The protest as Rama’s and Berisha’s consolation

By Dritan Hila

Eight years ago, a group of emerging political figures (more or less the same people who now stage the nightly protests on the boulevard and on social media), along with political hangers-on, were building the ideal government on Facebook, appointing one another as ministers.

So far, nothing wrong — even amusing. Spartak Ngjela, with his sense of self-irony, once said, to stigmatize this phenomenon, that in Spaç prison he too had become prime minister three times in the governments they formed behind bars.

The protest that is now closing its fourth month looks like a similar mental exercise, replaying stories from the past. Once again the protesters had started dividing up posts and directorates, which shows that their notion of how power is taken and the state is held is beyond childish. And looking at the quality of those in the square, that is no surprise.

The protest began with a diverse turnout that included people genuinely fed up with many aspects of those in power. But the enthusiasm faded quickly and the healthy part withdrew. Those who waited for a Messiah to appear — the prophet who would destroy this political class, the party and the intellectuals who would be nameless but carry the halo of God’s envoy — never showed up.

The Albanians who believed a secret, occult hand would overthrow today’s politicians never materialized. After the enthusiasm collapsed, gradually, only its dregs remained, attacking people in the street and on social media, and naturally handing out fines too.

It is not only those with a logical formation who withdrew from the protest, but also the middle class, small and medium business owners, people who act in a programmed way, after seeing that no project was emerging from the square — on the contrary, as the days passed it was dominated by banal people. And today, in the fourth month, a handful of people remain who no longer even make the news, except for channels that cannot pay their staff and fill their programming by planting cameras on the boulevard.

In fact, this is the greatest service being done to Rama, but also to Berisha. It suffices to follow one day of that racket of minds and speeches, and anyone becomes convinced that the best option for casting a vote remains the SP or the DP. That is why both leaders feel calm in their monopolies — indeed they seem to encourage it to keep it burning, as if to tell people that their departure would bring this amalgam of whims.

Rama sometimes overdoes it when he mocks and spreads word that he will resign, which throws the protest gang into a fight over posts, and the next day, when hope fades, they start dreaming again about the next government. But after all they are unemployed, and this is a better pastime than killing flies — a craft most of them have practiced since elementary school, as dritare.net reports.