As I was following the student-led anti-government protests yesterday making their way from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Justice, and the Offices of Parliament across from the Prime Minister’s Office, one thing that struck me was how utterly undefended any of these buildings were.
One after the other was entered by the protesters, emptied out, looted, and set on fire. In each case, not a single civil servant, security guard, or police officer blocked their entrance – as if they had been empty all the time.
By contrast, when the protesters threatened to enter Toptani Center, the large shopping mall close to Parliament owned by one of the oligarchs (and designed by MVRDV, one of the architecture firms at the center of the Albanian Files scandal), they were quickly dissuaded by a mere two security guards, while within seconds large police forces appeared to protect the property.
The difference was symbolic: state property is left unprotected, while oligarch property is defended.
This view of an abandoned state apparatus, hollowed out by corruption, nepotism, and organized crime was further amplified by Prime Minister Edi Rama himself, who decided, after an entire day of total silence while the protests raged through Tirana, to address the nation not from any of the government buildings or his own office, but from the burned-out mint-colored, MVDRV-designed concrete cube next to the Pyramid, as if the most painful result of the protests was not the destruction of three of his ministries, but the damage suffered by one of his architectural pet projects.
The cube, let it also be noted, housed the outreach office of the College of Europe, which itself is still railing from a corruption scandal and subsequent ousting of Rama’s ally Federica Mogherini. Choosing precisely this location (and it is disputed whether it was burned by the protesters or as a false flag operation by the government itself), of course is an attempt to gain the support of the EU as his police forces violently abuse, injure, and maim high school and university students with impunity, in most cases initiating the violence that subsequently expanded through the capital.
And instead of visiting any of the state educational institutions that his government has underfunded for decades, and where the anger against his policies has been building ever since he squashed the student protests of 2018, he addresses the Albanian students from this delapidated office of the College of Europe, a foreign educational institution swimming in money, with no relation whatsoever to the Albanian reality: without self-reflection, divorced from reality, delusional about his options.
Oligarch property is protected over public property.
Damage to a College of Europe promotion office is mourned over the dismantlement of the entire public education system.
All of this also shows how fundamentally broken Rama’s propaganda machine has become. The phone banks and bot army of Mayor Erion Veliaj: gone. His spin doctor, Endri Fuga: other "projects". His consigliere, Engjëll Agaçi: on the run from SPAK. His government, reshuffled for the gazillionth time, scrapes the bottom of the barrel.
When a fraudulent former Deputy Minister of Education makes it to head of the security and intelligence forces, it is clear no other, credible option was available.
I just heard the plenary session of Parliament today has been canceled, out of fear for further student protests – while right now parliamentary debate about what next, a democratic process, would be of the essence. In other words, after the ministries, now also Parliament has been abandoned.
Shpërndaje te miqtë
