Daisy Sindelar: I wanted to start by talking a little bit about your childhood. You were born in 1984. It’s a significant year to anyone who has read Orwell. But it's also significant for you, being born in Albania, because Albania was still living under a communist system and just years away from really significant change. Tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up in Albania. 

Amari Fecanji: Yes, indeed. I do think and feel that I was born in a very Orwellian reality in Albania. Of course, I do not have that recollection as a child myself, but I do know through early childhood memories and through the testimonies and the stories and the lived post-trauma of the people around me, my own family and the communities, that it was a very harsh reality. 

The 1980s in Albania was a period of extreme isolation from the rest of the world. It was a paranoid dictatorship, a one-man show, a cult of the individual where this man took care of everyone and we were independent of the world. No connection to the East, no connection to the West. Unfortunately – I don't like the parallel – but a North Korea of Europe, as many people like to call Albania of that time. 

We lived in this typical, we say, Pallate para fabrikuar, which means these sort of communal, typically Eastern European apartment blocks where we lived in a very small studio apartment with just a bed and this tiny oven. These were literally the first memories of my childhood. And I remember a sort of extreme poverty. I was raised by my mother, just by her, because my parents did break up pretty early on. It was tough in many, many ways, indeed.

You've described a childhood where maybe there were some differences between rich and poor, but they weren't that visible – that everyone was struggling more or less with the same conditions of poverty. And so all of a sudden everything changes in Albania [with the collapse of communism in the early 1990s]. What was that like through the eyes of a kid? 

It was really traumatic. Really. I can say with confidence that it was pretty traumatic from that moment on, because even though the ‘80s were very difficult, I think we kind of did have a sense of order, there was a sense of structure, you know. And then – I cannot say it was within a day or two, but it was so fast and dynamic and everything was changing. And there was the idea that this thing that we had been born into, it just collapsed. And then there [were] these new words of freedom and democracy. And this was a [thing] that was not known before that, at least not for me. And then at some point it was like ‘Democracy, freedom.’

But that also came with chaos, violence. There was this idea of insecurity, that you felt like the police are not there anymore to ensure safety. Workers can't go to work anymore. There are no more salaries. There's no more money, no more food, and people are running away. They're going to Italy, to Greece. So all of that was just chaos, things falling apart. But also new. And I guess we kind of entered into this modern parallel world of sorts, right? And us kids were just kind of absorbing that as it came. I remember watching Michael Jackson, Madonna – I have these very vivid memories of those two, you know, mega pop stars. And I remember dancing to Michael Jackson, trying to do his choreos in the flat. You know, it was just all of that. 

What did the world look like to you as you were growing up through this period of change? And by that I mean, did you associate with being Albanian? What were the other countries you thought about when you looked at the world? What did it look like to you? 

I think I remember very well the disappointment in people, the sense of betrayal. I recall that they would say, ‘Enveri na la prapa,’ which means like, this guy, this dictator has left us behind.

To be Albanian was suffering in a way, and it kind of matched my own living experience, you know, as a kid – not really being wealthy or going through lots of challenges as a family, as a community. It kind of all made sense in a way. 

I did travel to Greece for the first time when I was 10. And at that time I had already experienced discrimination as a person, to be honest with you. I had already gone through this sort of ill-treatment for being raised by a single mom, right? Society was very conservative in Albania at the time. It still is now, but back then it was even more conservative. So I remember having a very rough childhood, also in terms of what today is called bullying. Back then there was no such concept of bullying, but it was kind of being ill-treated. And going to Greece, it [meant] developing this sort of additional layer of identity, because I realized that here, they're not hating me for being the son of a single mom, for example. They’re hating me because I’m Albanian. 

I want to ask you about another layer of otherness or feeling different, and that was understanding that you were gay and what that must have been like. You're growing up in an extremely conservative society where there was probably no public conversation about being queer or being a member of the LGBT community. What was that like for you? 

I remember actually being very much attracted to both female and male classmates, for example – very platonic, but still quite romantic, but very confusing. There was really zero reference and I was quite thin and slender. So everything was, you know, kind of [a mix of] shame and confusion and some type of fear that, ‘Oh my God, what if people discovered I have these feelings? What would they say? What would they think?’ And society was really like – there was like a complete taboo over this. And that was my life, I think, in my hometown until I finished high school. 

You went to an American university, first in Tirana and then in Athens, and you went straight into political science and international law. And obviously that laid the path for your future activism. So I want to ask: why the American university, why political science – what drove you down that road? 

This was really my mother, to be honest. She saw a TV ad for this new university in Tirana. And it was University of New York Tirana. And she was like, ‘Look at this university. This seems so interesting. It has an English curriculum. It's international. They seem to be really modern.’ And I remember being like, ‘Why, why? No, that's like a private school. You don't want to do that. We don't want to spend [that kind of] money. We don't even know how much it costs. I should just, you know, apply for a public university and just go to a regular university.’ And my mom was like, ‘No. You have to go and you have to ask how much it is every year and so on.’ So I did go there and then I went back home and my mom was like, ‘Okay, it's going to be a struggle, but we're going to make it happen. And you're going to get this education.’ I was so privileged. I was so lucky. And I will tell you the very first impressions of being in this uni and the first classes and courses. We had really good professors. The professors were brilliant, very good. And I remember that a lot of them who were teaching us things [like] sociology – I can't remember the classes now – but they were always asking, ‘What do you think?’

They were asking us, the students, what do we think? And I remember being so impressed by that because we were coming – all of us – from this Soviet-style education system where the teachers were actually allowed to be violent. Literally. And the parents were encouraging the teachers to be violent with the kids. It was that kind of Orwellian sort of reality. And I remember being like, whoa, they care about our opinion! And I couldn't shut up because I just felt the desire to be heard, this calling to be heard. 

What was your impression of the United States growing up? Was it a place that you dreamed of traveling to? 

For me, you know – my personality, my character, the things I'm drawn to – the U.S. from the ‘90s has always been this sort of space of creativity and free-spirited people where everything feels possible and, you know, there's a certain sense of vibrancy. People being able to be themselves, and this message, I guess, that the U.S. portrayed. A lot of diversity, people of different ethnicities and skin colors and backgrounds, kind of being in the same neighborhood and dancing to music and playing basketball at [the public] courts. Like all this kind of vibe and energy. I was really drawn to that. I appreciated that. 

I will say this, though – that for us, as Albanian people, especially in the ‘90s and the 2000s, the U.S. represented a strong point of reference because the establishment of Albania as an independent country was ensured by the creation of the League of Nations back in the 20th century. And back then it was the American president, Woodrow Wilson, who advocated passionately for the rights of small nations to exist, free from those hegemonic multicultural empires that back then were still ruling most of the planet, right? The British and the French and whatnot. For me, the U.S. represented a country that, even though there were so many challenges and difficulties, it still stood for values that you could see they truly believed in. And I think that was a good reference for me back then.

So when you went to the United States for the first time, what surprised you? 

So my first trip to the U.S. was quite late. I was working for an international LGBT network for the Western Balkans and Turkey. And we were partnering with the World Bank at the time, and we were doing some very good research on the economic impacts of discrimination. How it adds a layer to the challenges that people face when it comes to poverty, unequal access to the market, and so on. And I had to go to the U.S. because the World Bank headquarters are in DC. 

There wasn’t a cultural shock in a way, but in many ways there also was a cultural shock because I remember the abundance and consumerism and people holding these huge bags and shopping. In Southeastern Europe, it's not something you see every day – where people are consuming so much. And I remember [that making an impression]. I was like, ‘I think people here work to shop.’ But on the other hand, I enjoyed the amazing people that I meet every time I go to the U.S. And I've always appreciated, to be honest with you, the tremendous effort that the U.S. has put into Southeastern Europe, the Western Balkans, and Albania for so many years. The political and aid support of the U.S. in Albania – for justice reform, you name it, for human rights, health, education – has been tremendous over the years. That was the vibe. I was like, ‘We are in a country that is, you know, a friend.’

I could see the inequalities and the injustice and the consumerism and all of that. But you kind of balance it out – each country has its challenges and of course the U.S. has its own. In Europe, for example, if I were to draw a comparison, people have this sense of, like, sophistication. I mean, you go to Paris and you go to London and you go into some neighborhoods of the cities and you can feel the history and the sophistication and whatnot. But sometimes in these kinds of cities and places, they will really treat you badly for being Eastern European, for being Albanian. They will just treat you terribly just because of where you're from. And that's it. They don't care. No reason. Just because of where you're from. Whether it's racism or anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-fraud. Doesn't matter. Whereas in the U.S., I really never felt that. I never felt like, ‘You're from Albania, Eastern Europe, hmm.’  Sometimes people would be kind of a bit passive-aggressive, but the majority of people were like, ‘Oh, tell me more!’ 

And one thing I enjoy in the U.S. a lot – which doesn't happen in Europe, as far as I'm concerned – but in the U.S. you’ll be walking and people look at your shirt and they like your shirt. They're like, ‘Such a beautiful shirt!’ And you’re probably walking and you’re a bit sad or thinking about some, you know, work assignment or whatever. And then this person gives you this beautiful positive energy. It happened to me a couple of times and I was like, ‘This is kind of nice! Like, I don't mind this, you know?’ Yeah. So that kind of energy definitely is what I keep at heart for the U.S. mostly. 

Did you have occasion to see people who were perhaps not as prosperous, and what life was like there for people who were not wealthy in the United States? 

Yeah. Yeah. I think especially in New York, that was quite visible. But also in DC, you know – walking the streets, you'd see homeless people. You could also see the racial inequality because you would see that if people would be, you know, of a poorer background, they would usually be of a certain ethnicity, a certain skin color. And that's something that I am very sensitive about. I am anti-racist to my core, because I do have this deep personal experience from childhood of how hurtful it is, how counterproductive, how evil, even, it is to treat someone differently just because of who they are. 

You know, in Europe, even in the poorest countries, there is a welfare system, right? There is free school, free education, free hospitals – like, even the basics. Of course, they're not excellent. I mean, the Albanian health system is so far away from the American health system, right? In terms of technology, innovation, and quality of service. But it's also not something that we have to, you know, spend so much of our income on to get basic service for, right? And these are things that I don't understand, in my heart. I understand the politics, I understand the background. But I don't understand in my heart how and why the U.S. public is still struggling to just agree on something as simple as that, and be like: We have to have help for everyone, education for everyone. So that everyone gets a chance to build something. 

Let's talk a little bit about Donald Trump and his presidency. What has stood out for you most in the past few months? 

I think that for me personally, from the beginning of the new administration, I think that there was a lot of shock – maybe that's the word to use – at the magnitude of change. It seems to be a strong message from the State Department, from the government, from this political establishment of the moment saying, ‘Whatever [once] was of the U.S. – that's gone.’ That's the impression I get, right? That these things that I considered personally, as an outsider and as a friend of the U.S., as something that’s in the DNA of the U.S. – to see that that's not [the case] anymore. Like, ‘No, we're getting rid of that.’ 

This is now a sort of reality of the strongmen of the strong countries. The geopolitics of the day is such that China, Russia are not democratic countries. They are ruled by strongmen or by very strong systems of political organization. And I think that maybe that’s something the U.S. is trying to portray as well in the international arena – saying that we're caring for ourselves first and we’re not really going to do this international solidarity thing anymore. 

And this international solidarity of like-minded countries, and especially democracies, is so crucial in defending those specific countries – countries like Albania, for example – that are going through these processes of transition. And to see the U.S., which was kind of a protector of that, give up on that position, I think is overwhelming and challenging. And at some point I was really, really very pessimistic about it. But right now, maybe, I also see it as a sort of opportunity in a way – for Europe to kind of get more coherent and not, for example, to rely so much on the U.S. when it comes to their defense, and to be more autonomous and more independent and to take care of themselves when it comes to that. 

So there are opportunities and challenges with everything that happens in the world. But it's not clear to me where the U.S. is going at this point in time. What is their role going to be when it comes to human rights, to values, and to issues that are contested in the world, [at a time when] there's a lot of bad things happening. For example, with queer people, sexual minorities, gender minorities – people who right now are being attacked left and right globally. People whom I know so well, who mean no harm to anyone, being vilified and demonized to this degree. It poses challenges, because we have now entered into this new form of political discourse where we are either right-wing – and by right-wing it means we are pro-MAGA and anti-EU, anti-internationalism, anti-queer, and defending the nation-state, defending the national identity, defending the home country – versus this other way of existing, like solidarity and working together and cooperating and having some sort of international cohesion as nations and countries. 

And I think that personally, that gives me a lot of anxiety, because I feel like I’m 41 and I’ve been surviving my whole life. From one system to another, from one identity to another, from exploring one identity, embracing that, then moving on to another and then embracing that. And then getting to this point where I'm like: Are we ever going to feel safe? You know, is it ever going to be safe to just be in this world and to just go on with your life without worrying about something? I guess it's not meant to be. We've entered this time, this turbulent time of chaos, of insecurity. Of blatant silence from some countries, for example, on what is happening in Gaza at the moment, which is beyond heartbreaking for me. You see some countries, some governments, being so silent about that. And I'm like, Is this the world I want to be part of? There's a huge disappointment there, as far as I'm concerned. 

I think that as humanity – maybe this gets a bit philosophical – but as humanity, we are going through very tough times. But at the same time, when have we not gone through tough times? When has it not been challenging in one way or another? I'm not one of those people who is like, ‘But the old days were so good.’ Yes, of course – maybe for some countries, some societies, it was easier to get a job, to get a house, to get health care. Maybe it was perfect for some people in some countries at some time, but was it really that [much] better? When was it [better], exactly? During the Plague, during the French Revolution, during the Second World War? When was it better?

Today we have – I mean, look at us, we have technology, we're communicating all the time. You from one corner, me from another, talking to people in who knows how many [different] parts of the world. We have food like never before, we have energy like never before, we have technology like never before, we have health care like never before. Doctors are finding a cure to diabetes, a cure to cancer, a cure to HIV, a cure to AIDS. I mean, these are the things that, when you think about it – wow, right? There are so many amazing things to be inspired and hopeful for. But the things that I am not happy with are these systems, these traditional systems of power, with this dogma, this control – controlling women, controlling minorities, controlling queer people. It doesn't matter. Just controlling and igniting fear and division and ruling through fear and through lying and through manipulation and through hatred of the ‘other.’ 

I think that people in power have this immense privilege – not just responsibility, but privilege – to help us out. I wish more people cared for one another and cared to make this world a better place for everyone. 

We talked a lot about your childhood growing up in a system that began under communism and underwent all kinds of political change and tumult. You know firsthand what it means to live in a totalitarian society, and what it's like when that changes. How hard it is to institute principles of true democracy and what a fight that is. And there may be many people in the United States right now who are beginning to fear that their own country is descending into a form of totalitarianism. And so my last question is, what kind of advice would you give an American at this moment in history?

I mean, thank you for that question. I feel, in a way, very humbled by your question. I feel the respect that you are showing towards me for asking me such an important question. I feel very humbled to answer such a question. And I think that my message is: Keep on being there for one another. And the worst thing we all can do right now, not just in the U.S., but anywhere in the world, is think: ‘Oh, I've saved enough money. Everything is okay for me. Why should I worry about the rest of the world? Ugh, these people worrying about others all the time.’ Don’t do that. Just don’t do that. You don’t need to worry about others. You just need to be present and do what you can, in whatever way you can. Whether it’s through the economy, through the law, through society, through the media, through social media activism – just fight for what you believe in, for the values you believe in. 

And my other message is don't alienate the ‘other.’ I'm not saying that we should agree with people who are harming us and offending us and disrespecting us and trying to take away our rights. But we need to engage as much as possible all the time. Be awake and do your part.

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You can listen to this conversation by following Weight of the World on Spotify and Apple. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.