The National Security Council That Convenes for Gysi’s ‘Radar’

By Ylli Manjani

There is something magnificent about the way this country chooses its national risks. Not war. Not crime. Not borders. Not the economy. Not the personal data that ends up on the market. Not the institutions that leak like a sieve.

No.

National security has never been as endangered as it is today, when some of Gysi’s SMS messages to Mrs. Vlorë emerged. Maximum alarm. Almost a state of war. Convene the Security Council. Raise the radars. Notify the allies. The nation is under attack… a sentimental one.

Meanwhile, this nation had been much safer when we sold oil to Milošević’s army. It was safe when we got into minority squabbles. It was safe when elections were won with results that even mathematics refused to recognize. It was safe when the opposition was beaten for protesting.

It was safe when the army’s depots were broken into and we armed ourselves against each other. When newspaper editorial offices were burned. When we were killed “unintentionally.” When borders were breached and the bottom of the Adriatic filled with the bodies of our compatriots fleeing Albania.

It was safe when barricades were raised to enter cities. When MPs were killed. When every summer some score was settled with bullets. When Kosovo was invaded. When we destroyed the economy with our own hands. When businesses were shut down by order, and privacy ended up in taverns, on WhatsApp, in Excel and on television.

The nation was super safe when Gërdec exploded.

None of this shook national security.

But here came the catastrophe.

Gysi’s soul messages.

This is where the state remembered it has radars. Radars that are extremely sensitive. They pick up pulse, emojis, hearts, longing, nostalgia… everything. Oddly, these same radars have for years failed to pick up drugs, corruption, information leaks, organized crime or millions evaporating.

They are selective radars. They only work on Gysi’s frequency.

That is why the Security Council must urgently convene. To analyze the strategic threat posed by Gysi’s allas. To set the alarm level according to their height from the ground. Because this is the new standard of national security — that is, not how protected the state is, but how low the goglats hang.

When it comes to them (the goglats, that is), security turns off the radars for everything else and sounds the sirens.

Long live the nation that has survived wars, rebellions, poverty, emigration, corruption and tragedies, but that today trembles at an SMS.

May you swallow the security palace, o nation!