Prime Minister Edi Rama reacted with a long message on social media, a day after the 35th protest, where thousands of citizens gathered on the boulevard and where one of the most commented moments was the appearance of a wooden coffin, carried on the shoulders by protesters.
According to protest participants, the coffin symbolized “Edi Rama’s political coffin,” presenting it as a sign of what they consider the end of his government.
In his reaction, Rama addressed the protesters, whom he calls “flamingos”, distinguishing between them and, according to him, the political forces that have instrumentalized the protest.
“Today there is one main thing to say. That protest is no longer yours, dear flamingo! You have become, without your authorization and against your will, the alibi of an archmortem returned to the boulevard as an example of the curse that has followed Albania since 1912,” says Rama.
The Prime Minister linked the symbolism of the protest coffin to the events of 20 years ago, saying that its use reminds him of a dark period in the country’s political history.
“20 years ago, the archmort was used to climb the stairs of the prime minister’s castle and the dead man became cannon fodder… While last night, the archmort reappeared as the completely expected result for me of an orchestrated attempt to break the stairs of ascent to the top of this country,” says the head of government.
Rama says that the protest began as a sincere civic expression, but according to him, it was taken under control by other actors.
“Yes, it was completely expected for me. Because Albania is neither the first nor the last, where trained hands of enemies and ill-wishers of democratic societies… enter, take control and do their best to divert to the detriment of these societies, protests that arise as expressions of sincere feelings from the belly of society,” emphasized the head of government.
Following the reaction, the head of government says that the protesters were not wrong to demand more from the country. However, he invites them not to forget history and not to allow, according to him, the protest to be used by others.
“This is just a friendly invitation for you not to give up on memory in any way. Because history is not a burden that we escape from by throwing it out of our attention, but it is the compass that does not allow us to lose our way,” the prime minister emphasized.
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Rama ends his message with a call not to forget the past.
“He who forgets where he comes from, no longer knows where he is going.”
Full reaction:
Dear flamingos,
this sad video card is made for those of you who twenty years ago were children or still embryos in your mother’s womb;
for those who, although they were then quite grown up, have left the Albania and Tirana of that time so far behind that today they seem either as if they never existed, or as if the memory of yesterday is a burden that prevents them from demanding more from today;
and for those who left Albania and Tirana, but who recently returned for a road trip and two jobs, on the one hand a vacation in the new Albania of a reality transformed by reforms, work, effort and colossal patience, on the other hand a protest for a “new Albania”; an Albania of magic keys, in whose name it is demanded that the electoral contract with the people be violated with convoys of cars dressed in red and black.
It is preached that democratic institutions should be targeted and liberated by force as enemy strongholds.
Violence against elected representatives of the people who should be prevented from entering and leaving the Albanian Parliament is justified.
And it is determined by a self-proclaimed “people” in the streets who is a patriot and who is a traitor, who goes to prison, who is lynched and who is praised.
It is not my intention to make you feel that you were wrong, as long as your protest degenerated into a magnified copy of the ugly protests of the political swamp. Because no, you were not wrong at all when you felt trapped in a trap of problems greater than your power to solve and where you found each other with your sorrows and hopes.
No, you are not wrong even today if you feel good about identifying as a great community of people from all walks of life, with the birds, with nature, with the land, with the homeland, with Albania.
No, you are not wrong, for seeking to rise above the ordinary everyday life and to demand from this country much more than has been achieved to date.
This is not only right. This is necessary.
And as strange as it may sound to you, I am grateful to you for the light of hope and alarm that you lit with the energy of your peaceful protest, but that is a longer conversation for another day.
It is your right to demand from life in this country, much more than has been achieved in the span of time between the archmort that 20 years ago contained a dead person and the archmort that last night, on the same boulevard, contained the abyss between you and those who put the light of your protest in an archmort.
20 years ago, the archmort was used to climb the stairs of the prime minister’s castle and the dead man became cannon fodder, falling on its gate as once in the Middle Ages, to overthrow the government. While last night, the archmort reappeared as the completely expected result for me of an orchestrated effort to break the stairs of this country’s ascent, turning upside down Albania, which had finally risen to its feet after a long period of kneeling, politically, economically, internationally.
Yes, it was completely expected for me. Because Albania is neither the first nor the last, where trained hands of enemies and ill-wishers towards democratic societies (with destinies linked to the European Union or the United States) enter, take control and do their best to divert to the detriment of these societies, protests that arise as expressions of sincere feelings from the belly of society, not from international conspiracies.
Of course, those hands take control of a protest thanks to the zeal of the Sallahans that exist in every country, and who are well-known here by everyone, the scoundrels with their friends, who remembered that the boulevard had become a yogurt shop and immediately surrounded your protest, like hyenas in a cage. After the initial confusion, the tired wolves of the Street of Hope also entered the game, who, in order to disguise themselves as patriots, gave a boost to the trade of keleshes in the middle of the heat. And when you started to wander from the boulevard, creating gaps for the “200 thousand” photographs of the international media, the jackals of the “diaspora” from Pristina and Tetovo were also mobilized, who saw in the boulevard the long-awaited hearth for their fuel of hatred against official Tirana, where they have not found and will not find any space to develop their national-folkloric delirium. Because Tirana is the capital of Balkan Europe, not the capital of national-communist, national-Islamist, or national-isolationist illusions.
Of course, those hands and those forces that are mixed in the Arkmort’s soup, do not control each other or, more precisely, have extreme incompatibility between each other. But no incompatibility matters today for them, because today they are united, some consciously and many others blindly, by the dark goal of stopping Albania and turning it back, right in the last kilometers of the centuries-old path towards the sun that rises where it sets. But this is not a conversation for today either, especially since you have no connection with them.
Today there is one main thing to say. That protest is no longer yours, dear flamingo! You have become, without your authorization and against your will, the alibi of an archmort returned to the boulevard as an example of the curse that has followed Albania since 1912; always using the homeland, the flag and sovereignty as raw materials to feed hatred among Albanians and as nails of punishment that, more than once, have locked this country in the abyss within that archmort.
But this sad video card is in no way a call for you to give up the feelings and thoughts that brought you together. No, this is just a friendly invitation for you not to give up on memory in any way. Because history is not a burden that we escape from by throwing it out of our attention, but it is the compass that does not allow us to lose our way.
Whoever forgets where he comes from, no longer knows where he is going.