Flamingos as decoration

By Mero Baze

While European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen went today to a meeting with Edi Rama, the diehards of the flamingos’ extinguished revolution tried to clash with the police, to show their rejection of Edi Rama under the slogan: “Arrest Rama!”.

Their whole idea of the protest is that someone will translate their slogan for Ms Ursula von der Leyen and she will abandon the press conference halfway through to go and join the flamingos.

The first thing they should have done in this case, now that so few of them remain and they have become unacceptable even to one another, was not to decorate for Edi Rama the stage on which he continues to play calmly.

For a European leader, a country that arrests corrupt officials every day and that also has a group of 50 people protesting as “flamingos” is the ideal country that Europeans want to see in the Western Balkans.

A country where the daily arrests of senior officials show the high degree of the battle against corruption, while the patience to listen to a group of lynchers who have proclaimed themselves revolutionaries under the symbol of the flamingos testifies to the maturity of Albanian democracy.

This is a false mirror, thanks to them.

The truth is that in Albania, including the government and the offices of power, no one is happy with the justice system’s battle against corruption. And the only annoyance they have with the flamingos is that hour when they weigh down the traffic on the boulevard.

But this is not seen in Brussels. In Brussels, the picture of a country that seeks to enter Europe is perfect. On the streets there is every day a small group of people protesting, while at SPAK there are daily visits by Albania’s politicians and senior officials.

Indeed, Ursula von der Leyen may even have managed to hear the slogan “Arrest Rama!”, while he may have been making some joke with her.

This is an ideal scene for any European bureaucrat or political leader. The idea that by protesting they will discredit Edi Rama in Europe’s eyes is naive. They only decorate his power, which, in truth, is not that beautiful.

Then, the idea that the arrests are a reason to bring down the government is even more incomprehensible in Europe, where they are now convinced that here justice is independent, at least from our government, but not necessarily from their governments.

So they would do well to think of a smarter form of protest to attack Edi Rama as a dictator or as corrupt, not as tolerant and as a victim of justice.

This second image is the only favour that can be done to him in these difficult times. They would have harmed him more if today they had abstained from protesting and left a banner reading: “Edi Rama has destroyed our protest”, than by shouting in front of his office “Rama in prison!”, while the police officers escort them patting them on their shoulders.

Years ago, Europe sent special envoys from Brussels to negotiate the surrender of guardsmen who killed people at a rally on the prime minister’s orders. It was called a victory when he pardoned four journalists declared to be putschists, so that they would not be questioned.

Today, of course, Brussels calls it a major step forward that, in that square where demonstrators were killed, protests against the prime minister are heard, undisturbed either by him or by justice.

It takes a bit more imagination to harm Edi Rama as prime minister. For prime ministers the saying “who beats you, loves you” does not apply, but the saying “who curses you, loves you”. In this case it has the meaning that they “wish him well”, since the flamingos turn into a decoration of democracy for him.

A decoration for something that in truth is not as it seems.