Graduation, “Public Service,” and Finding Democracy on the Road

Last Saturday I went to the graduation ceremony of my host university. Since the ceremony was held in Durres, which is about 24 miles (37.9km) from Tirana, it required a car trip.

While this post started out as a description of the actual ceremony and the lovely (though some would say over-developed) city of Durres, it evolved into a story also of what “public service” meant during the communist era and lessons learned about perceptions of democracy based on rules of the road.

PRE GRADUATION CEREMONY.  I arrived at the courtyard of my host school (see below) at 8:30AM to catch a ride to the graduation ceremony. For some reason, I thought I’d be traveling in a bus with a bunch of other people, but in reality I rode with one of the financial officers of the school and a faculty member I had not met before that morning in the financial officer’s private car.

Same as when I had traveled to Krujë and Shushicë, the traffic on the road leading out of town was heavy, particularly as we approached the several roundabouts we had to navigate.

The traffic in roundabouts can be a free-for-all with drivers jockeying for positions, three or four cars jammed into two lanes. As we approached one of these crowded and chaotic roundabouts, the driver, an Albanian who does not speak a lot of English, waved his arms to indicate all the traffic and exclaimed, “Democracy!”

Hmmm. Democracy as chaos? Well, perhaps. But for sure democracy as a system in which people can do as they please. That was my first lesson in perceptions of democracy based on the rules of the road in Tirana.

We made it through the roundabouts and avoided the crazy drivers (no! crazy cars!)on the highway and arrived  in Durres about an hour before the actual ceremony was to begin. The setting for the ceremony was the Hotel Adriatik. Click here for the hotel’s website.

The lobby and meeting rooms really are as beautiful as the pictures on the website, although the hotel itself is not as set apart from other buildings as the pictures suggest.

Since we were early, we walked through the lobby to the seaside terrace at the back of the hotel to have (what else?) a coffee.

As my colleagues and I sat and drank our coffee, we tried to make conversation but were hampered by the fact that one of us was a native Albanian speaker, one an Italian, and one (me) an English speaker.  The finance officer did a nice job of trying to teach me a few Albanian words such as “zemër” (heart) and “kokë” (head).

I also learned that he, my Albanian colleague (a man I estimate to be in his late 30s or early 40s), has only been driving for three years! I complimented him profusely on his skills, as he, like my colleague who drove to Krujë, was a careful and attentive driver.

Moreover, realizing that driving skills are new to most drivers in Albania given the ban on private ownership of cars during the communist era, gave me a new perspective on the way many Albanians drive.

And I also started thinking opening a driving school might not be a bad idea.

Or perhaps a driving school/lavazh/mekanik business . . . hmmmmmmm.

[Side note: the colleagues I usually eat lunch with were joking the other day about developing a rating system for Lavazhs – no stars for just a bucket and a hose, 1 star for a canopy, 2 stars if coffee was available, 3 stars if coffee, snacks and a television were available, 4 stars if a restaurant/bar was also available, and 5 starts if the lavazh offered all the above plus lodging.

We also talked of developing a Lavazh consulting business, where we would advise Lavazh owners on the best way to bring in business and offer “certifications” to Lavazh owners with superior business practices.

As we were talking, I looked out the window and saw two “Lavazh” signs and we knew of two other lavazh businesses within the immediate area.

My colleagues also noted they had never really noticed all the Lavazh signs until I pointed them out.]

Anyway, enough car talk for now. Back to Durres and its lovely beach.

Even though it was late September, the weather was quite warm (high 80’s/low 90’s) and people were on the beach in swimsuits and shorts.

Here are a few pictures I took from that terrace and the terrace off the conference room where the graduation ceremony was held:

The tragedy of Durres is that very little of the beach is visible from the main road that runs through the city because of all the development along the coastline.

One of the people I rode back to Tirana with noted that most of the development along the coastline was done without proper permission and without strategic city planning. He also noted that development throughout Tirana was destroying two vital natural resources: olive groves and orange groves.

Such comments give me pause to reflect on the delicate balance that has to exist in democratic societies between negative liberties (the freedom to do whatever you want) and one’s responsibility to one’s community. It also makes me wonder if, as societies grapple with democracy, are those negative liberties the first “freedoms” people embrace? And at what point does the pull of community start to balance out the desire to be free from any restraints?

That’s really the dilemma of common pool resources, isn’t it? I will return to this a bit later.

THE GRADUATION CEREMONY.  About a quarter to 11AM, we were told it was time to move to the conference room where the ceremony would take place. We made our way up to the fourth floor “Albania Saloon” conference room, which overlooks the sea and has a beautiful blue ceiling with twinkle lights.

As we stepped off the elevator, we were met with the sight and sounds of students and faculty in regalia, flashes from people taking pictures, and a general atmosphere of expectation and celebration.

I was directed to a rack of regalia and told to put one of the gowns on. I noticed that students and faculty were wearing the same regalia, the only difference being that the students' mortarboard were black and faculty tams were maroon. Here are some pictures of my colleagues and me and the general setting before and after the ceremony.

The Professor I'll be teaching Electoral Politics with and Me

My Office Mate (in orange) and Two Other Faculty Members

Preparing for the Ceremony

Right Before the Ceremony Started

Right After the Ceremony

At around 11AM, everyone was instructed to sit and the faculty marched in. As each of us approached the stage our name was called. We sat in two rows on a riser.

The program before the diplomas were handed out consisted of (I think this is correct. I am not sure as the whole program was, of course, in Albanian) the following:

Short speech by the rector.

Introductions of important people present.

Speech by Rexhep Meidani, former President of Albania and now chair of the board of regents (chancellors? I am not sure I have the exact name of the governing body correct) at my host university. Click here for more information about President Meidani. Fascinating man. An academic! He is also a member of the Club de Madrid, which is having a conference in Little Rock in December.

Speeches by three students. I assume they were the top graduates.

Something rather interesting happened during the speech by the final student speaker. The first two student speakers gave relatively short speeches, no more than 2-3 minutes. The last speaker seemed to go much longer, which I assumed meant he went over his allotted time. Every time he took a breath stop, the students in the audience would start clapping or saying, “Bravo!” I think this was a way to get him to conclude, although I could be wrong.

Assuming this behavior was a way to nudge a speaker to conclusion, I like it! It seemed good-natured but also made a clear point.

After the speeches, diplomas were handed out. A professor’s name was called and he or she would step down from the stage and then a student’s name was called and he or she would come to the front of the room to receive his/her diploma and have a picture taken.

This way of handing out diplomas was quite interesting in that different faculty handed out diplomas to different students based on the degree the student had earned. For example, a professor of civil law handed out diplomas to students graduating with degrees in civil law and a professor of criminal law handed out diplomas to students graduating with degrees in criminal law.

I even got to hand out a diploma J

POST GRADUATION CEREMONY. After the last diploma was awarded. The rector spoke again. I assume to confer the degrees. The students tossed their mortarboards in the air and we were off to the reception.

The spread at the reception was substantial: chicken on skewers, pizza, bruschetta, meatballs, phyllo dough bites, and assorted pastries. There was also wine, juice, and water.

As I was leaving the buffet, I woman came up to me and introduced herself as a faculty member from the University of Tirana that was working on the evaluation/accreditation team for my host university. She asked me to join her at her table.

At the table I was introduced to other faculty members. We engaged in small talk about politics and education, U.S. foreign policy, and other such matters. At some point one of the people at the table remarked that he thought the U.S.’s biggest fault was that the country was “over-resourced.”

I had never thought of the U.S. in these terms until coming here; however, I thought his characterization was in many ways accurate. I also thought that the abundance of resources in the U.S. may have been helpful in regard to allowing citizens of the new American democracy in the 18^th century to work through the tensions between negative liberties and responsibility to one’s community and fellow citizens.

If resources are indeed scarce, then perhaps the tragedy of the commons happens more easily, more quickly. People use up the common pool resources until nothing is left or the state steps in to take control. Once the state steps in, democratic governance is bound to wane.

But if the resources are plentiful does that allow more time for citizens to figure out on their own that they must share the resources for their communities and their nations to strive, to learn that they can indeed govern themselves?

That may be too simplistic, but it is worth some thought.

One more story was told at our table and that was the story of “public service” and “volunteering” during the communist era.

During the course of our table conversation, the man who had made the comment about the U.S. being over-resourced started talking about how one of the other people at the table had built the railroad in a certain area of Albania. I thought he was kidding, but he invited the woman he had made the comment about to tell the story.

The woman explained that during the communist era she was responsible for teaching not only in her subject matter but also to teach “Public Service” (She might have used those exact terms but something to that effect.). This consisted of actually doing things like building railroads and learning military tactics. She pointed out toward a slip of land that jutted into the Adriatic and said that for one month every year, she went there for training. She remembered specifically one time when she and two (maybe three) young women were locked in a bunker for two (maybe three days) to learn . . . well, I am not sure what they were to learn except how to survive with little or no provisions.

And she really had built a section of the railroad as part of her "public service" work.

Another woman I met later added more to this whole different concept of public service by telling me “volunteering” means something entirely different here than it does in the states. Volunteering during the communist era meant compulsory service to the state.

Good to know since I had planned to talk about “volunteering” in the Public Sociology class I will be guest lecturing in. I think I’ll steer clear of the words all together and use “civic participation” instead.

As I wind down this post, I offer one last observation about perceptions of democracy based on rules of the road.

On the way back home, we again ran into heavy traffic as we entered the outskirts of Tirana. On one road/street cars were just double-parked rather haphazardly and those trying to navigate were crowding into the only open lanes.

The driver waved his hands around as he had done that morning to indicate the chaos and said, “Democracy!”

One of the passengers, a man who had lived in the U.S. for sixteen years and had worked as a truck driver during his time there answered,

“No. This is not democracy. In a democracy the police would be handing out tickets.”

I inferred he meant to anyone not obeying the law regardless of his or her rank or position or connections. Equal treatment. Due Process. The Rule of Law.

That was my second lesson in perceptions of democracy based on the rules of the road in Tirana.

Mirupafshim!

Oh two last pictures taken at the grand entrance to the Hotel Adriatik. These were taken as students and faculty were preparing their their official group photo.