From Veton Surroi

Perhaps Prime Minister Rama, the protesters, the general public, including me who is writing this, do not know this, but somehow this seems to be the beginning of the end of an era, the end of a government, perhaps the end of a historical process.

The beginning of the end is visible when a person like Prime Minister Rama tries for two weeks in a row to find the culprits why citizens with unprecedented order and discipline come out to demand his resignation. A long exotic list of culprits was found in these two weeks, among which the “external enemies” were the Greeks who did not want increased tourist competition in Albania and the Iranians, who have no problem with tourist competition, but with Albania, which is one of the main threats to the ayatollahs’ regime. The external enemies have now been joined by “internal enemies” who, in the words of the Prime Minister, are a fascist spirit that “does not need uniforms and weapons. The fascist spirit is the spirit that says: “Albania belongs to Albanians”, therefore, everyone else outside is not welcome”.

Prime Minister Rama may have seen the protesters differently, even if it was based on personal experience. When he was a protester in 1990 and 1991, the leaders of the ruling party initially called those protests the product of external enemies, and yes, among them were the Greeks and Iranians. When the monument to Enver Hoxha was toppled, there must have been a number of leaders who called them fascists, these Albanians who would be like all of Europe.

When read without prejudice, “Albania belongs to Albanians” means the sovereignty of the citizens of Albania. Those who seek sovereignty do not feel this threatened by Greece, Iran, Jews, Asians, Africans or “polyagents”; they feel that the sovereignty of the country, the right of citizens to decide for it, is threatened by the government. Or more precisely, by the model of capturing the state in a fusion of politics, corruption, and organized crime.

The ultimate beginning of power is when the Leader cannot describe the reality seen from the window.

2.
The beginning of the end of a period is when a capillary protest movement like this is born and develops. That is, when a movement develops that does not need a party leader but finds a common articulation for the youth and all strata of the country, especially within the middle class that has not found identification with political militants. In the streets of Tirana and several other Albanian cities (with support also from the diaspora where he lives), the number of protesters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Rama increases day by day. And this number is growing no longer from a lack of fear of the reaction of the government, but from a lack of fear of themselves, the fear that if they do not come out, they are losing their historical moment. The citizens who are increasing in the streets have no dilemma whether to come out or not because they are convinced that they are participating in a process whose name they do not yet know (revolt, revolution, demonstration) but they are sure that that process will end with the power of the current prime minister, or better said with the nature of that power.
The beginning of the end may be this very moment, when the conviction of the overthrow of a prime minister or government or order ripens - that is, a kind of conviction that things will not return to the way they were before the protests began.

3.
But the beginning of the end is not the end.

This protest could take different dimensions and directions. It could be larger and more dynamic (with roadblocks and the like, as was warned) and this is as likely to happen as the prime minister is likely to try to continue his discourse of arrogance to overcome the cries for resignation and imprisonment.

The Prime Minister may hope that the protests will subside after a while or, as is the case in Serbia, that some kind of lifestyle accommodation with protests will be achieved, as a daily or weekly ritual.
But, the beginning of the end has brought a new political dimension.

In it, the prime minister, who has the legality of power gained through elections, is losing political legitimacy. There are people on the streets like he did 36 years ago. Every day of the protest movement and citizen support for him is a day of erosion of political legitimacy for the government that was built as an offering to the very class that is protesting.

In this regard, the protest movement is in a battle to gain political legitimacy. It has already won the battle – standing up against a model of state capture has given it and is giving it ever-increasing support. But this support will require that legitimacy and legality be transformed into a new reality. Even if the demand for Prime Minister Rama’s resignation is met tomorrow, the day after tomorrow there will not be a prime minister and a government of Scandinavian democratic standards in power. Perhaps there are such ones – within the movement, various political parties, civil society – but they can only come to power after free and fair elections. The current state capture is built precisely as a product and consequence of elections that cannot be called meeting the standard of being free.
In the coming days, weeks and perhaps even months, a battle will take place in the new political arena in which the prime minister will try to maintain the legitimacy of his actions and the protest movement will win it. The prime minister will not be helped by his arrogance, his previous media control, nor by the space where he has been innovative and leading, that of social media. His arrogance will only feed the protest movement, which has already surpassed the prime minister on social media and is establishing itself as a favorite even on television channels that were until recently close to the government.

The protest movement will not be helped by the belief that it is right; political graveyards are filled with self-confidence in just causes.

4.
The protest movement is having a hard time at this moment projecting what the end is that has now begun. It is a capillary, heterogeneous movement that will perhaps be the nucleus of a political group capable of holding elections and governing the country; perhaps not.

But the prime minister is the one who, in the position he holds, can see the end. This position also enables him to participate in its design. The end is called the cessation of governance in which political interests, corruption, the oligarchic elite and organized crime are jointly and inseparably integrated, at the head of which is the autocratic guarantee. The end is called the creation of a social consensus, in which he will also participate, for conditions for free and fair elections, accepted by all participants.

"When suddenly, in the middle of the night, you hear
an invisible procession passing by,
with perfect music, with exquisite fairy tales,
Don't mourn your fate, now that it's leaving you,
that things went wrong, that your plans
turned out to be a complete fraud;
"Do not mourn in vain for them."

Constantine Cavafy, the famous Greek poet from Alexandria, thus describes the last night of Mark Antony, the Roman general who had been besieged for a long time by Octavian's forces. The legend described by Plutarch was that after many battles, poetry and music were heard in the streets of Alexandria, there was art and joy, and this was the signal for change. In Cavafy's words, the Albanian prime minister should listen, after political battles, to the art and youth, the music and joy of the streets of Tirana:

"Above all, do not deceive yourself, do not say
that this was a dream, that your ears lied;
Don't lower yourself with vain hopes like these.
Like one who has long been prepared,
with the light of courage,
how is it for him?
who was found worthy of such a city."
And, a final message about facing reality with dignity:
"Go and put them by the window,
listen with deep longing,
without the arguments and excuses of cowards,
listen – your last pleasure – the fairies,
the perfect music of this strange procession,
Say goodbye to Alexandria.
"that I am losing you."