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The surprising truth about Albanians in Britain

2022-09-04 19:13:59Fokus SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The surprising truth about Albanians in Britain
Olti Bokçiu, co-owner of 'Illyrian Grill House', an Albanian restaurant in Palmers Green, with his two employees

Jonathan Margolis – The Telegraph

In a traffic jam on the M4, a black Mercedes SUV pulls up next to me. Through his tinted windows, I see the driver wearing dark glasses. He looks a little mean. As he moves forward, I notice the license plates that identify the car as Albanian. He may have been a surgeon or a professor, but I may also be biased.

I remember my first visit to Albania in 1985, when it was the North Korea of ​​Europe, with no other cars except those of high officials of the Communist Party. Travel was also forbidden, brown state trousers, the only clothing allowed for men, and talking to a stranger was punished by the dreaded State Security police.

Albania's leader, the smoker-turned-revolutionary Enver Hoxha, considered the Soviet Union and China inadequate communist countries and turned his country into an isolated, paranoid outpost. In the late 1980s, it was one of the last places on Earth where you could still find busts of Stalin in public squares.

Today, Albania is a democratic country, a candidate for EU membership and a member of NATO. But it is full of corruption and nepotism. It is ranked 110th out of 180 countries evaluated by the latest corruption perception index of "Transparency International". Albania is also known as a source of a large number of refugees.

Arguments are heated about their numbers and legal status, but Albanians and their cousins, the ethnically Albanian Kosovars, often provoke outrage in Britain. "Not a single Albanian should be granted asylum or allowed to apply for it," commented a Telegraph reader recently. "Straight to the airport and home."

But, I wondered, are there normal, decent Albanians who will become proud British Albanians? I was keen to get a more rounded picture of Albanians in Britain. My little journey of discovery began at 'Illyrian Grill House', an Albanian restaurant in Palmers Green, north London, on a suburban street that turned out to be a kind of Little Albania. The first lesson was that Albanian businesses do not 'scream' to be Albanian. "Mediterranean" is the usual description. The second is that 'Illyrian' serves a massive and delicious Albanian breakfast, with homemade salami, Albanian cheese, fried eggs, olives and fried peppers that are 'boiled' for space on the plate.

It's full of nice families. The charming staff, all Albanian and in partial national costume, were welcoming. That evening, my partner and I enjoyed a sumptuous dinner and also met the co-owner, 33-year-old Olti Bokçiu. We tried dishes like grilled sea bass marinated in oil and white cheese and an Albanian classic, Tavë Dheu – beef liver cooked in a clay dish with peppers, tomatoes, garlic and (more) cheese – all accompanied from an excellent Albanian red wine.

Bokchiu, a serious young man, was surprised that I had been in his place before he was born. He has a business degree and also owns a construction company. He prefers Albanian and Polish workers, but he proudly told me that he had hired an English manager and wants to employ more local people. He opened the restaurant only 18 months ago.

Most of the customers are Albanians. On the walls are photographs of Albanians known as Mother Teresa, national costumes in museum-style display cases and a wooden bust of the national hero, Skanderbeg, a 15th-century warlord.

Does Bokçi see his future here? "Of course I will stay. I also have two brothers here, they have wives and children in school. Everything I have, I have because of this country. This is why I have the flags of the United Kingdom and Albania side by side in my office. There is as much work as you want in this country." In two hours of conversation, we heard not a single complaint. Few people born in Britain can go this long without a complaint about Britain. Also, he wouldn't let us pay, - Albanians are very hospitable.

The lack of complaint was the same in my next conversation, with Adelina Morina, a 43-year-old accountant for a global software company. Morina was born in Kosovo and came here in 1992, 13 years old. When I explain my suspicion about the Mercedes with Albanian license plates on the M4, she smiles and shrugs. "There is good and bad everywhere," she says. "I encountered prejudice when I entered the workplace. People didn't believe in me and things were difficult until I showed them and they saw my potential."

She agrees with Bokçi's pro-British view. "I have spent more than half my life here. I like it. This is a land of opportunity. You may not want to take them, especially if the payment is not large. My parents taught me right from wrong, and you can't condone illegal immigration. But it's easy to see why people risk so much to come here. Albania is beautiful, but there is no protection from the law, nor from the health system. There is no proper infrastructure". When I was a young single mother in the financial crisis of 2008, she says, I worked three or four jobs to raise my child.

Does she hang out with the Albanians here? She is close to her sister in Hertfordshire, a senior manager in pharmaceuticals, and sometimes goes to an Albanian pub – the Queen's Arms in Kilburn, which, I was surprised to hear, is owned by Rita Ora's parents. singer originally from Kosovo. The bar serves Albanian food and has live Albanian music. "It's a comfortable environment," says Morina, "and it's nice to speak Albanian." But not very often."

Next, I head to Kings Road in Chelsea to meet Klentiana Mahmutaj, a charismatic 44-year-old barrister born and educated in Tirana, and perhaps – after Rita Ora and her fellow singer Dua Lipa – the highest-profile Albanian in Britain.

The surprising truth about Albanians in Britain
Lawyer Klentiana Mahmutaj, 44 years old, is one of the Albanians with the highest profile in Britain

In Tirana, her parents were opponents of Hoxha's regime. Young Klentiana became fascinated by British history and now, years later, is married to a British lawyer and has a son named William.

As a lawyer, she has prosecuted official bodies including the Environment Agency, the Serious Fraud Office and the Metropolitan Police – and is proud, as a foreign-born woman, to have the security clearance that allows her to do such a responsible job . "In Albania, nepotism is such that I would not be able to become a lawyer", she says.

As a central conservative active in human rights, Mahmutaj is in conflict with the issue of Albanian immigration. She believes that the prospects for Albanians in their country are limited by corruption, but insists that the United Kingdom must open its borders. She favors a pragmatic policy of being open to incoming Albanians, which could be useful for a Britain with a shortage of labour.

However, she opposes the media and politicians who imply that all Albanians are criminals by highlighting the ethnicity of the few convicted. "Actually it's not incorrect, but to stereotype and paint that whole country with the same brush and bash them, I think it's wrong. But I have never felt the subject of racism or xenophobia, which is incredible. When I share stories with other Albanians in continental Europe, they don't have similar experiences."

"Albanians are talented people," she says. "We are only 3.1 million inhabitants in Albania, but we have made great contributions here and around the world in academia, in science, in medicine, in banking. It is up to each of us to say with pride that we are Albanian instead of hiding it".

Like Olti Bokçiu, Mahmutaj also has an Albanian flag in his office. "Britain is home and this is my country, but it's very important to remember who you are and where you come from."


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