Albanian, LGBTI and Emigrant: What a combination to “take a stand” at Athens Pride

Kristi Pinderi reporting from Athens
I managed to buy an Albanian flag at the last moment at Tirana’s airport while running to catch my flight to Athens. I planned to show that flag on the Albanian “Periptero” that ProLGBT got last week at Athens Pride.
When Andrea Gilbert, leader of “Athens Pride” realized that the flag was not big enough she whispered some words in relief. “Otherwise it might be considered as a nationalistic expose”, she explained to me.
But when thousands of people started to gather at Klafthmonos, the Pride Square, it was impossible for the Albanians not to notice that flag, although it was not big enough and also it was placed in a far way corner from the main stage. How could you stop them having their “nationalistic exposure” than?

“Are you Albanians? Did you really come here from Tirana for the Pride?”, some of them started to ask with curiosity happiness and with a pure Albanian language.
What impressed us more was their demand to have a picture with the Albanian activists and the flag, that small flag…
Rita, 29 years old from a city in south Albania has been living in Greece for 8 years now. “But this is the first time I dare to come at the Pride”, she says to me.
“Athens Pride” is a major event with clear political substance. “As it has never happened before, this year the company that runs the city Metro accepted to put our poster inside the Metro”, says Andrea Gilbert.
You could actually see in every Metro station the official slogan of 11^th edition of “Athens Pride”: Take a stand or as it says in Greece: “πάρει θέση”. We are used to see Greece recently in many negative news coverage because of the economic and political situation, but it is fair to say that this Pride was a good news from Greece for all the LGBTI community and not only.
Around 32,000 people participated this year in the Pride, around 12,000 more than the last year, although some disputes have been presents among the organizers and the Transgender community who didn’t appear at the march.
Some politicians were present as well at the main stage where they addressed short speeches to the participants, among them the mayor of Athens, the Governor of Attica herself a member of LGBTI, etc. Although the gay scene is much vibrant in Greece their main political challenge remains their fight towards equal rights for all families. A recent ruling of European Human Rights Court (November 2013) helps them in this regard. That ruling demands from Greece an official form of partnership, allowing the persons concerned to register their relationship within a more flexible legal framework than that provided by marriage.
When our turn to step on the stage came, the emotions were almost the same like those we had four years ago when we had the courage to take the bicycles and ride at the main boulevard of Tirana. And that was because, to tell the truth, you could see hundreds and hundreds of LGBTI Albanians who didn’t fear to “take a stand”. An interesting combination, isn’t it? Albanians, LGBTI, Emigrants…
“Most of them are young people who were either born or raised here. Most of them wouldn’t dare to do the same thing in Albania”, says Rita. I believe this. It took her almost 8 years to challenge her fear and take part at the Pride. You need courage to “take a stand”…