Albania is immersed in a multidimensional crisis, where clear ideas for revival are lacking. At the moment when the crisis of the individual within society (including ours) is experiencing one of its peaks, many researchers and interested people are turning to the past to find valuable lessons of salvation. At that time, artificial intelligence was not applied, as were the endless possibilities offered at this time, which is resulting in very large existential limitations. Today's man is increasingly abandoned by society, political power and... above all, himself. Albanians who have lived in several economic-social regimes over the course of a century are feeling it the same way as anywhere else in the world.
Written by: Ben Andoni
Since the extreme political isolation and the most abject poverty of some times, we are now living in a time of liberalism that is in its greatest decadence, along with the complete disappointment of the values it brought. Albanians who once lined up to vote for a candidate confirmed by the regime out of pathos and fear, today barely go to vote for their own candidate. We who once did not even know the basic political concepts and those of parliamentary functioning, along with many of the modern theories in sociology, were almost empty of philosophical knowledge and its scholars, today we claim (through our government officials) that we are at our peak and can be equal everywhere in Globalism.
Besides, without properly enjoying democracy, which did not improve our lives as we dreamed, we are facing its ignoring by the political elites and the immense autocracy of our leaders. Among them, the current Prime Minister, Rama, does not have any mechanism to control his Executive, just as he himself does not show any kind of respect in parliament. Where for the sake of truth, normal norms of behavior have been ignored for years. The only interest of the deputies is and remains who will penetrate and remain in the orbit, where the president chooses to be part of his retinue that has everything in the country in its hands: wealth, favors and opportunities. The others are simply numbers. Therefore, the fact is that many of today's political elite do not even see the normality of the state. This is the limit, where the positions and ironically the opposition have remained.
In this Bosnia lacking democracy, a part of the opposition is trying to regenerate itself within itself. Commendable because it is a different step from what the DP opposition is following today, although still impossible in the face of society's reflection. Drowning in the apathy of everyday life, in things that do not change, the lack of meritocracy and career, in the impunity of people who have embezzled unimaginable sums, today's society cannot find the strength to react... for change. Building our Cathedral of Values seems impossible. Everyone sees it in their minds, but no one is capable of starting the construction.
Worse still, the Albanian left-wing populism manifested today by the Socialist Party has increased the country's democratic backwardness and functional cynicism. Just as the harshness of the DP's language and disrespect for institutions have crushed normal faith in change. Without forgetting the reform of parties in general and the lack of internal democracy that seems like a utopia. The mayors have power as a providence among their communities. Even before the elections, Prime Minister Rama can say with almost mathematical certainty how many seats he will win in parliament. And that's what happened in the last two elections! Meanwhile, Justice with its weakness is allowing uncontrolled influence from favored business names and the so-called political elites. The case of Albania shows that we are faced with a system where voter support is ensured through patronage, instead of ideological outreach among voters. The latter is already a concept, while a strong and stable social base is completely missing. This is where many of the objections to these policies by many people on the Left and especially the very shady governance of Mr. Rama. But what is destroying trust in the country is that living conditions cannot be improved, while high public distrust has shown that there is little faith that change can be made in an environment where corrupt practices have power and normality.
On the other hand, the Right in our country is almost not impressed by ideology, rather than coming to power, while the throne it has occupied in the opposition (it justifies this with votes, even though they are constantly falling) makes this tandem continue, which is satisfactory only for a group of people. In this regard, many individual activists or members of small parties are rightly trying, but avoiding a fact, that if the parties are not democratized (right-wing parties in our country are examples of unchangeability, such as the DP, PR, and so on) you cannot seek to change something fundamentally. Meanwhile, world society, whether due to the decline of basic values, but also the form that the international order is taking little by little, feels itself in a crisis, which only conveys the consequences in a peripheral society like ours. Albanian society, passing through historical periods in galloping forms without ever creating a prominent identity, manifests the necessary lack of formation. Although, after '90 we were falsely reminded that we could do everything. A time when the limited, poor, oppressed Albanian individual remembered that he no longer knows any limits: Before morality, unbridled enrichment and especially respect for the values created over the centuries and that constitute the identity of the state. And precisely to feel good with this multitude, the Albanian now finds himself very dissatisfied and with an uncertainty that constantly confronts him. Unable to orient himself in this new world, before which the four-fold doors have suddenly opened. In a global sphere, Yuval Noah Harari in “The Future of Being” explains it this way: “What psychologists call the paradox of choice has revealed a disturbing truth about human nature. Evolution has not programmed us to deal with infinite choices. Our brains, which evolved to make quick decisions within small groups with limited options, are simply unable to properly process the overload of options that characterizes modern life.”
This is the dilemma of the Albanian in the face of unbridled change, its own crisis and the confrontation with a politics that changes its face, but no longer brings anything new. The more this condition of today's Albanian is understood, which on the one hand has been poured into the meaningless life of artificial reality show platforms and on the other hand survival, the more perhaps there may be a solution. Even though our society seems rotten internally in the most extreme way. The proof is the daily news about the family and the hatred towards our state. Unfortunately, public policies that value and care for the well-being of the community are foreign to Rama and even more foreign to the opposition's vision. It seems like everyone has a calculator in hand to show us economic growth, which in fact does not translate into well-being for the poorest country in the region. In this situation, today's Albanian needs to lighten the existential burden that demands it through a life that has changed him so much and cannot be summed up in the construction of a edifice of values. "It's like trying to build a cathedral with toothpicks. It may look impressive from afar, but it collapses at the first gust of wind," Harari cynically simplifies. This is the greatest paradox of our time, but also the murder of an abstract world that we are building and keeping afloat with effort and desire... to our own detriment. (Homo Albanicus)
/ Panorama newspaper
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