NEWBORN DEMOCRACY (Albania, 1991)

In 1991 rioting broke out in Albania. Things had gotten too much for the population. For decades the citizens had been oppressed, first by the dictator Enver Hoxha, who had died in 1985, then by his successor Ramiz Alia. On February 21, 1991, a large mob of demonstrators pulled down a statue of Hoxha in Tirana. The photographer Besim Fusha was there, having gone to photograph the demonstration on his own initiative, whatever might come out of it. With his camera, the riot police took him for a subversive; the demonstrators thought he was probably a photographer for the secret police. Yet he succeeded in recording the historic events. Fusha was the only photographer present that day.