What are the events that marked Albanians and the world in 1972?
In Kosovo, the Variola Vera epidemic breaks out, which is popularly known as smallpox. Most people with the disease recovered, but approximately three out of every 10 people infected died. Survivors of the disease were left with permanent scars over large areas of the body, especially the face. Some even went blind. Through vaccination, the disease disappeared in 1980. It is believed that an Albanian pilgrim who had visited holy places in the Middle East was infected with it. It is also suspected that Variola came from Belgrade. It is said that 35 died in Kosovo. For protection, quarantine was also imposed. The film "Variola Vera" was made for this event, directed by Goran Markovic. It shows a pilgrim who buys a flute from an Arab.
Two West German policemen, armed with assault rifles and wearing overalls, take up positions on the roof of the building where armed Palestinian terrorists were holding members of Israel's Olympic team hostage (photo: AP, September 5, 1972)
Also in 1972, Albania participated for the first time in the Summer Olympics, in Munich, Germany. During these games, what would later become known as the Munich Massacre would occur: Palestinian terrorists attacked representatives of the Israeli Olympic team. Members of the Palestinian organization, Black September, occupied the Olympic Village on September 5 and took 11 Israeli athletes and coaches hostage, two of whom died in the first two hours of the action. Black September called the operation "Ikrit and Biram", after two Palestinian Christian villages whose inhabitants were killed or expelled by Israeli forces in 1948. German authorities tried to free the other hostages, but without success. Nine hostages, five terrorists, and a policeman were killed during the operation. In the retaliatory actions taken by the Israelis against those associated with the massacre, several other people were also killed, two of whom were innocent.
Waldheim (second from left), General Artur Phleps (with briefcase) and others at Podgorica airport in Montenegro on May 22, 1943. This photo caused much controversy when it was published, when Waldheim was running in the Austrian presidential election that year 1986
On January 1, 1972, Kurt Waldheim was appointed Secretary-General of the United Nations. In the 80s, news shocked the world: Kurt Waldheim, the former Secretary-General of the UN, who held this position for two terms (1972-1981), was a collaborator and senior Nazi officer during World War II, responsible for crimes! Hakif Bajrami, a historian from Kosovo, was among those historians who cast a stain on the image of this diplomat, honored and decorated by numerous world personalities. This news came out at the time when Bajrami was the chairman of the Commission of Historians who were responsible for writing the history of the Communist Party of Kosovo. At that time, Bajrami was said to have had the permission of Ali Shukri - the loyal communist of Serbian politics - to research the Belgrade archives. Therefore, there are still doubts that the publications related to Waldheim's figure were served to Bajrami for the political interests of that time, precisely at the time when the former UN Secretary General was continuing his political career as president of Austria. On February 7, 1988, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported that Waldheim participated in the execution of 104 Albanians in 1944. However, German historians who began to research Waldheim's past could not find documents linking him to the deportation of civilians from the former Yugoslavia to labor and death camps. Waldheim's office (the Austrian Presidency), as reported by JTA, has denied these accusations, which have also been published by the German weekly "Der Spiegel". Bajrami, who was director of the Kosovo Archives, said that he had the documents, but did not offer them. Bajrami also refused to cooperate with an international commission of historians, formed by Austria, to research Waldheim's military past. One thing is known: in the Kosovo Archive there is documentation of former Serbian media (e.g. "Politika"), where Austria is mentioned as the main enemy of Serbian interests, because it was precisely this state that fought for the interests of Albanians.
Bloody Sunday
In 1972, another massacre occurred: The British Army killed 13 unarmed marchers in Deri, Northern Ireland. The event is now known as Bloody Sunday, about which the band U2 sang a song with these lines: “And it’s true that we have immunity / While the fact is reality TV fiction / Even today millions are dying / We are the sun and the moon and they are the next day dying / The real battle has just begun / To claim victory Jesus has won / One Sunday, bloody Sunday / Sunday, terrible Sunday”. But 1972 also saw the great disaster or Ikiza: the mass killings, often described as genocide, carried out in Burundi in 1972 by the Tutsi – who dominated the army and government – against the educated and elite Hutus who lived in the country. It is estimated that up to 300 people were killed. Meanwhile, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin announced the expulsion of 50 Asians from the country. As if these evils were not enough, Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto announced Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.
The self-proclaimed Emperor Bokassa
In 1972, a madman named Jean-Bédel Bokassa became president of the Central African Republic and plunged the country into chaos. In 1976, he declared himself emperor. The orphan educated in a religious mission was a brave soldier, but his friends say he was very stupid. The ceremony to proclaim him emperor, modeled after his hero, Napoleon, cost $80 million and drove the poor country into bankruptcy. The golden crown alone cost $20 million. After three years as "emperor", the French decided to overthrow him. But what has he done for his people? In 1979, he arrested hundreds of children for not buying uniforms from a company owned by one of his wives; he oversaw the massacre of 100 children; he fed his opponents to lions; he ate human flesh...
Krist Maloki among students, in Graz, Austria
In 1972, the writer, publicist and translator Nonda Bulka died, as did the famous Romanian playwright of Albanian origin, Viktor Eftimiu. Eftimiu's works have been translated into many other languages, while his plays and comedies have been staged in many capitals of the world. In 1972, the famous poet Ezra Pound also died - one of the greatest modernist poets in the first half of the 1972th century, well known as one of the founders of the poetic movement of Imagism. But he was also controversial since he had supported fascism and the propaganda activities of the Axis powers in World War II. In 1962, the scholar and publicist from Kosovo, Krist Maloki, also died in Graz, Austria. In 1930, Maloki visited Albania "with the idea that, upon retirement, he could go with his wife to Albania". He had confessed to them that “he lived in isolation in Graz, and that he wanted to spend his retirement in Albania, where he had school friends, like Eqrem Çabejn”. He had begun his friendship with the latter in the 1930s, when they were both studying in Graz. In the late XNUMXs, both had appeared in the specialized Albanian press with writings in the field of literary criticism and on Albania’s place between East and West. A CIA report brings a conversation between Krist Maloki and Spiro Koleka, a senior communist leader. At that time, the question of which direction Albania would lean was on the agenda: towards the East or towards the West? Maloki says that “Albania could not live on its own products because it was a mountainous country ... If you open up new lands you will destroy the mountain pastures, because working the land in the mountains and hills would endanger it from rains and erosion ... Albania must strengthen livestock and connect its economy with Western Europe ...”. During the trip Maloki “visited several cities in Albania, noticing that, despite all the progress achieved, the people lived in a regime of terror and fear”. From this visit, with the advice of the Franciscan Justin Rrota, he is discouraged from living in Albania. Likewise, his wife did not like life in Tirana either. Thus communist Albania fails to make this precious intellectual who was valued in Kosovo its own.
In 1972, the 33rd American president, Harry S. Truman, also died. He is remembered for allowing the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman won the war against Japan. Some say the atomic bomb scared Joseph Stalin of the USSR, which curbed his ambitions to invade Japan.
Vesna Vulovic in the hospital
In 1972, a strange Guinness record was achieved: the Yugoslav stewardess Vesna Vulovic, is the only survivor of the plane that is destroyed by a bomb explosion, over the air of Czechoslovakia. She survived even though the plane fell from a height of over 10 meters. He thus holds the Guinness record for surviving a fall from the highest height without a parachute. She is said to have escaped by being strapped to a seat in the last row of the plane, which, after the explosion, was strapped to the lavatory section and fell down a snow-covered mountain. A record is also set by the Volkswagen Beetle (Buba), which exceeds the sales of Ford's Model T. Until February 1972, the production of this car reached the number 15 007 034. In February of the same year, American President Richard Nixon started his eight-day visit to the People's Republic of China where he met Mao Zedong. Meanwhile, Bobby Fischer defeats the Russian Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland and becomes the first American chess champion in the world. A film was also made for this confrontation. Fischer was a young American hero, but in 1992 he made a big mistake: he faced Spassky in St. Stephen, Montenegro, breaking the UN sanctions against what was called Yugoslavia. The Americans issue an arrest warrant for him and he never returns to the US.
Afghan girl in 1984 and 2021
In 1972, Sharbat Gula was born, who will later be known as the Afghan Girl, according to the famous portrait that the American photographer Steve McCurry took for "National Geographic" magazine. The photo is taken in a camp of Afghan refugees who had fled the war against the Soviets. Gula was 12 years old. In 1972, another war photographer, Nick Ut, reporting from the Vietnam War, won the Pulitzer Prize for the photo known as Napalm Girl, published by the Associated Press. The photo shows nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc, terrified as she runs naked through the streets after being burned with napalm.
Actors Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Idris Elba, Cameron Diaz, Ben Affleck, Sofia Vergara were born in 1972; footballer Zinedine Zidane and singer Eminem. In 1972, the KLA fighter Adrian Rexhep Krasniqi was born, who was killed during an attack on the Serbian police post in Kličina, on October 16, 997. /Telegrafi/
Napalm Girl
