FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Rama in prison, Berisha in prison!
Written by: Dritan Shkreli
Seven days in a row. Seven days that "Skënderbej" Square has not been empty, that Vlora has emerged in Akërni and Hidrovori, that Zvërnec has had people on land and not just flamingos on the salt flats. Seven days that demolish, sentence by sentence, the comfortable myth that has been served to us for years: the Albanian does not get up, the Albanian complains about coffee and stays, the Albanian is a sheep that is taken wherever you want with a tag around its neck. Today, June 6, 2026, that myth has turned to ashes.
But let's be honest. What's happening in Albania these days is not just about Zvërnec. Zvërnec was the spark. The flame, however, is burning somewhere else.
Because when the children in Vlora beat the drums and called out to those sitting in the cafes to "get up from the cafe", they were not playing. They were saying out loud what their generation understood before the adults: the time of the insult "you are sheep" is over. The protest that began in the villages of Zvërnec and Nartë spread to Tirana, then to Durrës, Korçë, Elbasan, and did not stop even at the border. Yesterday in Berlin and Munich, today in Milan, London, Munich again, Frankfurt at the Opernplatz, with announcements also for Oslo and Geneva.
The protest has taken a different direction, and this direction is no longer fueled only by the coast of Vlora. It is fueled by an old fatigue, by a deep distrust of everything that bears the name "power."
When the movement became big, the government reacted as it always does: it called the protests instigated and talked about thousands of people being paid to take to the streets. The protesters suddenly became "foreign sheep". The same old logic: when you sit, you are an indifferent sheep; when you stand, you are someone else's sheep. Never a free citizen who thinks for himself.
The novelty that makes this movement dangerous for the entire government is that for thirty years, the square has been the property of two people. When Rama came out against Berisha, the "democrats" came out. When Berisha came out against Rama, the "disappointed socialists" came out. The citizen was never himself; he was always someone's flock, gathered in buses, fed with lunch and promises, sent home as soon as the rally ended. This is exactly what we have called, rightly and shamefully, "sheep". Not because the people were stupid. But because they allowed themselves to become a number in someone else's rally.
Here we must tell the bitter truth that many do not dare to say: Sali Berisha is not Edi Rama's opponent. He is his most reliable partner. He is the opposition that Rama would have invented himself, if it did not exist. Because as long as Berisha remains at the head of the opposition, Rama sleeps peacefully. Every anger towards the government finds an even more worn-out figure, even more compromised, even more rejected by Europeans and Americans. Berisha is the guardian of Rama's power, not his enemy. He holds the opposition hostage precisely so that nothing changes, so that people, every time they think about removing Rama, remember that the alternative is the return of an even darker past. This is not opposition but scenography. Two actors who argue on screen and share the same stage for thirty years.
Sali Berisha is part of the problem that these people came out to oppose. He is the other side of the same coin, the tool that gives Rama a reason to stay, the fear that holds the voter hostage. The Berisha who speaks today as if he is the voice of the street is the same one who has transformed the opposition into a personal refuge, who has turned every protest into a tool of blackmail for himself and his family, and who at the end of the day has always served the stability of the power that he claims to be fighting.
Because the truth is that these two people, no matter how much they clash in front of the cameras, need the same thing: a people who don't think for themselves. Rama needs a people who sit back and don't ask questions. Berisha needs a people who stand up, but only when he tells them to, and only enough to serve his return. No one can stand the sight of these days, where people stood up without permission and without orders from any of them.
So we were not sheep. Not then when they told us to stay, not now when they tell us that foreigners are bringing us, not tomorrow when they will try to herd us behind an old shepherd who claims to be a savior. We were citizens who waited for the right moment to rise. And the moment came. Our only task now is to not allow Rama, nor his tool called the opposition, to steal that dawn from us again to turn it into their own rally.
Lini një Përgjigje