For many years now, we have missed many historical moments, failing to become a normal democracy or even enter the family of advanced nations, despite the fact that we have had extraordinary support from Western powers to recover politically, economically, and culturally. We have lost this moment and now we are in an unprecedented stagnation.
Writes: Ndue Ukaj
Our political environment has become extremely impoverished and seems to have become sterile for sound political ideas and extremely fertile for endless political nonsense. This environment – with very few exceptions – is extremely aggressive; primitive quarrels have replaced normal debates, while intrigues are called political information and ideas.
Kosovo has entered a mental and political fog and no one can get it out of it, nor is there a cure to cure our serious political and mental illnesses, which are consequently also cultural.
There is only one way to get out of this mental, political, and cultural fog, and that is to become real, abandon the school of intrigue and gossip, and start becoming good students.
So far we have been bad students and have been more attracted to bad ideas and news than good ones.
The model of what a normal leader, and consequently a normal political system, should be like is shown to us by numerous examples around the world. I would like to bring to your attention Václav Havel, an exemplary writer and leader.
Here is how his first advisor, Jiří Pehe, describes him: “Many might ask what made Havel extraordinary. The answer is simple: humanity. He was humane, a man of principles. He did not fight communism because of some hidden personal agenda, but simply because it was, in his opinion, an unjust and immoral system.”
So, the writer and politician Václav Havel was like that, because he had big ideas, he believed in them, he was a creative politician, he loved people and he knew what kind of republic he dreamed of:
“You may ask what kind of republic I dream of. Let me answer: I dream of an independent, free and democratic republic, a prosperous economy and a just society, in short, a humane republic which serves the individual and hopes that the individual will serve it. For a republic with harmonious people, because otherwise it would be impossible to solve our problems, human, economic, ecological, social and political.”
We know from experience that a humane republic cannot be dreamed of by those who feed on intrigue, gossip and shallow debates and who behave and spit around the same rhetoric of exclusionary discourses. The republic they propose is a crippled republic, of their language reduced to anger, which means a shallow, poor, full of resentment and without humanity.
The dream of a humane republic can only be achieved with humane, wise politicians who care about people (even their opponents), that is, with those who do not sow poison and psychological terror, as some of us do. A proven and proven example is Ibrahim Rugova, a man of great ideas and ideals, whose political legacy is a guide for a humane republic. Therefore, the dream of a humane republic cannot be realized with politicians who poison all their political discourse against their opponents and immerse themselves in the terrain of radical ideological discourses, where hatred for their opponents is greater than love for their country. This type of politician, with empty rhetoric and harsh expressions, mostly knows how to label others, but never shows healthy social alternatives. Such people propose themselves as prophets, and their ideas sometimes as scientific ideas and sometimes as religious dogmas. The careful reader knows these people well and understands the historical background of such movements. And such people, history has shown that they are very dangerous. They play badly with the fate of the people and their despair, which they use for ideological expediency and radical political convictions. The strong rope of populism impregnated with demagogy and empty rhetoric - of radical political positions - in our country, is increasingly attracting followers within it, but this rope is in the hands of a bunch of deserters, who apart from demagogy and empty rhetoric, give nothing to society. And with such a strain, the dream of a humane republic becomes completely impossible. Our shattered society needs gentle and thoughtful leaders who are guided by ideas of solidarity and not by radical and demagogic minds. Because - the dream of a humane republic is not achieved with shallow political narratives, with intrigues, radical positions, exclusions and patriotism camouflaged with rhetoric. For many years now, we have lost many historical moments, failing to become a normal democracy or even enter the family of advanced nations, despite the fact that we have had extraordinary support from Western powers to recover politically, economically and culturally. We have lost this moment and now we are in an unprecedented stagnation. Meanwhile, we have existential challenges ahead, of a political, economic and cultural nature. The world has begun to lose patience with us. We must repent and in a righteous way approach them once more and ask for their hand. This may be the last moment to stand up, to turn back and see where we have lost our way. If we miss this opportunity – and the danger is that we will – we may regret it tomorrow, but what we have lost we will never be able to get back. Our history is full of such anomalies.
edition
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