On the evening of Thursday, 26 June 2025, during the sixth ceremony of the Avicenna International Award for Intercultural Cooperation for Peace, Prime Minister Edi Rama of Albania delivered a pre-recorded acceptance message that stood as both a statement of gratitude and a moral reckoning. In his remarks, Rama did not speak as a laureate seeking praise, but as a leader reflecting on the responsibility of small nations to act with dignity when larger ones retreat. He accepted the award not as a personal accolade, but as recognition of Albania’s collective response to the fall of Kabul and the humanitarian crisis that followed.

Rama emphasized that Albania’s decision to welcome hundreds of Afghan refugees, many of them women, athletes, artists, and journalists, was not a calculated act of diplomacy, but a deeply instinctive gesture rooted in Albania’s history of suffering and solidarity. Referencing Ibn Sina and Mother Teresa, he challenged the notion that global crises are unsolvable, insisting that what is lacking is not capacity, but courage and compassion. He invoked his country’s moral tradition: sheltering Jewish families during the Holocaust, protecting Kosovar refugees during the Balkan wars, and now offering safe passage to Afghans left in danger.

In a particularly moving moment, Rama addressed the exclusion of Afghan women from public life and education, describing it as a tragedy that no one with a conscience could accept. He celebrated the arrival of the Afghan women’s football team in Albania as a living metaphor—proof that resilience, talent, and dignity do not need permission to survive. For Rama, the team’s presence in Albania was not just a political gesture but a cultural act of defiance against erasure. Concluding his message, Prime Minister Rama made it clear that peace must be active, not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice, memory, and will. He reiterated that Albania chose to respond to fear and collapse not by building walls, but by opening doors.

Full speech video

Full text of the speech by Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania