Written by: Ndue Ukaj
In bad times, when nothing seems normal, the best lessons to get out of this stagnation can be learned from good people. In this regard, our political history does not have many exemplary figures from which to learn, and this is related to the negative legacies we have gone through.
Unfortunately, our political history, as has been said by many Renaissance people and wise people, is filled with betrayal, thieves, villains, and scoundrels, who have caused great damage to the Albanian nation, leaving it in misery.
That the underdevelopment of a country is the greatest crime that can be committed against it. Underdevelopment makes it vulnerable to bad ideas and destructive forces, which thrive best in times of crisis.
In our history, if we search through the centuries, the multidimensional figure of Ibrahim Rugova shines like no other, not only because his intellectual project was meticulously realized, but above all because he was atypical in all respects: he was a great Albanian and European of the upper class, a tolerant spirit, open to expanding his thinking capacities, ready to participate with dignity in any metropolis, a real man who did not pursue ideas he did not believe in, an intellectual politician who did not engage in demagogy, but spoke from the heart, with man at the center of his activity. So, he simply believed in a state that is put at the service of man and not a state in which man is transformed into an instrument of the state.
Rugova's merits in the field of politics and thought are universally recognized. He was the one who managed to make small and miserable Kosovo an issue of the advanced world, placing the small country on the big map of the world.
Rugova, in a 1991 interview for the newspaper "Ora", spoke about one of the greatest challenges of Albanian politics, demagogy, and his words from three decades ago sound as if they had been said today:
"We should not engage in demagogy with the nation and the national issue, as the communists did: when they needed the nation, they called it, when they didn't need it, they destroyed it. Every party and every individual should know what the national interest is, and not denigrate the other party, individual, or party in the name of the national interest, but contribute to the national interest, express the idea of this interest, and be specifically committed to it."
And so that history does not repeat itself, he advised that politics should learn from it. Here is what he said about communism:
“Communism did not create room for the concept of the nation, which was felt as a negation of history. It was based on a fictitious, primitive idea of equality, which denies history. Bosses like – Tito, Mao, Hoxha, Lenin… – then fabricated their own history. Therefore, one of the first goals of communism was to shoot intellectuals.”
Unfortunately, in Kosovo, the power of demagogy and primitive ideas has been ruling for years.
A tall monument of sacrifice has been erected to demagoguery, where people go and bow down to demonstrate blind loyalty.
Demagogic governance, when it needs patriotism, calls for it with shouts and trumpets, when it doesn't, it destroys it, therefore, the need to defeat this mindset is one of the most serious tests that our society faces today.
This is the biggest test since the war. Because this political nonsense is eroding the health of this country every day.
It has been years since politics as an activity of free people was destroyed in exchange for a slurred political language, with great limits, which clearly show limits in intellect as well.
Demagoguery emits bad ideas, mental fumes, and this is strongly maintained by state propaganda, which has trampled on democratic culture and the principles of democracy.
This power of demagogy has disfigured the physiognomy of our country, which is why the world around us does not see us as a normal country, does not recognize us, does not understand us, sees us as a country without any will to develop and walk side by side with civilized countries.
Development is not done through demagogy, emitting nitrogen from the language, which destroys the entire ethical and social environment.
Development is not done with arrogance and poor ideas, waved around as great works, but with creative ideas, solidarity, with partners, with a high culture of governance, values so rare among us that they are barely visible.
So, the greatest misfortune that befalls a country is when it is governed by demagogues, by those who speak passionately about big topics and do small things that are not even visible under a microscope in the physiognomy of a country.
Such powers eagerly count only successes and excite the crowds with propaganda about paradise, but it is known that they leave misery behind, as history shows.
This governing mindset has nothing to do with development, democracy, or Western values, but is clearly aligned with authoritarian, non-Western mindsets. Ruled by demagogues, through the most powerful weapon known to humanity, propaganda, our country appears to be in total paralysis.
Our country must pass this existential test: to free itself from the power of demagogy and primitive ideas and return to normality.
t7 live
