Albania
Although up to now there is no final scientific answer as to whether criminals are born or "made", it seems that the "made" part is more probable. Anyway, what is almost certain is that the family is a place where most criminals are "manufactured". The "tools" used in this miserable process, in general, are: poverty, a violent male parent, divorce, alcohol, a home without books, etc. Of course, on the other end of the spectrum there are families with thousands of books (even for decorative purposes) in their homes, degrees from Harvard, manicured nails and lawns, etc, which families raise children of world class criminals, even as presidents, or as CEOs of "Agent Orange" and "Zyklon B" fame, or engineers who invent drones, and so on.
Albania's population is 3 million (that of Greece 10 million). About 70% of Albania's surface is mountainous. There is a mountain range that starts at the northern edge of Albania in an Alpine mode with mountain heights up to 9,000 feet (Mount Olympus of Greece has a height of 9,570 feet) and reaches the southern end of Greece. Unfortunately, much of the material that the mountains of the range consist of is what is called "flysch", a slide-prone material. A fact that makes the life of the people living on these mountains difficult. The frontier between Albania and Greece has a total length of about 125 miles (or 200 kilometers) and is very porous.
The consensus is that probably the Albanians who live on these northern high mountains are the descendants of a rather strange and very old race called the Illyrians. These Albanian mountaineers have lived isolated through the millennia, they are tall with dark hair and dark eyes, they are independent, honest, respect the value of the family, and are dignified. In the local language this country is called "Shqiperi" ("eagle's country"). The Albanians of the southern part of the country are quite different, they intermixed with Romans, Greeks, Venetians, Turks, etc., through history.
The core "structure" of humans is the same. An Albanian mountaineer, a Scottish highlander, or an American from Toledo, Ohio, have the same fundamental behavior. Yet, they differ in the outer layer of that structure, due mostly to the differences in the local physical environment, religion, and wealth. Of these the most important seems to be the factor of "locality" which through history has evolved into the notion expressed with the Greek word "patris"; the place that your "pater" (father) conceived and raised you. So, we ended up with the rather "evil" words of "patriotism" (the last refuge of a scoundrel), the "Patriot Act", Gaza, (sundry) Holy Lands, etc. Also, take the person from Toledo, if he visits say Paris and finds himself in an awkward situation with the Police or other brutal entity, he will use a very effective (patriotic) "shield" by shouting "I am an American".
For the Albanians religion seems to be a minor problem. They are not fanatically or zealously religious. Also, they were under a quasi communist rule for decades, which left them with a rational attitude towards religion. Nominally they are 70% Muslim, 20% Orthodox, and 10% Catholic. Unfortunately, they did not manage to avoid irrationality completely, as Albania is a full member of NATO and a US client.
As I have mentioned in another ZNet article when I was drafted in the Greek army in the mid-1950s I was ordered to sing, while marching, the usual ecumenical military "shit". One of the songs had the words: "I have a sister that is called Northern Eperos." Northern Eperos was and is part of Albania. Therefore, the young Greeks were reminded, by their US-supervised officers that they should claim back their "sister" by invading Albania or something like that. Finally, in 1992, the commies in Albania left and Samaras, the present prime minister of Greece, a great Greek patriot, a graduate of a US university, the son of a trendy cardiologist, and a rabid adherent of the "Washington consensus" visited the "sister" in Albania and opened the gates for a flood of Albanian migrants to Greece in the hundreds of thousands. This resulted in the usual humanitarian "use" of "lesser" humans by the civilized West and its proxies, e.g. Greece. For example, my civil engineering colleagues, "'used", very profitably, tens of thousands of Albanian males in the construction industry, building multi-story apartment buildings all over Greece, while the female counterparts of the Albanians inundated the Greek homes as domestic help.
Death in (biblical) Corinth
Five days ago, on Friday March 29, 2013, three Albanian males, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, held up a small restaurant close to Athens, they extracted about $350 from the owner, stole his car, and after the police started chasing them they drove towards Corinth, St.Paul's … favorite city. During the chase the Albanians started shooting against the police cars using the Kalashnikov. One of the bullets hit the asphalt, was reflected (as a light ray in optics), hit the back fender of a car moving on the opposite direction, traveled through the trunk, penetrated the back seat and the seat of the driver and killed the driver. The driver: Katerina, a 25-year-old woman. Katerina up to her tenth year fought leukemia. Then, after a sibling was born its marrow turned Katerina, a beautiful girl, into a happy and lively young woman.
The "leader" of the Albanian gang is a 36-year-old named Marion Kola, an extremely hardened criminal. Kola's main characteristic is his deep hate for any human. He will fire his Kalashnikov with abandon in a crowded street. On February 16, 2010, in Byron (an Athens neighborhood named after Lord Byron) he did just that against the police. The police fired back. The result: the 25-year-old Nicholas Tondi, a plumber, was killed on the spot. Tondi was an … Albanian immigrant. The bullet was a police bullet.
The Albanian migrants in Greece, for two decades, as expected, faced the perennial problem of humanity one might call: the "xenos problem". The origin of the Greek word "xenos" [stranger or foreigner] is unknown. However, in English the word "xenophobia" (fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners) could be the most important word in the history and culture of the US. A stranger or foreigner could be a human with "strange" black skin, a dirty Greek, a Latino, a Jew, a Jap, also the poor, the uneducated, the aesthetically not up to par, and so on. Maybe, as simians we are wired to consider, anyone who is not a member of our group, as a stranger and a foreigner.
[Strange Note: The Germans, fervent admirers of ancient Greece and the Greek language, and great innovators, as Nazis, in dealing with strange and foreign entities, scorned the highbrow Greek word "xenophobia" and use the Teutonic "Fremdenhass" (Fremd: foreign, Hass: hate). Also, in spite of having a scientific bent, they even ignored the word "xenogamy" ("xenos": foreigner, "gamy": copulation or marriage) and use again a Teutonic word. And not only that they use it only for … "pollination", so that their Protestant decorum should remain intact. End of Note.]
Anyway, the male Albanian immigrants in Greece that happened to end up in a Greek police station when they left the police station they simply hated not only the Greek policemen but the whole world. For example, in 1999 a 25-year-old Albanian carjacked a bus full of passengers in northern Greece and forced the driver to take it to Albania. When asked by Greek journalists why he is doing that at first he tried to avoid to answer, then he blurted that he was doing the carjacking "because the Greek policemen did to him what is done to women". When the bus reached Albania, the Albanian was killed by the Albanian police and a young Greek passenger was killed just for fun, in the presence of Greek policemen.
This from my ZNet Commentary "Racism; The Greek Variety" of July 2, 2001: "John Felekis, eyewitness of the shooting by Kazakos of Abdul Tsimoti, the Nigerian, nauseated when he heard somebody in a Police Patrol car say: 'They (the blacks) deserved it (the shooting)'." [Kazakos was a 23-year-old Greek Nazi who in October 1999 killed 2 immigrants and crippled for life seven others in a 7-hour shooting spree in Athens.] The Commentary goes on: "The policemen that arrested Kazakos expressed their relief by declaring that 'finally the Geeks have woken up.'" Also, "[a]s long as he [Kazakos] (decided) to kill, why didn't he kill ten Albanians to become a hero.' (The words of an Athens taxi-driver …)". Also, notice that Kazakos, the Nazi, did the killing 13 years before the Nazis entered the Greek parliament as officially-elected deputies.
The case of the Albanian females, as domestic help in Greek homes, though not physically but psychologically "violent" against them, from their Greek employers, was equally disappointing, as expected from white people. Of course, those Greek ladies that exercised their "aristocratic" behavior against the Albanian female help were a small minority, yet the harm against the Greek society was done. Some (again a small minority) of those domestic helpers have become informers for burglars, etc.
It is not unreasonable to expect that an Albanian, or a Nigerian, or an American from Toledo, will be forced to resort to violent revenge, even crime, against a society that tormented him.
Only Kola knows if he is a family-"made" professional criminal or a normal human forced to become a criminal.
Kola had worked in the Corinth area, as a laborer, for more than ten years and he knew the area as the palm of his hand, that is why he chose to escape towards Corinth. He and his accomplices by now are, probably, in Albania, through the porous frontier.
Also, by now Kola's hatred, whether "professional" or "manufactured" has pushed him out of the human race.
Bulletin from Athens:
– Hundreds (probably thousands) of young Greek doctors leave Greece and go to Germany (!!!) as immigrants. The same holds for engineers, at a lesser degree.
– The hunger is spreading all over Greece, especially in the urban centers. The worst cases are the middle class or even upper middle class people, especially women, who besides the pangs of hunger and depression have to deal with their shattered pride (and dignity) as educated and formerly well-to-do people.
– Gas stations in Greece are closing in the thousands, as cars are abandoned by the Greeks.
– The situation in elementary schools is worsening. The percentage of kids that daily go to school hungry is increasing. To compare today's situation to that of the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation of Greece, here is my personal testimony: As a pupil for four years in school, in Nazi-occupied Athens, I never saw a kid fainting in school from hunger.
– Young people, with university degrees, are driven to the country and become farmers.
– Greeks in the hundreds of thousands have not paid their electricity, water, and phone bills.
– A Greek with a monthly salary of about $600 had to pay $450 as tax and was left with $150 to survive for a month.
– The provocations by the Nazis are intensifying in an extremely vulgar way. Yet, in many parts of Greece the Nazis are in trouble, even beaten up.
– My estimate: Any attempt to use the army to suppress any uprising by the enraged and suffering Greeks, will fail this time around. Most soldiers have families that live in hunger. The Nazi inundated police cannot suppress a popular uprising.
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