Prishtina, 22 May, 2023
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, participated today in the opening of the Library of Adem Demaçi, within the Library Week.
It bears the great name of Adem Demaçi, activity and intellectual, unrepeatable. This is what Prime Minister Kurti said in his speech before the audience.
“But, on this special day, Adem Demaçi is the name of the prose writer of quantum love, that is, the name of the writer. The existence of this library speaks to us in the words of Adem Demaçi: “Imagination is mine, reality is yours.” And with this, baca Adem or his library, tells us that imagination has many autonomous and possible forms, while reality is their complex combination in actuality”, he said.
“As much as you want, as much as you want, make it a reality! Reality is in your will.” This is the motto that the library proposes to us, he added further, emphasizing that everything has been a reality here, but to love our reality, let’s exercise with the imagination that is inside these shelves of the Demaçi library, within the walls of the Bogdani library.
This library, according to the prime minister, will from now on also have the books of Demaçi, that Demaçi, who read and probably protected most of his prose in prison. So, according to the prime minister, every young person can find a way in it, can make a journey and meet a thinker and writer, characters and events to understand much more deeply their present, the city and humanity, but and the former present of the intellectual and militant who risked himself like no other for all of us.
Prime Minister Kurti’s complete speech:
The Honorable Rector of the University of Pristina, Prof.Dr. Qerim Qerimi,
Dear Daulina Osmani, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports,
The honorable professor, Bardh Rugova, chairman of the Governing Council of the National Library of Kosovo,
Dear Mr. Fazli Gajraku, Director of the National Library of Kosovo,
Dear Albanians, Arbërie and Diell,
Ladies and gentleman,
Sisters and brothers,
Dear participants,
Today we are opening the 20th week of the Library. The library is high technology, it is high archiving, it is high knowledge, and it also contains a sublime subject, thought.
That is why panels of researchers, archivists and librarians have been foreseen. Library week only does us honor, because it is culture for everyone, it is knowledge for everyone, it is taste for everyone. Before the library all are equal.
This library, from the personal, is coming and fulfills the equality of the public.
It bears the great name, Adem Demaçi, activity and intellectual, unrepeatable. But, on this special day, Adem Demaçi is the name of the prose writer of quantum love, that is, the name of the writer. The existence of this library speaks to us in the words of Adem Demaçi: “Imagination is mine, reality is yours.” And with this, baca Adem or his library, tells us that imagination has many autonomous and possible forms, while reality is their complex combination in actuality.
Art, history, science, politics, economy, technology, defense, as much as the crafts or muses of Adem Demaçi and of this nation of ours. “As much as you want, as much as you want, make it a reality! Reality is in your will.” This is the motto that the library proposes to us. Everything has been reality here, but to love our reality, let’s exercise with the imagination that is within these shelves of the Demaçi library, within the walls of the Bogdani library.
More than ever, we need to value the venerable present reading, not only for concentrated, more precise knowledge, but also for a specific form of patience, which is not provided by the multitude of modern electronic tools, but by direct connection with language, with solitude and with society, the aesthetics of the paper page.
Of course, the library will go even further in modernizing the tools at the service of the reader, in digitizing itself, but first it will try to keep the generation of technology close to that of the intimacy of knowledge and the research collective.
There is something essential in contact with the book. It is the measure of time, or rather the autonomous sense of time, that we call time. The more we leave ourselves captive to social media and other new information technology supports, the more we will read fragments, short texts, unclear messages, undefined meanings. All the more we will risk formation from this information. I believe that the panels that will take place this week will enlighten us a lot on the topic of free time and good education.
With the increase of information and social media, our time will be distracted, especially with the younger generation. If we do not return to the library, to concentration, then our ability to concentrate will no longer be our property. The more the time of reflection and response is shortened, the more our phrases will have less need for speech, less nuance and sensitivity in communication, will not have the rhetorical quality, the more our phrases will resemble each other.
The main victim of this degradation will be the queen word of philosophy from Plato to Kant, that is, Idea. Because the Idea needs long intimate reflections and patient and polite debates, for speaking in the other’s language. For this we need a book, where the author speaks at length and we listen attentively.
Technology brings us the news from every corner of the world, but the book brings us the reflection on events from every corner of time. Therefore, the Library is a thing that comes and goes freely between myth and history, therefore the library equalizes us before history. It is not only that library that is part of the list of wonders of antiquity, next to the lighthouse that illuminated the global darkness, in Alexandria of greatness, but it is also that library of the Bedouin prince that he took with him wherever he went, loaded on animals in the desert. But it is also that of Borges, the library as the absolute and infinite dwelling of man. It is the library of holy books, but also of the book where nature is written in the language of mathematics. It is the library that we find at our grandparents, but we know that with our underlines in a book, we will be able to talk to our grandchildren when we are gone. Because it is paper and pencil, the screen where we write in pieces of feelings and intuitions.
Let’s remember the great American poet Edgar Allan Poe, not only as the writer, but also as the lyricist and epic of electromagnetism, because the great writer also follows the development of the latest science with the hymn of his own body.
In a library, the world is still human, not statistical. This library will indeed have Adem Demaçi’s books from now on. To that Demaçi who read and protected probably most of his prose in prison. So, every young person can find on a path, can make a journey and meet a thinker and writer, characters and events to understand much more deeply their present, the city and humanity, but also the present former intellectual and militant who risked himself like no other for all of us.
There is no more profitable process than cooperation with the library. The system of references, one of the main topics of the panels, will apply precisely to this organization of time and research.
A well-organized library is a cost-effective process for fabrication with the highest form of matter, that is, thought. Awakening within us that intelligence and imagination that we have, but we have no chance to discover on our own, the library is perhaps one of the most important tools for society-state interaction.
Finally, let us recall the invitation made to us by one of the finest thinkers on art and language, Roland Barth. He does not tell us that if we read we will know more, nor that we will gain more authority or finance. He simply says that we will enjoy, we will live in an increased pleasure. And this means that we will resist more finely the taste that we acquire when we follow step by step the crystallization of talent in language and in life.
The people of Adem Demaçi, the people of Adem’s father who used the prisons as a library in the best way, there is no way not to use the library well for a more knowledgeable freedom.
It is not enough to read uncle Adem’s books and learn about him, but we must also go to the Adem Demaçi library, and to Adem Demaçi as a library, to read his books, but also to read the books that he read.
And for his books, I would guide the whole new generation to start with “So-and-so’s Quantum Love”, then with the book about “Self-Denial” and of course with “Blood Snakes”.
And if you, young men and women, read these three books, I guarantee you that you will then read each of its texts, and you will re-read it as long as you live and act.
I wish you success in this jubilee week, I wish we have as many libraries as possible, as many readers as possible. I wish long life to the Library. When the library bears the name of Adem Demaçi, it will undoubtedly live for a long time.
Thank you!
Last modified: May 23, 2023