A story to tell the child inside me!
2025-05-17 17:01:00
Manjola Lloja Bushati
Today, as everywhere I look, people are talking, writing, supporting, and cheering for Shkodra Elektronik's "Zjerm" in the Eurosong Contest, I feel like telling a story.
Beatriçja and Kola live abroad. There they were formed as artists and began their experience. This has not prevented all their inspiration from being Albanian. On the contrary, as their group name clearly states, they are from Shkodra, Albanian music brings them their muse and they reinforce it with the current they belong to, electronic.
I have known them artistically since early on. I have liked them from day one. I have followed them as they sang in the small venues of Tirana, in the half-empty theater hall, in the deeply artistic and innovative video collage they produced with Kube Studio, on the improvised ZaFest stage at the Rozafa Castle, where hundreds of hands kept the rhythm of "Vaj si kenka ba dynjaja", and Beatriçja paid homage to an emblematic figure in Shkodra folk music like Bik Ndoja.
And then I saw them at the Festival.
At that festival that many saw as a completely inappropriate scene for them, that many presumptuously judged had announced the winner months before it was held.
But the opposite happened. They won.
I've said it often, but let me put it in writing here. The end-of-year festival at RTSH, not only because of the song it chose to represent our country, could be synonymous with the word dignity.
I remember talking to my artist friends and not only, that the victory of "Zjerm" was not just about the song. There was a wave of joy and fulfillment that good, right, won, that the opportunity was given to someone who, to reach that stage, did not necessarily have to go through the stages (read the schemes) of the competitions that often happen in our country. Were there any voices against it? Yff, as much as you want. They still have. Even those who hold art hostage in this country are often against it. (Any resemblance to specific people is intentional).
Today, almost 5 months later, it seems that "Zjerm" by Shkodra Elektronik has included many angles. But while I have heard and read so many reviews and analyses of the music and lyrics (from maestro Robert Prendushi to CNN), I don't want to dwell on the song at all. I don't feel at the right level/ability to comment on it as much as I enjoy it.
I want to talk about this representation through the eyes of a sociologist, as I am.
I want to draw attention to Bea's embrace when father Mario arrives in Basel, to her dress where artist Irina Dema, (who is not coincidentally her mother) has collected the entire "museum" of her grandmother's house, to the childish tears when she sees Ermonela Jaho's post dedicated to their representation.
I want to focus on the behavior of a lady almost embarrassed by success at an age somewhat ripe for childlike joy, which is so clearly read in Kolë Laca.
I want to highlight the extraordinary ability that art has to unite people, to highlight the good. I want to say how important the family you grow up in, communication between yourself, freedom of mind, the removal of any inferiority, no matter how small the country you come from.
I want to tell myself that even if they don't win the place they deserve tonight, and we all hope so, with them a dream has been won, and a hope has been won.
In our easily shaken world, with Shkodra Elektronik humanity has won, and the often unfounded belief that you can succeed by being yourself, by being inspired by the past, by building the future the way you know how, the way you want, the way you are.
Today, I want to tell this story to the child inside me, who I carry with me with great difficulty.
I want to show it to my daughters.
Thank you for giving me/us the opportunity to believe it!
