Yesterday at the protest as the river of people passed through the narrow serpentine behind the Tirana municipality, some protesters started slapping the tin fence of a construction site. Just to make noise. Immediately two girls rushed to them and said: Hey, enough, not like that! The young people stopped and continued the march under the terrifying cries: New Albania!

This touching episode summarizes all the beauty of civic revolt, which, unlike what we are used to seeing in established history, now does not happen with stones, Molotov cocktails, sticks, or bullets.

This is the most beautiful protest and it has exposed the king naked, precisely because two young girls and thousands of their friends are taking care that it is not tarnished in any way. Without violence, without swearing, without insults, but with many ideas, imagination, irony and solidarity, the youth of the capital are doing what no political party has done in this country.

The grandeur of this protest is reminiscent of the epochal change of December '90, when the people poured into the streets with the chants: We love Albania like all of Europe!

If you look carefully, Rama is struggling and not even his own MPs are defending him anymore. They know how to read the clock of change that is knocking.
The people cannot be held hostage forever and the government's departure seems inevitable.

This is precisely where the panic of power lies. Because for the first time in many years, there is no political opponent in front of them who can be labeled, attacked or demonized. There are citizens in front of them. There are students, young professionals, returned immigrants, young parents, people who do not seek privileges, but normality. They do not seek favors, but equal rules for all. They do not seek revolution, but functional democracy.

This is why official propaganda is losing its power more and more every day. When, in the face of a peaceful, creative, and civic protest, you can't find a single act of violence to justify repression, no glass-breaking to divert the debate, no incident to frighten public opinion, then you are left naked in the face of a simple question: why did these people take to the streets?

And the answer is as simple as it is painful for the government. Because after more than a decade in power, Albania continues to empty. Because thousands of young people see emigration as the only safe project for their lives. Because corruption is no longer perceived as a deviation of the system, but as the system itself. Because meritocracy has been replaced by clientelism and because the ordinary citizen feels less and less represented by the institutions that are supposed to serve them.

Anyone who has been closely observing the developments of recent weeks understands that we are not dealing with a momentary outburst. We are dealing with a change in political culture. The new generation is not seeking to replace one leader with another. It is seeking to replace the old model of power with a new model of citizenship. It is seeking transparency instead of propaganda, accountability instead of arrogance, and institutions instead of the cult of the individual.

This movement therefore resembles much more the processes that have transformed European democracies than the traditional Albanian clashes. In Europe, governments fall when they lose the trust of their citizens. In Europe, power is not considered anyone's private property. In Europe, no one is bigger than the vote and more important than the republic.

This is precisely why the call “New Albania” rings so powerfully. Because it is not just a protest slogan. It is the definition of a collective aspiration. It is the rejection of the fatalism that has accompanied us for decades. It is the belief that Albania can be a country where governments change without trauma, where power is controlled by the citizens and where the future is not sought in airports, but built here.

So, if yesterday the call was "We love Albania like all of Europe," today it seems that an entire generation has decided to do something more: not to wait for Europe to come to Albania, but to build it ourselves here, in the squares, streets, and conscience of a society that is awakening.
And when a society awakens, no power can stop it.