Bill Clinton tells the unusual story with the Albanian waiter in New York
2023-07-03 20:44:16PolitikëSHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Bill Clinton is decorated with the "Star of Appreciation for Public Achievements"
Bill Clinton made a historic visit to Tirana today. He ended his speech by encouraging young Albanians to feed on the ideas of unity and humanity.
He even recounted a moment he said marked his life, when an Albanian waiter in New York sat on his knees and thanked him for his contribution to Kosovo.
"My friend Nelson Mandela was a genius in the way he faced the attacks on him and he was kept in prison for a long time, but it didn't matter, he thought about how he would rise. The moment Mandela was released from prison and the black people were seeing Mandela, he saw a beautiful girl with sky blue eyes, she told him "You are my President" and he said "Yes I am for a while, but if you learn work hard, you can be a president". He tells a 5-year-old that she can become president. That's what I felt when I saw these kids today, I want you to keep it up, we need role models and sometimes countries with smaller populations can look to people as people to lead the way for us.
Ever since I left the White House, one time when I was in a restaurant in New York, when a waiter came to take my order, he put down the tray with the water and sat on his knees, he said "thanks to you my family is alive" and the other people I was with had no idea, I explained that he was an Albanian from Kosovo, he talked a little about family life and keep it up, don't put people down when they let you down. You have built a glorious thing. Once you were a gloomy closed door, now you are an open door. Thank you for taking the leadership of NGO women and taking them away from the terrible worries in Afghanistan, thank you for showing that we need to build a world where we can all live together, all the rest is background music."
Clinton gave a beautiful message at the end of the speech.
"Let me tell you, when you get to my age you wonder why people spend so much energy tearing others down for so little. It happens so fast, life flies by, it ends and all that counts is if you left things better than you found them, if your children have a brighter future if you came together instead of apart. And in these times when we are faced with the existential challenge that climate change presents to our lives, you say yes to these things and all other things are no longer valuable. Today you gave me a great gift, greater than honor, let me see what the future holds, in a place where the past could have killed it. Keep it up, God bless you!".
