Scene of devotion at the tomb of Mother Teresa in Calcutta (India) Last week, the Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha announced that his government had formally requested his Indian counterpart the repatriation of the ashes of Mother Teresa, beatified nun, born in Macedonia is ethnically Albanian, which we must celebrate the centenary of the birth in August 2010. At the same time, Albania has also petitioned the same nature of the French government to consider returning the body of King Zog I, buried in France in the Parisian cemetery of Thiais. The return of the remains of these two characters is part of the arrangement of an Albanian national pantheon. King Zog, long discredited by the communist regime, is now seen as the modernizing of the Albanian state. As for Mother Teresa, whose ashes are also claimed by Macedonia, it is in the nationalist discourse, the symbol of tolerance built into the Albanian national character. She is also the personality of the most famous Albanian of the twentieth century. Symbolically, it is already very active in the Albanian territory: in addition to the hospital and Mother Teresa Mother Teresa Square outside the University of Tirana, it really gave his name to the international airport of Rinas, thus displaying the strong bond between her and Albania . or rather between Albania and in claiming the body of Mother Teresa, Sali Berisha definitely intends to nationalize the nun of Calcutta, with an even greater interest that several Balkan countries argue its origin.
The Indian government's reaction was swift. Tuesday, October 12, the spokesman for the Indian Foreign Ministry said: "Mother Teresa was a citizen of India and is based in his own country, his own land, "adding that the question of his return to Albania" does not even arise. "Indeed, Mother Teresa had in 1951 obtained Indian citizenship and lived the rest of his life in Calcutta, where she founded her order of Missionaries of Charity. It is also known worldwide as "Mother Teresa of Calcutta" even if the promoters Albanian identity often nicknamed "Mother Teresa of Albanians." Sali Berisha meanwhile believes that the issue remains open and that both countries need to discuss it. He also reiterated his wish, saying "it would quieter than anywhere else if she could sit next to his mother and sister "buried in Tirana, pulling on both sentimental and a rope on the idea that the family is the foundation of the Albanian nation. It is clear that India's response will not change but the speech of Sali Berisha it is sent to India or Albanian? The prime minister seems to keen to encourage the patriotism of his countrymen. Therefore the concomitant Both applications would signal a willingness to provide support to a national fervor.
But it also seems that Sali Berisha has not really understood the implications of what he asked. I have shown elsewhere that the secular neutrality of the Albanian state, covered by a speech of interfaith tolerance, gum any aspect of sacred religious issues just to keep a domestic gasoline entering an address above unity of the Catholic, Orthodox or Muslim. Now, caught in the straitjacket of ideology, he has forgotten the religious nature of his complaint. For, in seeking the return of the ashes of Mother Teresa in Albania, he does not claim the body of a national hero but the body of a nun beatified whose remains have the status of relics in the eyes of the whole Catholic. Significantly, he finds himself, at the same time that the Indian government's response, it was reported by the spokesman of the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Mother Teresa, who retains his grave as an offering to the veneration, n ' had not even been asked by the Albanian government. In keeping with the logic of a nationalist discourse, Sali Berisha has not considered the Catholic identity of her whose ashes he claims.
The crucial question is concerning: the tomb of Mother Teresa it contains the ashes or relics? A non-Catholic (atheist or of another faith) would answer that this is a Catholic but his ashes speak here of his relics. And this is how the Missionaries of Charity to consider. If one visits the site of the Centre Mother Teresa of Calcutta, there is a page titled "Relics" which explains precisely what the relics and the statute made by the body after the beatification of the nun. It even explains the procedure to follow to receive a relic of Mother Teresa. Perhaps the Albanian government should have tried a request to the email address shown ...
More broadly arises here the question of borders between world views or "programs of truth" in the words of Paul Veyne. For some, Mother Teresa is a national figure, for others beatified a nun whose expected canonization. For the former, the grave contains the ashes dedicated to civic and national fervor, for the latter, his tomb is a shrine containing the relics of the first category, that is to say, the bodily relics. For Sali Berisha, we talk of repatriation (literally back to the homeland) for the Church, it would be a translation of relics that might alleviate the burden of sacred sanctuary of Calcutta. The situation is this: in the midst of a grave and the discussion around it interlocutors who do not speak the same thing ...
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