What are the flamingos today: a movement or a revolution?

By Ylli Pata

If the flamingo protests are not covered in the international media, they do not gain the attention of public debate. Unless some segment of the protest makes a splash with a threat to make headlines the next day.

This has its reasons and needs no special analysis. The protests have not managed to create protagonism and steer the political debate, even though they are and continue to be in the media spotlight.

Edi Rama, and the majority, has become a strong supporter of the flamingos, placing the context of this protest in a political program of his government. Meanwhile, the main opposition and the smaller one have continued to insist on contesting the majority, especially in the logic of SPAK investigations.

The flamingos, in reality, were not a movement, yet they were considered or portrayed by the international media as a political revolution.

A revolution which was only a narrative of the anti-Trump agenda, because the entire protest has no connection with a revolution — which brings to society a strong wind of change and upheaval not only in terms of the political elite, but also in the way society functions.

The revolutions of 1968 or the 1970s brought to Europe a political and social concept that shook all of Europe — from abortion, the right to divorce, other civil rights, referendums, the social debates they opened, as well as a different way of doing politics, introducing referendums as a concept parallel to elections, and local petitions as an instrument for environmental, education, health or social-state issues.

The flamingos are by no means a social or political revolution, because so far they have not shaken society with what they demand in this society. The biggest shake-up has been over a problem they have among themselves as protesters. The flamingos are not a revolution because they abandoned the Zvërnec cause for a pragmatic gain, when it was seen that the issue did not receive general approval. On the other hand, the flamingos are not a political movement, because so far they have not taken care to create one.

Which would have paved the way also for a revolution of the political elite.

The protests have nevertheless shaken opinion, but the issue is their product, which was mostly damaged by a short-sighted logic of having a quick effect — if Edi Rama falls, then we shall see. This logic, even if it may have a logic, would in the end bring back the problem of vision and face. That is why the majority reminds protesters that the flamingos left long ago, depicting the participants as part of the official opposition. Which in fact is not exactly so, but so far, the most important union of the flamingos has been the grand pact between Sali Lusha and Dritan Goxhaj…