisation, elements from other contexts are harvested, from other countries and other continents that are placed into a local context and transform it. Opening and contact are something good, which enable new mixtures. What seems to me as a threat to culture is commercialisation. This however, is not only global, but also happens at local level, that has to do with local products, that are not necessarily better than those from outside. Globalisation is not the same as commercialisation.
The recent international events, legitimate Hugtington's thesis on the civilisational conflict (Clash of Civilisations). You have your own perspective on the subject...I don't agree with Hugtington's view at all, which besides being superficial, has behind a political agenda with which I cannot agree. He speaks about civilisations, but the idea is of "civilisation and barbarism" and thus is misleading, once it hasn’t got a definition of civilisation. The concept itself has, furthermore devaluated itself in the context of social sciences, being a concept from early 20th Century.
My idea is of the dialogues among the different cultural currents, which I do not see as identifiable with countries or religions or nations. The cultural atlas is far more complex, even though there are specific traits of certain regions amidst states or even wider areas. I defend a dialectics among distinct cultures. The very differences between each one of them, can flow together, mix and then create new cultures. And that is what has always occurred, in particular in modem times, in the two last centuries.
In the discussions "Món i experiences" ("World and Experiences") on globalisation that you organised in '01 there was no representation from the so called anti globalisation movements. Why?Why should I have invited them? We selected people who had distinct opinions and different points of view on this process. But why ought they to be militants by the book? Then and there different perspectives were confronted and the emphasis was on the intellectual view point and not militancy. The anti globalisation movements aim at problems that are real but do not bring new ideas, they do not improve on what Franz Fan or Andre Gunter Frank said in the fifties. The novelty in this movement is the way they organise themselves and how they act: One time they gather in Australia, another in Porto Alegre. What is new is what comes from technology, the way how they can communicate at net era, that’s the only new aspect.
To live in Albania was a harsh experience for you. How can you explain the existence still in the 80's of dictatorships in Europe?In half of Europe there were dictatorship regimens that derived from the division of Europe by the winning War powers and that went on for several decades until the condition were ripe for the overthrowing of the system, until "fuel ran out". However until ’89 no one thought that the end was near. Everyone thought that it would last a few decades more.
In Tiran(i)a you teach the ruthlessness of Hoxha's regimen. What sort of influence did Totalitarianism have in the culture of your country?It hindered to the most of the contacts with exterior culture and it created an Albanian-centrist vision in the people’s mind, since it was a peripheral country. On the other hand, it developed a submissive intellectuality. However there were changes on the way to modernity, as for instance, the schooling and the urban development, even though in a very distorted way that nevertheless created the necessary potential for the change.
You are a foreigner who came as a refuge. Why Barcelona?In my country there was a situation of crisis and violence to a great extent. Two proposals were made to me by the Writers Guild offering me two possibilities: Austria or Barcelona. I chose the second because it is a great city and more over Mediterranean.
What would you say about the present cultural situation of the city?Barcelona is going through a process of opening up an international cultural visibility. But I think it suffers the same problems that there are in almost the entire Spain, of not being very European in the sense that it looks too much to its former Colonies and not to Europe. In what concerns the East, it seems to me that there is a deep ignorance of that region owing to Spain’s political past and to what the USSR stood for to the anti-Franquist part of the society and it looks like there is no reflection I believe that in the hearts of many leftist Spaniards they are on the other side of the "steel rope" it is almost as if there is an inhibition. Something similar occurs in relation to as how one regards Africa and Asia and that creates limitations.
The young generations are subject of exchange, who look for their own generation identity and try to do things their own way and I believe that this dialogue will be important.
Can the Forum of Cultures '04, help towards that aim?Yes, if it doesn’t succeed, it will not be because of lack of capacity and cultural potential. People with ideas are here. The practical means exist. If there are no bureaucratic hindrances it can result in a very interesting event for Barcelona and its international projection.
You are a writer and you have two books (published) in Spain.
Do you plane to publish or translate any further works?I don't write thinking specifically on a public. The reader is for me the great unknown. It is a bit of an occult character built by imagination. I hope that more works are published. There is interest from certain publishers on texts by me. If they are going to print them, that I cannot answer you.
Ricardo Nuno ::
May '02