"Rexhai Surroi" for the article that denounced abuses at the expense of patients and the demystification novel

The KOHA group on Thursday, in a solemn ceremony, continued the tradition of awarding the "Rexhai Surroi" awards. Time journalist, Saranda Ramaj, was announced laureate of the award for journalism written with the series of texts "Abuse of the fund for treatment abroad". The writer from Albania, Liridon Mulaj, has received the annual award for the best Albanian novel, for the work "Province". The promotion of the book "Short stories for a long day" authored by the journalist Enver Robelli, along with the artistic part, have completed the event that has already become traditional

The series of reports that exposed the misuse of the public budget in the name of the health of citizens with serious illnesses and the novel that treats the figure of the mother from different perspectives, have received the prestigious "Rexhai Surroi" awards.

The KOHA group on Thursday, in a solemn ceremony, continued the tradition of awarding the "Rexhai Surroi" awards. In this ceremony - where a rounding up of the annual events takes place - the journalist of KOŠA, Saranda Ramaj, was announced as the laureate of the award for journalism written with the series of texts "Abuse of the fund for treatment abroad". Writer Liridon Mulaj has received the annual award for the best Albanian novel, for the work "Province". The promotion of the book "Short stories for a long day" with the subtitle "An unusual chronicle of the 20th century", authored by the journalist Enver Robelli, together with the artistic part have completed the event that has already become traditional. This year, the 15th edition was held.

The penalty of memory

On behalf of the founders of the awards that bear the name of journalist, writer and diplomat, Rexhai Surroi, the writer and publicist addressed the attendees. Veton Surroi.

He said that "Damnatio memoriae" or "the punishment of oblivion" is a description in Latin of a phenomenon that is as old as humanity, that humanity that knew how to speak and write.

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He clarified that the phenomenon is the action of power - moral, religious, political, economic or all together to expel from memory the name or work of someone who is in opposition to that power.

"The exercise of 'Damnatio memoriae' began before this phrase was born in the 1984th century and continued with the exercise without knowing much about it. Throughout the XNUMXth century, the names of cities and streets have been changed, cultural institutions, airports have been named with the primary purpose of establishing the authority of the power in force. Almost all of us have experienced this, and those who are as old as my mother have experienced it several times, with the frequent change of powers", he said. It has been shown that George Orwell, although he described the phenomenon as part of totalitarianism, in the novel "XNUMX" gave the formula which gained universal application: "He who controls the past controls the future: he who controls the present controls the past".

"So, we live in the race to control the past, the narratives of the past, in order to control what the future will look like," said Surroi.

He brought up the experience when he asked his daughter Rea how she had spent a day at school. It is about the years when the Albanians had parallel education in relation to the Serbs in Kosovo.

"I asked him how it went and he told me that they had done Albanian language for 10 minutes, then 15 minutes of physical exercises, then 10 minutes of mathematics and 15 minutes of physical exercises and so on. The next day I would understand that in the building divided into two, the Albanian children did not have heating", he said. He then revealed that these days his son, Nuri, had shown him a civic education test.

"In the test, a drawing with a title was presented, which the students had to comment on and he wrote: 'With this picture I understand that we can be different, we have different races, different religions, different languages, but we are still equal'. Almost thirty years after Rea's memory, a new narrative is emerging which Nuri summed up with the final sentence: 'No one is more important than the other'", he said, adding that memory is also change.

Journalistic research that alarmed society

A journalistic investigation that revealed abuses not only with the public budget, but also with the health of the citizens brought a change. This year, the jury consisting of Binak Kelmendi, Majlinda Bregasi and Imer Mushkolaj has selected the research of KOHA Group journalist Sarandaj Ramaj to receive the "Rexha Surroi" award for written journalism.

On behalf of the jury, Majlinda Bregasi said that through a series of writings, suspicions about the misuse of millions of state euros in the name of treating seriously ill patients have been revealed.

"By approaching the research in the Health Insurance Fund, a closed and non-transparent institution over the years, it has been possible for the public to be informed in detail about what happened to millions of euros of public money," she said.

Started in 2021, according to Bregas, the research entitled "Abuses with the fund for treatment abroad" was concluded in May of this year, revealing the illegal way the program for treatment abroad functions. It has shown that this program has paid millions of euros to private hospitals for diseases that are not treated in the public system of Kosovo.

"Due to the mismanagement of funds in this institution, Kosovo currently owes Turkish hospitals around 30 million euros. After the publication of the research, the state prosecutor's office has started investigations...", she said.

The author of the series of articles, journalist Saranda Ramaj, has said that she believes that in TIME they have said everything about this case and it remains for the institutions responsible to address it, and the investigation to come out soon with concrete results.

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"I am very happy for the impact that the story has had and today it has been 75 days without a Minister of Health and it seems that the entire health system is being ignored by the Government at the moment", she said.

An intriguing mosaic of XNUMXth century history

From the confession about misuse, the atmosphere has changed colors with the promotion of the book of the journalist Enver Robelli, "Short stories for a long day".

Editor and publisher Flaka Surroi said that life is unpredictable and brings pleasant surprises, and perhaps this would be best illustrated by the inauguration. She said that, according to her, it is a very special work in the Albanian language. Speaking about the content of the book, she read two impressive stories.

"On April 30, 1945, at around 22:40 p.m., Soviet troops managed to break through to the top of the Reichstag in Berlin. The group of soldiers had a red flag with them, but no spear. They used a quiver instead of a spear and placed the flag on a sculpture of a woman. This scene remained unphotographed, because, most likely, no one shot there with a camera, so on the morning of May 2, photographer Yevgeny Haldei once again staged the event 30 hours ago: two Soviet soldiers raised the flag on the top of the Reichstag again Soviet red with hammer and sickle. A few months later Haldei retouched one of the two watches on the hand of the soldier who raised the flag to remove suspicions that it was a stolen watch. In those days, stealing watches was the favorite activity of the Soviet soldiers who were occupying Berlin...". After reading another story, he said that the other stories in the 240 pages of the work can be read pleasantly for the end of the year holidays.

"Or, whenever you want to have fun and through curiosities to understand a part of the history of the XNUMXth century, which was there, maybe we didn't know about it", said Surroi.

The author himself, who is a foreign policy editor in the Swiss newspaper "Tages Anzeiger", a columnist and contributor to KOHA, has said that the history of the 20th century is not only the history of great ideologies and wars, but also of small narratives. He has shown that he was impressed by how the whole history of the Cold War can be understood with the publication of the novel "Diktor Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak. "How an Italian communist goes to Moscow and is interested in new publications in the Soviet Union. He meets Boris Pasternak, takes the manuscript and brings it to Milan. From Milan he takes the plane to send the translator to Rome. But when the plane climbs to 8 or 10 meters, the pilot is notified and says that the flight will be aborted after landing in Malta. When they land in Malta, some service agents come in, take the manuscript, copy it for an hour and a half and send it to a publishing house in The Hague, and the novel is published in Russian in The Hague", he said a little of the work. Robelli also shared a story about how within five weeks the writer named Franz Kafka, while he was suffering from the Spanish flu, was a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and after waking up from the sleep of his illness he found himself a citizen of the Czech Republic.

"Province" that overturns even the figure of the mother

With another act, the attendees were harassed during the ceremony. "Provinca" by Liridon Mulaj has received the award for the best Albanian novel for this year, "Rexhai Surroi".

On behalf of the jury, Majlinda Bregasi said that today's man is overloaded with myths and demystifications. According to her, one often sees the mother as the source of problems rather than the other way around. He said that this has led to a confusion of this important figure for everyone.

"What is its role and function? What are the questions that we have unexpectedly asked the mother and where are the limits of her projections on her children. This so intimate and so conflicting relationship that comes to us from world mythology shows us how intractable it remains to this day. The transition from the figure of the mother to that of the partner and vice versa is the beginning of the story that with wisdom, knowledge, courage, sincerity, talent, a lot of talent, comes to us in the winning novel", she said.

The author said that he did not expect it as he sent the manuscript on the last day of the period when the competition was open.

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"I did not expect. I sent the manuscript on the last day of application. This is fantastic news. I want to thank the jury and the Surroi family from the bottom of my heart. It remains only to be very grateful to you. Pristina and Kosovo are a first home for me, despite the fact that I live in Tirana, every time I come, I feel at home", he said.

The ceremony ended with the performance of the soprano Arta Jashari, accompanied on the piano by Pranvera Hoxha. Jashari has neatly brought back three rare songs once performed by the nightingale of Kosovo, Nexhmije Pagarusha.