Podujeva, 26 November, 2023
“Today we have gathered for one more tribute and for a more solid image of our great political man, Adem Demaçi, the writer, Adem Demaçi, the man of the people, Baca Adem. A unique personality, in his actions and with his language, in self-sacrifice for others and in our beloved Albanian”, this is how the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, begins his speech at the unveiling ceremony of the statue of Adem Demaçi, in Podujevo.
Furthermore, Prime Minister Kurti said that for us, as followers of his efforts, it will always be difficult to define personalities of this magnitude, but we must define them in language and in stone, because these are the two rails on which it rests our train of history.
“The hero may be alone in life, but he is never an orphan in history. With this intuition that unites the poet and the warrior, the will of Adem Demaçi easily keeps a third of his life in prison”, said the prime minister and added that Adem Demaçi raises his freedom over the breadth of lands, over the geography of the will.
“Happy 28November of Flag and Independence to everyone! Congratulations for this memorial to our strongest sufferer, for the greatest experience of love for freedom”, said the Prime Minister at the end of his speech.
At the end of the ceremony, the statue of Adem Demaçi was unveiled.
Prime Minister Kurti’s complete speech:
Dear Demaçi family, dear Albanian,
The honorable Mr. Shpejtim Bulliqi, mayor of the Municipality of Podujeva,
The honorable former President of the Republic, Professor Fatmir Sejdiu,
The honorable artist, sculptor Mr. Agron Blakçori,
Your Excellency, Ambassador of the Republic of Albania, Mr. Petrit Malaj,
Honorable Vice President of the Assembly of the Republic, Saranda Bogujevci,
Dear Members of Parliament,
Dear Ministers of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo, Sweden, Macedonia and the Czech Republic,
The Honorable Governor of the Central Bank of Kosovo, Ismaili,
Dear representatives of state and municipal institutions,
Dear veterans and invalids of the Kosovo Liberation Army, former political prisoners,
Ladies and gentleman,
Dear guests, sisters and brothers,
Today we have gathered for one more tribute and for a more solid image of our great political man, Adem Demaçi, the writer, Adem Demaçi, the man of the people, Baca Adem. Unique personality, in his actions and with his language, in selflessness for others and in our beloved Albanian.
So we need a deep tribute to such a comprehensive spirit, because it took great courage to keep such a free spirit. It takes an infinite consciousness to hold an inexorable knowledge.
For us, as followers of his efforts, it will always be difficult to define personalities of this magnitude. But we have to define them in language and in stone, because these are the two tracks on which our train of history rests. Over the range and the tower. We wish that our monument dedicated to our hero of the thought of freedom, be both a tower and a tongue, according to the frantic request of Adem Demaçi himself to the commander-in-chief Adem and Jasharaj, I am quoting:
“Speak a word”
Fly, my verse
Fly over the towers of Jasharaj in Prekaz
And read Sat Nokshik’s poster
Poster written in blood on snow.
Dear attendees,
The hero may be alone in life, but he is never an orphan in the story. With this intuition that unites the poet and the warrior, the will of Adem Demaçi easily keeps a third of his life in prison. In the life of a nation, the hero speaks to the hero. They are the pinnacles of expression and history from which our superiors of inspiration communicate. Because, Adem Demaçi elevates his freedom over the breadth of lands, over the geography of the will. Just like Ndre Mjedja, when he called the Albanians, he went to the mountains around Albania, to see where freedom came from. Adem Demaçi shared the weight of the prison with the minds of the greats of this nation, so the prison did not seem heavy to him.
Those who really live, are not frequent. They have an incomparable virtue: their expression is equal to their life. Adem Demaçi, writer of militant thought, and Adem Demaçi, activist of emancipated imagination, teaches us from his early youth, a high directive for all of us: when dictatorship does not threaten freedom, we must doubt freedom. This great man, to whom today we solemnly raise the weight of the stone, turned freedom into a condition of existence and an absolute intimate experience. Such an experience of freedom deserves a monument and more. This monument and the words that will accompany it in the decades have one goal: at any time and in any peace they must show us that we do not belong to any order of merit, but we removed the reference to Baca Adem, as a gigantic experience of the storms that faced him and the strongest sufferer of freedom under any condition.
Adem Demaçi rests in peace because he lived to the fullest. So he had his own motto: there is no point in a life without the justice needed to keep it alive. And today we are announcing, between us and in front of everyone, that this memorial will declare before generations a double virtue of society: this memorial is both a sign of courage and a burden of justice; that we promise ourselves as a guarantee of a worthwhile future; memorial also for our mind ahead, according to the remembrance of him who does not leave us.
Baca Adem was a very angular figure of reality. Intoxicated with the love of literature, a bearer of love that can only be quantum, a journalist of free speech in mature youth, a peace prize winner in the maturity of life and a political representative of the liberation struggle in late maturity, human because even loving and true, whenever, wherever and with anyone until the end, this is a sequential life reached perfection. An authentic and rare man, whom academician Rexhep Qosja calls “a writer for all time”.
I am finally quoting the missing great of our nation, Ukshin Hoti. After awarding the Sakharov prize to Baca Adem, before he himself was dissolved again in prison, he says: “Adem Demaçi is a living story in motion and as such commands not only respect, but also love; not only love, but also determination”.
Dear citizens and officials,
Happy November 28 of Flag and Independence to everyone! Congratulations on this memorial to our strongest sufferer, to the greatest experience of freedom love.
Thank you.
Last modified: November 27, 2023