A few days ago, Berisha, the leader of the Democratic Party, complained about the media for helping Rama. In response to his predecessor's public complaint, the Albanian prime minister, referring to a statistical measure from the AMA, cynically emphasized the superiority of Berisha and the opposition in the media, despite their claims that they were limited!
Paradoxically, the cynical and slurred language of the Rama-Berisha tandem, dense without any cultural references, is very far from the rhetoric used in the best of times by the few but valuable people of Albanian thought.
More by using urban vocabulary and urban or folk characters, today's politicians, not excluding Rama and Berisha, are shocking for their cultural level and the inability to make syntheses, limited and extremely superficial knowledge, but more than anything the lack of vision for the Albania of the future. The consequence: Albanians have massively fled abroad. The ethics of communication have been replaced by today's aggressive rhetoric of Albanian politics, which no longer knows any scruples. Even when it comes to major interests of the country. The laboratory for studying this phenomenon is the monologue, dialogue and words in parliament of the participating majority that eclipse even those few clear minds, which try in vain to change the course.
The meaning of the cynicism of our politicians today, and surprisingly of the entire world we live in, lies in the lack of basic culture and the confusion of terms and situations. Berisha makes constant slips of the tongue, while Rama's superficiality with long, tiring sentences.
By the way, today's cynicism is very far from the true characterization of Cynic Philosophy. This school, considered one of the most interesting philosophical currents (born in the 4th century BC), was based on a simple life, in harmony with nature, without social conventions, wealth and power. The various orders of the Catholic clergy adapted it to their own needs for their followers. The classical Cynics considered humans as reasoning animals, where the purpose of life and the achievement of happiness was related to virtue, always in peace with nature and with a sense of reason to live extremely free from social constraints.
The only thing our politics has done (the stylistic figures have long since disappeared) is that it has turned people into just as cynical. The political cynicism of citizens is being shown by ignoring the DP in protests and indifference to Berisha's daily outings, as well as the open disregard for the tiresome rhetoric (long monologues, in front of people forced to follow him), arrogant and extremely self-satisfied by Prime Minister Rama. On the whole, but to prove this statement a national survey would be needed, the conviction of various people is that: Politicians, institutions and our democratic system do not contain many values of trust, as a result of the selfishness and immorality of the current situation. The food for this mentality comes from corruption, the extortion of public money, the greed of a group of bureaucrats who are unparalleled extortionists (the wine colony and the ANA tenders are crazy) and from the failure of politics to build a normal Albania.
The media, on the other hand, lends a helping hand with the mass of unbridled negative news and therefore, anyone can see today that: individuals are not simply withdrawing from participation (not in vain, the parties have launched recruitment campaigns!), but are hating politics. This is, in fact, the modern Albanian, the one who is being robbed, the one who is being misled by offices (the cadastre is the most heartless example), by the cynicism of the Justice System (which is increasing its unexamined files immeasurably), by a policy that keeps the same people in the same cycle, usurping everything from them (Ahmetaj's accusations about the SP would highlight this reality), by the obvious lack of jobs, for which you need to have endless political references and a large number of other things.
This kind of cynicism is alive, so people feel very distant from politics and its promises, while hatred towards the extortionists is taking on a scale that translates into an unprecedented public apathy (after all, nothing changes). The amplification of their stories and those of others who deceive the public on social media, where disinformation spreads purposefully and freely, has completely destroyed trust in institutions. Ironically, in Albania there is already a lack of in-depth addressing of the problems of education and the system of logic of how to deal with the entire education edifice; how to alleviate the burden of the citizen in front of the health system; as well as on the other hand, the future premises of economic development, where a few hands always win, which then influence even the making of laws.
Politics is also directly taking over the media space, turning us into “Politics as a Spectacle”, where in addition to Rama’s podcast that has turned into a monologue because that is all that is conveyed, and Berisha’s daily speeches, we have politicians who are present at every moment, far from real intellectual debates. And it doesn’t end there: Populists on both sides use anti-intellectual rhetoric and mock the traditional debate that serves the country, turning politics into “entertainment”. The truth no longer has any value.
The rhetoric of Berisha and Rama today ignores the fact and the situation of the Albanian in favor of creating myths of purity and abstract things. Today, Rama's wonders with satellites, energy ships and such things are being "forgotten", just like those of Berisha. The latter does not relinquish the throne of the DP, Rama holds on tightly to the SP, even with a discourse that hurts for his selfishness and complacency and identification with the state. The address to Spiropali, if what the media reports is true, is more than worrying. The consequences: A parliament filled with deputies of the Zeqine type and others who use contempt and insults over coherent and evidence-based arguments.
Political cynicism today in democracy, referring to the theory, constitutes a deeply rooted and stable attitude that sees politicians, institutions and the system as untrustworthy, corrupt and selfish. This disillusionment encourages detachment from political issues, apathy and a sensitivity to misinformation, where the media follows it all with a “cynic spiral”. This is one of the pictures of Albanian political history of the first half of the 21st century (this trend will probably continue in these 50 years). Life that is cynical even without these, Trotsky said about his time, only if a… “brilliant idea that raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of treachery and baseness” were not born. But ideas have long since dissipated among us.
Father Anton Harapi once attempted an explanation in his well-known article, 'Where will we start and where will we end up', demanding that we must know well the spiritual basis on which we must start true culture.
"If you look closely at the soul of the Albanian, we find that he has become like an Albanian, and he does not even think that the Albanian, like an Albanian, is his own master and capable of organization and civilization, and that in our country, if we do not have a rooster that crows, but we will command, we are capable of organizing good and good works for the state and the nation, so much so that even foreigners will envy us. He obeys foreigners more strongly than his own, and no matter how much they adorn him with a man of unparalleled talent and quality, it is enough to recognize his father and mother, to know that he is Albanian, to appreciate the importance of him. In order to show a work of great importance and foundation, here is his own: “Albanian work”, 'as in Albania', etc., etc.” (Hylli i Dritës VI, 1930).
After a hundred years, Albanians feel disconnected from their so-called political elites who convey only emptiness and apathy, or more precisely, violated by a tiresome spiral of cynicism, where nothing is believed anymore.
(Homo Albanicus)
