FLASH
Shkruar nga Preç Zogaj
Hundreds of thousands of young men and women around the pure intentions of the protest have no intention of throwing away the destiny and mission of the generation for a new Albania. On the contrary: they are forging it in their peaceful, victorious battle with the old Rama-Berisha caste.
The tossing of caps is a rite of passage for students all over the world. It is how they celebrate the completion of their higher education.
In their garden of memories, it remains one of the most beautiful events. Because it marks the "flight" into their new lives as graduated professionals.
At the protest the day before yesterday, a group of students made a symbolic gesture in contrast to the celebratory hat dance.
They didn't throw them away, but they burned them. To send the message that the value of diplomas earned with great effort is rapidly lost in the "stock market" of a socio-political reality, where knowledge is the last.
You may have one, or even two, diplomas with good or very good grades. You may have graduated with excellent results from a prestigious university in Europe.
All of these have a relative value or are of no value at all for getting a job in the state administration if you don't have the "diploma" of diplomas: Family party affiliation in Rama's Socialist Party. Or being a sympathizer and verified voter of it. Or having a connection with someone who guarantees that your vote will go to the party in power. Or being someone who guarantees this yourself. Or thanks to certain circumstances being part of a small "fund" that the prime minister and other officials, following his example, keep to somehow "rebel" some of the opposing parties. But, up to a point, because as soon as they see that the beneficiary is not taking the blue color of the party, they remove him with any pretext. The examples are endless.
It is not said that all new graduates have in mind to be employed in the public sector. This is theoretically impossible. Many of them have their first and sometimes last choice to be employed in the private sector. But going with the idea that the state belongs to everyone, they are frustrated, revolted, feel discriminated against, excluded and foreigners in their own country when they see how the party-electoral criterion dominates in the public sector.
In addition to feeling discriminated against and being victims of this system, they see the trouble wherever they are, even in the private sector where they work or want to work. Because politicization for electoral purposes produces a denatured power in relation to treating the function as a service to the country and citizens. Everyone's first concern is to be on good terms with the employer, the Party. Furthermore, it produces mediocrity, arrogance, corruption. It produces a bloated administration that takes much more than it gives.
So, everything that only "eats" at the expense of free initiative only hinders the potential of private entrepreneurship, consequently reducing the opportunities for young professionals, who are forced to work outside their profession, or see emigration as an alternative.
The population in Albania has been declining for years. Birth rates are on an aging trend. Emigration continues without pause. But there is one thing that does not decrease despite the population decreasing. Despite the fact that online services have closed many counters. Public administration. About one hundred and eighty thousand with the status of public servant, several thousand others with temporary contracts. Within this huge army in a country with two million three hundred thousand inhabitants, where a third are pensioners, groups of patronageists vegetate and swarm, keeping under surveillance the electoral bloc of the state party, which they are able to manage name by name.
And so, in a country where the population is in decline, the ruling party grows and grows. Without ideology, simply as an idea of power, it doesn't matter what policies. The boundaries of its power with the state have disappeared, as the OSCE/ODIHR report on the 2025 elections pointed out. This is the state party of Prime Minister Rama, whom they never stop betraying, in fact, claiming to be the burden of all kinds of episodes. Most recently, a scene after the end of the NATO summit in Ankara. All the leaders were informing their countries about the historic results of that summit, Rama produced a clownery where he put the Foreign Minister and all the members of the delegation in the role of kindergarten stars who unanimously shout the word that the educator expects from them.
I will mention only a few aspects of current Albanian political and social events that constitute the context of the throwing of hats by some students in protest.
They and hundreds of thousands of young men and women around the pure intentions of the protest have no intention of throwing away the destiny and mission of the generation for a new Albania. On the contrary: they are passing it through their peaceful victorious battle with the old Rama-Berisha caste.
Lini një Përgjigje