Full speech of Minister Kodheli at the “Mustafa Kemal Ataturk” High School

: Published: Thursday, 13 November 2014 13:01

I am very pleased to be here today. I will share shortly my impressions, being in a school. I loved much the school and the book, and they have made me have this career that I have and be what I am. So, I will share with you my experience, I wouldn’t say modest, because it is an experience that not everyone have passed, but I will share this lecture and lesson with you today, not because I am here today, since I have said it everywhere I had the opportunity to say it. Only learning and the book make you successful in life. No other stereotype the Albanian society creates, ‘that you can become someone without doing anything and easily’, can’t be your ideal, your hero. The sole stereotype that should be your guide is learning, hard, and having a very good friend who will never betray you, and this is the book. Even on your worst day, I assure you, the consolation the book will give to you, a poem, a story, a biography of a remarkable man is much better that any other consolation, it is always a window.

Our youth is often guided by models which are not necessarily the ones that should lead our society, not even our youth; they are all lies. It can be done, by the one who can; it can be done, by the one who works; it can be done, by the one who learns! Only then you become dignified, only then you have the right to ask. And we have the obligation to put dignity in the right spot, whenever this is absent, whenever it is not assessed, but only after you have learned properly. Allow me friendly, once I have been a professor at the University. I had a strong relation with the class, with the auditor for many years. I just want to say something, first as a mother of a son which is in a greater age than you, as a teacher, definitely as a person who deals with politics and without the slightest doubt as a person who lead our Armed Forces, which is the honor and glory of the Albanian society: learn, learn, learn. No one will dare if you are learned to lay down your head and take what is yours; a day will always come to show you over the others, over those who did not want to take this road, to follow this road, but has chose another way. It seems a shorter one; shorter than the long path of knowledge, but in the final wins the one that has followed step by step the path of knowledge, and I did not heard it or it was not said to me, I have proven it.

When I was in your age, but one thing I know very well, we had also entertainment then, you should not forget your entertainment, this is the most beautiful age for entertainment, but after you have fulfilled your obligations towards yourself, parents and society, because you are the people who will lead tomorrow and share with the others your experiences, as I do today. Experience definitely goes through school, goes through the class, and should go definitely through the book. You should touch it and not read it on the internet, if you do the latest, you have knowledge about things, with all the respect I have for the knowledge got today through an advanced system, as the Internet. Wherever you are, you can’t do anything without knowing. Not necessarily all of you should go to the university. A person who has a university degree in the pocket is not necessarily the most knowledgeable person, in fact it should.

You should feel it deeply and reflect yourself before you do it with friends and family. It is very important to experience your beautiful youth on which you will build your tomorrow, all your future, your professional activity, why not your family. Therefore, I appreciate the donation of these books, books that include a wide range of authors like Naim Frashëri, Migjeni, Fishta, Xhuvani, titans of Albanian literature. Read them, the pantheons of the Albanian Literature. I studied in primary school “Jeronim De Rada”, but I would like to mention Migjeni who is my favourite poet. Migjeni says: “laugh youth laugh, the world is yours”. The world is yours, but it must pass through the book.

I wish you success!