Once again, as on other occasions, Edi Rama chose to use his favorite metaphor that “…Albanians are the Taliban of Europe!”. Earlier, during the Afghan refugee crisis in 2021, he called Albanians the Afghans of Europe. Yesterday, he also shared a more innocent metaphor with love and marriage: for Albania, the relationship with Europe is a marriage of love, while Europe sees enlargement as a marriage of love. Style is the man and if style is not discussed, but simply accepted, the man, even more so when he is prime minister, must be much more careful. Because beyond the diplomatic smiles that atypical humor brings, what is left behind can give the reaction of a medicine that has less benefit than its side effects. And it can even bring about the opposite effect. Just like those fakirs who stand at traffic light intersections and demonstrate physical humiliation while asking for alms. And that instead of the mercy of passers-by and the coins of charity, they reap disgust. But this is only the visible side of the problem. The essence is that these metaphors are far from the truth. Albanians are neither Afghans nor Taliban. Nor have they ever been the former North Koreans under communism. They are just an unfortunate and poorly governed people.
It was not the fault of the hungry Albanians when they were made to believe in the white check. Nowhere else were those hundreds of thousands of refugees who were looking for the windows they saw in the RAI advertisements in the West left orphaned and abandoned to their fate. No one can blame the Albanian immigrants who were running towards the "land of the gods" creating an urban and human catastrophe like in Albania. Nowhere else was that electoral massacre carried out in the third such race and which was followed by an almost civil war, with the arming of the population and thousands of deaths, the result of the thirst for power of a single man. Nowhere else did the transformation of the heroes of the former opposition into satisfied and vain pigs happen with such terrifying speed, as in Albania, when the former prime minister, very mature in his adolescence, behaved like an emotional teenager in his mature age. Nowhere else has it happened that someone who fled from power with a gun returned to power with a vote of revolt against thieves and then, to link his government with weapons that were blown up and with weapons that executed anti-government protesters. Nowhere has it happened in such a form and extent as in Albania when enemies turned into friends for a reason and friends became enemies to the point where even the open air does not wash away revenge. Nowhere else does it happen that you die in prison for two cigarettes of hashish and are honored and promoted if you traffic two tons of cocaine. Nowhere has it happened as in Albania that the opposition deserts the task given to it by the voter, explodes like a fanatical suicide bomber at the foundation of the system, boycotts the elections and enters the market to make the president and a handful of people around him ultra-rich.
Nowhere else has it happened that the two most powerful people in the country, as a rule and not as an exception, have the incredible ability to surround themselves with servile and sinful, empty-headed and calculating fools. To accept as satisfied architects a deformed economic model with luxury ghettos for a minority and sleeping bunkers for the rest. To feel like the heroes who overthrew a red pasha and gradually transform themselves into sultans who impose their will on ever smaller courts and ever fewer courtiers.
It is impossible to imagine Chancellor Merz complaining about lazy, "Hun" or robotic Germans or President Macron calling the French "baguettes", "cheese eaters" or "sluts". But there is nothing easier than blaming the people in the Balkans. Even more so a people who can vote freely, but do not have the freedom to choose. Even when this goes against the national pride that paints Albanians as brave and proud race who choose to die and not submit, but who are sold for a sack of flour. Who tolerate different religions, but kill for a passing glance. Who pray for justice, but bleed for revenge. Even when this contradicts the sincere echo in the stadiums "...oh how good they are Albanians!" and which is followed by the rush to abandon a country that considers honest poverty the most cruel crime. That despises the wicked and the strong, but is eager to become strong through evil means.
Edi Rama probably missed the mark when he painted the Albanian as the Taliban of Europe. He probably sincerely believes that his governance, if not the best possible, is much better than that of his predecessor. But there is no doubt that in Europe they hold their noses in their hands when they are made to believe that a people with an axe in their hand will come to their courtyard, capable of doing to themselves what even the most evil invaders have not done to them. And surely, just like with the beggar at the crossroads, they will feel more disgust than the need to give geopolitical currency: be like us! Just don't enter the marital bed of the "weather whore" with muddy shoes and unwashed teeth and feet!
