The man who is sentencing the sick to death
Nga Klodian Tomori
Lajme flash
The two great "Qemals" who founded two states, on the ruins of an empire
2026-11-10 16:37:00 / JETË
By Evarist Beqiri
Today, November 10, at 09:05, Turkey will pause for a minute of solemn silence in honor of Atatürk. Meanwhile, our public consciousness still owes a great debt to Ismail Kemal Vlora. Attention naturally turns to a rare parallel of the 20th century's breakthrough. The Ottoman Empire and European politics recognized two statesmen with the honorable epithet "Qemal" (Kemal), who emerged from the same empire and became the founders of two modern states.
Mustafa Qemali led the war that enabled the establishment of the Republic of Turkey and then directed its political transformation. Ismail Qemali, on the contrary, realized the project of Albanian statehood through diplomacy, legal skill and exploitation of geopolitical balances, without having a consolidated national army at his disposal.
If for the Latins Nomen Omen meant the name as a prelude to fate, for both leaders the name “Qemal” did not come as a paternal inheritance, but as a deserved epithet (Epitheton) during their personal journey. In the ethics and unofficial language of the Ottoman administration, this word meant “perfection”, “intellectual brilliance” or “great maturity”. Their importance does not lie in the epithet they share, but in the common experience within the Ottoman system and the ability to transform it into the foundation of two different national projects.
Ismail Kemal Bey Vlora was born with the name Ismail (known as İsmail Kemal Bey). He built an extraordinary career in the Ottoman administration, where he demonstrated reforming skills and rare diplomatic and legal talent, taking the name “Qemal” early in life. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born simply with the name Mustafa (Ali Rıza oğlu Mustafa). As a sign of admiration, he also took the name “Qemal” early on.
The difference between the two paths of state formation does not diminish the importance of either of them. On the contrary, it gives us one more reason to reflect on the way each state treats the legacy of its founder. This is not simply about honoring a man, but about state order and discipline that become a national reflex.
From relocating iconic sculptures to roadside flowerbeds to settling for an official photograph on the wall, we have often reduced the Founder to a ceremonial symbol of November holidays. Instead of daily institutional veneration, we have chosen occasional commemoration. A nation with mature citizenship keeps the Founder alive in the institutions and values on which it builds the state.
Turkey has institutionalized the memory of Atatürk in public life, while Albania has not yet managed to transform the legacy of Ismail Qemali into a sustainable institutional culture.
The memory of the Founder is not simply a cult of the individual. It is an awareness of the continuity of the state. Understanding this parallel is an invitation to see it not through folkloric myths, but through the stature of a sovereign statesman who turned the imperial experience into the strongest weapon of our independence.
A nation doesn't truly honor its founder by just commemorating him once a year. It honors him by building the state he set out to create.
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