What usually stands out when arriving in Tirana from Rinas airport or from one of the traffic arteries that connect the capital with the rest of the country is the languid form. The diverse shapes of the buildings, the abstractions like the fragment of the figure of Skanderbeg (!), the shapeless gigantomania of the center and then the ubiquitous towers, within old Tirana. We are so absorbed in this form, that today with the money from savings and aid or “different” jobs (here the thought goes from drugs to crime and so on) it makes us live normally and it seems as if we are looking for this form.

Order towards form, this could be the paradigm of today's Albanian society. And, perhaps, if form did not extend to the superstructure, then it would no longer impress us. The form that today's government is choosing to make its narrative for propaganda, with its blatant activities, goes even further to this argument. The old capital (tyrant), the current (tyrant) and the newcomer who identifies himself between the two are getting used to and instinctively contributing to this crap. They are buying and getting used to buildings that no longer ask anyone and usually do not respect normal urban rules. In the name of external beauty, the public is suffering peacefully from the irresponsibility and technology of making warm facades. Even though specialists say that this technology that is based on polystyrene, an oil product that amplifies fire, this makes little impression. Form is needed. False status. The epilogue came a few hours ago, when the residents watched the burning of the building with their own eyes, a kind of consequence of the pleasure of form. Sadness for us has not been turning into a lesson for a long time.

Today's Albanians are also getting used to propaganda, where the form is second to none. One such is taking place in the last hours with the Diaspora Summit, where the pathos of the word cannot cover the vast space of problems that the relationship with our diaspora carries. The first, from its disregard in the country and the second, its use for the governing decorum, which is receiving huge blows every day from the disconnection with reality. Even though their help is vital: Referring to the magazine "Monitor", Albanian remittances have marked record levels, reaching 1.12 billion euros in 2025 (the highest level recorded so far). These flows, the magazine argues, which can serve as the main pillar for national income and poverty alleviation, have increased significantly due to the new cycle of emigration and informal channels (Monitor, 2026). Well, this had to be addressed, all this support and energy of theirs. But the decorum and pathetic speeches, dedicated to form, cannot leave a trail. There is a lack of a clear objective and a real platform for how this aid will be channeled for development. Speeches and rhetoric simply feed the form.

Could the diaspora help in construction? Would they be given the opportunity in tourism or agriculture? Difficult. Albania constitutes a model economy, where informality is a structural challenge, with a gray economy estimated at around 30-33% of GDP. The economy is characterized by informal employment (almost 50-61% of employees), high cash transactions and tax/insurance evasion, damaging the state budget and fair competition (Altax, 2024). However, today's government is satisfied with construction, not simply for the perception of form, but also for the impact on GDP. And here lies one of the battle horses of today's government, "Rama", who traces the problem to the perception and fading of criticism, not to the current way of life of the ordinary Albanian.

"The extraordinary mud that is being made of this industry to mud Albania, in fact, some who act as investigators when they expose images of Tirana, which is a European city, when you look at those images, they cover them with the sludge of fantasy accusations, this is where Europe's money is laundered. Europe's money was laundered in Albania, in Tirana," Rama declared during a meeting with construction entrepreneurs in Tirana. As if he had not read the SPAK annual report for 2025, which evidenced a consolidated model of money laundering through formally legal businesses. "Repeated features... include the use of entities... such as construction entities... for the circulation and recycling of funds," the report states. And, even more so, from foreign structures, which are nourished with a kind of credibility based on the resources they use. In the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2025, the US Department of State (DASH) emphasized that: “… criminals launder proceeds through real estate purchases, construction projects… and business development”. DASH linked this phenomenon to drug trafficking, human trafficking, corruption and tax evasion, while underlining the part of concern that is always addressed: The 'cash' economy and weaknesses in law enforcement create favorable terrain for money laundering.

The disappointment is no longer in the form of how we are being governed, but in how little we are changing our content, to give form, real substance and content.

Unfortunately, the autocratic elements that are in power today in Albania, like some in the East, have as their motto the strength of form over content, preserving the appearance of democracy, emptying it of democratic yeast for days. The democratic facade of the elections, the withdrawal of elite opinion (such as the Diaspora Summit), the parliamentary debate (if this can be called such in our recent legislatures) satisfies international observers and makes the country immune to sanctions, even though the referrals of 9 countries for additional addresses for Albania's integration are showing that this situation will not continue to be tolerated.

The literature also mentions the phenomenon that: Form makes autocrats control the public sphere while engaging or achieving and preventing competition among elites. This has stifled the opposition, forcing them to revolve in a difficult circle and within a designed legal framework, where they are lost from the start of any idea of ​​change. In the case of Albania, development is bitter from the lessons we do not learn as a community and the attempt not to change. “Are we Albanians or will we become?”, wrote with bitterness in “Hylli i Dritës” in June 1930, Father Anton Hatrapi.

As a sign of respect for the Gheg language, its speakers and cultivators, we are using this title, the first of Anton Harapi, along with a quote from him: “We in Albania are not in a country where life is invented according to a theory or philosophical system; in this view, we are all one race with as many threads as the short views according to which we live. With all this, we try to justify our living system before reason and knowledge, we have nationalism even with a grain of salt, we dogmatize the fate of the nation in the most categorical way, so as not to laugh under the catfish, every time this magical idea appears to us. In this point, we have not succeeded in the opportunists of other nations, for this difference, because among them, although the ideal view is on the verge of bankruptcy, the meaning of collectivity is so consistent, that it is necessary and necessary love is put before every other stream of life…”. Simply, the thesis: “Can we change the content and remove… the loop of form?! Apparently, not yet.” (Homo Albanicus)