By Lapsi.al journalist on T.Çela Boulevard
Edi Rama seemed to take some heart from Monday's developments. After paying a 2,500 euro reward to every police officer who beat up young people, the blue uniforms seemed to respond, defeating, for the first time in six days, the gathering of students and high school students on the streets of Tirana.
This prompted the prime minister to walk on the boulevard for the first time and even produce a spectacle in front of the government headquarters.
Rama, who had taken off his uniform and wore a state of emergency T-shirt, appeared in a collared suit as if to show that the worst was over. He arrogantly placed in front of the government headquarters some luxurious purple velvet chairs with the eagle symbol printed on them, which, more than a desire to engage in dialogue, demonstrated the distance of a government that lives in a parallel world, from the real problems of the people.
He placed leaflets there with the word dialogue and invited the protesters: "Whoever wants dialogue, without conditions, wherever they want, whenever they want, even here if they want. I am available together with the government. The only ones who are not welcome are those who commit violence and those who do not distance themselves from violence," he said during a carefully prepared mise en scene.
But Monday's extreme police violence, which emboldened Rama, had the opposite effect on the other side. For the first time after a week of being left alone, their teachers decided to join the students and high school students. In less than 24 hours, a full 1,000 teachers signed a petition initiated by the Forum for Political Dialogue.
Their backlash stemmed from the government's overreach. They could not stand the promoter of the Zeqine model calling their students ignorant. They could not stand Gysi's friend calling the protesters criminals. They could no longer remain silent in the face of barbaric violence in the middle of the city and in front of the cameras.
The petition signed by the teachers contains five points, which, in addition to Rama's resignation, call on the police to stop violence against young people, internationals to intervene, and the protesters themselves to refrain from damaging public and private property. The teachers also call on citizens to unite behind the protesters.
This unity and taking to the streets of teachers, who demand nothing more and nothing less than the removal of the prime minister, has more than a numerical value. Above all, it proves that thanks to the courage of students, another generation, raised in the old system, is killing fear. It is also valid for something else, to ridicule the asses of a stupid government, that those who protest are not students and pupils but simply vandals and violent people incited by Russia, Iran, Muslims without knowledge or faith, by Greeks and Serbs.
It was precisely this moral support from another generation, this recognition of their legitimacy by those who educate them, this joining of forces that made the first act of those united in front of the prime minister's office, this Tuesday, be to throw away the purple velvet chairs on which Rama had left the invitation for dialogue.
Symbolically, one student wrote: "there is no dialogue, only resignation."
Later, after a group of students joined the professors standing in front of the prime minister's office, a new slogan appeared there: "No dialogue with criminals," accompanied by tragic photos of those who were massacred these days on the streets of Tirana.
LAPSI.AL
