Talk:Cham Albanians

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1) Clarified a point on minority treatment by Mataxas (not all minorities were mistreated and the discrimination was along political support lines more than ethnic ones) 2) The article had no mention of the Balli Kombëtar and the role of the Balists in persecuting Greeks and Jews during the occupation. I amended that.


Albanau, if you object to this form of the article, please discuss it here. It is not acceptable, among other things, to refer to provinces of independent countries as though they rightfully belonged to another independent country. Chronographos 15:10, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

It wasen't me I allways use my account. However Chronographos what you wrote is clearly not NPOV.

Çamëria (or Chameria) is the name sometimes used by Albanians to refer to the Greek province of Epirus. The area probably was home to an ethnic group of Albanian origin and Muslim faith, the Chams. The Chams are believed to have fled to Albania during, and immediately following, World War II, probably because they had been persecuted by Greek Resistance guerilla groups fighting against the Nazi occupation army, on the belief that Chams had cooperated with the Albanian-launched invasion of Greece by the Mussolini fascist regime in 1940, and had continued cooperation with the Nazi occupiers. Greek censuses mention no Muslim presence in Epirus since 1951; they do not include linguistic data.

Albanau 14:57, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The article proper should just redirect to Epirus, the region's continuous name from time immemorial until now. Your insistence to be using an Albanian name for a province of Greece is rather telling. Chronographos 15:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
I propose that it should be redirected to Çamë!... one more thing, Çamëria is according to Albanian understanding a region in northwestern Greece, so there is nothing wrong with this. Albanau 15:25, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Corrected reference to "under Greek influence" in 4th century. Removed refernce to "Cham Christians". Acerimusdux 17:08, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Albanau's suggestion that this article should refer to the Chame people and not to Epirus. I think this is a fair compromise. Acerimusdux, do you agree as well? Chronographos 17:16, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Not entirely. Since the region is at least corresponds roughly with what is known as ancient Epirus, I think this needs to at least be mentioned, with a prominent link to the main article on Epirus for more information. I don't think a simple redirect is informative enough, though. When this conflict over "Chams" arose on the Albanians page, I had no idea what it was about and had to do a bit of research. Wikipedia at that point was of no help at all. There ought to be room for an article of some sort that at least outlines what this is about, with as much a NPOV as possible. I also don't believe Albanau ever siad the article shouldn't mention Epirus. He simply said there was nothing wrong with it mentioning Chameria. If you want to include all of the information in the article on Epirus, they could certainly be combined, with the name Albanian name Chameria mentioned prominently in bold at the top of that article, and a section added including the history of the expulsion of the Chams followng WWII, but I think a seperate article will be more convenient for readers.
I also think the page title should comply with wikipedia conventions which say "Title your pages using the English name, if one exists, and give the native spelling on the first line of the article. If the native spelling is not in the Latin alphabet, also provide a Latin transliteration. Only use the native spelling as an article title if it is more commonly used in English than the anglicized form." So the appropriate name is "Chameria", with the native spellings following (maybe in parenthesis) on the first line. No one will find this article as it is - no one is going to do a search on English Wikipedia for a word using non-standard English characters.Acerimusdux 20:00, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the article may mention that "Chameria" is the name Albanians sometimes use for Epirus, properly linked. I also have no objection to describe what may or may not have happened to the Chams, provided both sides of the story (Albanian, Greek, or what have you) are given. In other words, as long as NPOV is adhered to, I will have no problem. Chronographos 20:39, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

An interesting thing about (modern) Greek arguments is that different rules always apply to Greeks and non-Greeks. So, it is unacceptable to use alternative names for territory in other countries? What do Greeks call Istanbul? Constantinople, I think. Or why do Greeks call southern Albania "NOrthern Epirus"? Basically, Greek people need to accept common rules for everyone, rathern than trying to cheat the rest of the world with fake historical arguments.

Contents

[edit] Disgrace

This artice is a disgrace! There's more POV here than in the Nazi mysticism and Holocaust denial articles put together. There's petty nationalist POV here from the Greek perspective and from the Albanian perspective. This should be remedied as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups Template and above all, RELIABLE SOURCES should be found. You cannot make up things as you go along... Rexhep Bojaxhiu 12:09, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

One problem here is whether WikiProject Ethnic Group applies here, as these people are Ethnic Albanians and identify as such. Are there any similar articles on similar minorities which we could copy? Rexhep Bojaxhiu 12:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

You're right there. It is a highly problematic article and full of various POVs. I don't know enough about the subject to make the necessary corrections, however. --Damac 08:18, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

To start with, I'm going to move this article to Cham Albanians; it's the best thing to do. Albanian diacritics should not be used in accordance with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), and Cham on its own may cause confusion with the Cham people of Eastern Asia. Rexhep Bojaxhiu 12:09, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Good start, Rexhep Bojaxhiu

Well done on improving this article. I was wondering if you could provide more concrete references for some of the figures mentioned in the article, such as the numbers of victims murdered by Zervas's troops and, in particular, the claim that there are 200,000 Chams living in Greece today. --Damac 22:14, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

The 200,000 Chams living in Greece comes from the UNPO Website. The UNPO also say that there are 280,000 Vorioipirote Greeks in Albania. Those figures probably are the absolute maximum though. The Albanian authorities claim that there are 36,000 Greeks in Albania, and the Greek authorities claim that there are no Chams in Greece, but only Albanian immigrants which they say number over 500,000. Rexhep Bojaxhiu 14:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The numbers of the victims of the EDES come from the MOD pdf. I'll copy-paste the relevant parts here soon, but I can't open it now (the computer I'm using now doesn't support PDFs). I'll do it later today. Rexhep Bojaxhiu 14:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't have to - I have added it to the article. Rexhep Bojaxhiu 17:42, 15 November 2005 (UTC)]

[edit] This article is a disgrace

[inflammatory comments removed at 16:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)]

Telex, please explain why you removed this comment. If not it comes back. Politis 16:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

For being inflammatory, totally unhelpful to the article and containing personal attacks against an entire nation. --Telex 16:54, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I can understand why you disliked it, but his comments are only targeting the people who contributed. As far as I can tell, there are no attacks against an entire nation but against the Hoxha regime - and in this he echos the voices of millions of Albanians who believe they suffered during those years! Where do you see those attacks? Politis 17:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links

I removed the link to www.unpo.ee because (a) it does not appear to be the official link to UNPO (that is www.unpo.org) and (b) There is no mention of Cham Albanians in the UNPO website. TheArchon 15:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, that website was from the Tartu Coordination Office of the UNPO (which we know exists from the org website), the website you are claiming is the official website does claim to have Chameria as a member [1]. Telex 15:55, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing that out. It seems that Cham Albanians were a member of UNPO in 1995, but they do not seem to be mentioned in the current member list. TheArchon 16:57, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Not according to the Tartu office. Nevertheless, the SPAÇ is based in Tirana, so maybe the article should make this clear. Telex 17:01, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
That is confusing, because the .org website seems not to mention Chameria as a current member or have a report on the Cham. TheArchon 17:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. I see two possibilities: either SPAÇ is a member and was left out of the .org list by mistake, or they are not a member and the .ee list is out of date. I suggest we contact them (UNPO) directly and ask them to check their membership rolls; they can be contacted by phone fax or e-mail. Telex 17:18, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Done! TheArchon 17:27, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
What? Telex 17:30, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I sent UNPO an email message, asking them to clarify which of the two lists is correct. TheArchon 17:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
OK - good. Telex 17:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
According to a representative UNPO contacted through .www.unpo.org (name withheld) "At present, Chameria is not a member of UNPO and their inclusion in the website of the Tartu office (www.unpo.ee) can be considered erroneous." and will be corrected as soon as possible. TheArchon 08:55, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] World War Two Events

I am not an expert on the issue per se but I have done extensive study of British SOE and US OSS activities in the Near East and Balkans during the war.

The long quote from Joseph Jacobs really leads the wikipeida reader astray. This eviction was specifically ordered by British liaison to EDES, Col. Chris Woodhouse, and he says so in his memiors. The British liason was not an advisor but the de facto commander as London and SOE controlled all supply and funds to the EDES resistance. In fact he had been sent to replace Col. Eddie Myers, who London believed was not attacking the Nazi allied Albanian's forcably enough. The British at the time in Balkans were working at cross interests and often in direct opposition to the US OSS work. The OSS was doing things the British did not like, like supporting non Monarchist resistanc groups, helping Jews evacuate to Palestine, etc. Jacobs also was has to be taken with a grain of salt. None of his reporting is actually first hand.

[edit] Territory of Cameria

In the Albanian Wikipedia page they say :

The region in the Greek part of the region of Epirus is about 6000 km² (Epirus has 9203 km²).

If you analyse the map in this same Wikipedia you'll see that Cameria outpasses the Thesprotia borders !

So why do you identify Cameria with Thesprotia ? Are the writers in the Albanian Wikipedia all wrong ?

--~April 14th 2008CUSENZA Mario (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 18:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually yes, they are. The Cat and the Owl (talk) 18:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)