Renowned Albanian writer Lea Ypi has reacted to the massive student protest in Tirana, which has entered its sixth day, expressing her support for the young people who have taken to the streets to demand change.
She states that, if she were in charge of Albania today, she would have resigned in June, questioning the standards of political accountability in the country.
Commenting on the political crisis in the country, Ypi emphasizes that removing one individual from power and replacing him with another does not constitute real change, but a party project. According to her, Albania needs a deeper transformation, aimed at replacing oligarchy with social democracy. The writer also underlines that corruption cannot be seen in isolation from the economic and political system that feeds it.
Ypi openly condemns police violence, emphasizing that a state where the rule of law prevails should not need rubber bullets to maintain order. She expresses that the students have her full compassion and support, while calling on them to transform their anger into a real political and social alternative for Albania.
Finally, Ypi calls on students and left-wing activists to continue their protests peacefully and not allow their anger to be manipulated or appropriated by actors who do not share the same political project.
Post by writer Lea Ypi
Dear friends, journalists and readers who have written to me asking for my opinion on the protests in Albania: I made my opinion clear four months ago and I have not changed it. I am repeating it, since the questions continue.
I have never felt represented by the ruling left in Albania, and I do not feel represented by the opposition right that encourages crowds to light fires and throw bombs on the boulevard. Violence without a strategy and without a plan for the future turns into futile fratricide. This does not mean that violence for a just principle is wrong in all circumstances. But political violence is justified only when, first, there is a convincing project of social change behind it and, second, when violence is the only way to realize that project.
Now what is the project? It is unfortunate that in Albanian society, 35 years after the fall of communism, the only project for changing power is presented as an election to change those in power. Replacing an individual in power or in opposition with another individual is not a national project, it is a party project. It is the respective parties that must take responsibility.
Replacing oligarchy with social democracy, this is indeed a political project. Unfortunately, this project is currently very difficult to realize in Albania and in the world: partly for geopolitical reasons, partly because our culture and religion are confused, partly because of internal conflicts, partly because the more fragile democracy is and the more aggressive capitalism is, the more the oligarchs manage to buy every power, every politician, every official (both those who are there now and those who will come). But also because we need to work more with the older generation to understand the traumas of the past and with the new generation to turn anger into solutions.
The problem is that democratic standards for demanding transparency from leaders in Albania have never been set. On the one hand, because the entire so-called democratic order is the offspring of the ALP, from whose bosom emerged the leaders of both parties that have governed since then. On the other hand, because capitalism does not need democracy to develop: the private market is enough to have clients. Corruption is not the cause of the dysfunction of the political order, but the consequence of submission to the economic order. In capitalism, even the most honest person is thrown away by the system. Either it uses him by buying him, or it throws him out of use when it cannot be bought.
Now some answers to the questions I'm often asked these days.
Do I condemn police violence? Of course. A country where law prevails does not need to maintain order with rubber batons. All my compassion and support go to the students in protest, but also to the police officers who risk their lives for a piece of bread.
Would I have resigned if I were in charge of Albania today? Certainly in June. But maybe even after the arrest of the deputy or the first minister. Maybe after winning the next mandate. After all, even to set a different standard, damn it. These are issues about which I have nothing new to add to the debate that is boiling in Tirana. They are rumors for stations and portals that are certainly interested in the social alternative turning into a matter of personal biography.
To students, readers, friends, activists who share my leftist beliefs, I would advise them to return to peaceful protests only, to use the spaces that these protests create to build the alternative that Albania (but also Europe) needs and to increase their political influence, no matter how difficult it is from day to day. I would ask them to avoid co-travel, manipulation and division by those who have nothing to do with our project. It takes perseverance to build the true Albanian left, the one for which many of our grandparents and great-grandparents were sent to prison. It takes a lot of intellectual and political work, but above all, it takes patience.
