She learned about politics the hard way
By Judy Taylor Cramer
Managing editor, Florida State Times
Ani Majuni studied English by secretly listening to the Voice of America.
She studied history by living it - as a student demonstrator during the
fall of Communism in Albania. She studied law by working for the American
Bar Association's Central and Eastern European Law Initiative (CEELI). And
she studied international affairs at Florida State University - where she
graduated with honors this spring.
Majuni came of age during Albania's struggle to topple the Communist Party
and restore democracy. The Communist government called her family "enemies
of the people." But the Albanian people declared her grandfather, who
was executed in 1947, a "martyr for democracy."
Majuni grew up in a world of political persecution.
"Basically they took everything away from my family," she said.
"But because our fight and our persistence were strong, we survived."
Although she was still a teen-ager, Majuni participated in the student demonstrations
that swept through Central and Eastern Europe during the early 1990s.
"It was scary, but I don't know if I was scared," she said. "There
were guns shooting all over the place, all over the crowds. Any of us could
have been killed at any time. But at the moment you don't think about yourself.
"If I didn't do it, who would? The tradition ran in my family. My Dad
had suffered so much from Communism."
After the fall of Communism, CEELI, an international volunteer project co-founded
by then-ABA President Sandy D'Alemberte, sent lawyers to Albania to develop
a rule of law for the new democracy. Majuni helped CEELI staffers with research
and translations, and CEELI, in turn, helped her come to the U.S. to continue
her education.
Before she arrived at LaRoche College in Pittsburgh, Majuni had never spent
a night away from home.
"It was the best experience," she said of the small Catholic college
where FSU alumnus Bill Kerr is president. "It was a place where I got
the most attention. I was the only international student at the college.
I felt like I was the Albanian ambassador."
Academically, the small-college setting helped Majuni, who had never read
a textbook in English. "I thought I knew English when I came to the
U.S. but I found I didn't know it at all."
She transferred to FSU because it offered a major in international affairs,
and because she thought the transition from FSU to law school would be smoother
than from LaRoche to law school.
"FSU was an important moment in my life," she said. "I was
not the spoiled little Albanian anymore. I was just another student."
But she's not just another student to her father, Fatmir, who made his first
trip to the United States for her graduation. With his daughter interpreting,
he said, "Five years ago I wouldn't even dream that something like
this would happen."