By Endri Xhafo
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In his book “Aeschylus, This Great Loser,” Kadare speaks of justice changing sides. Of justice that is no one’s permanent property. Kadare says:
“Justice can never be on both sides at the same time; it belongs to only one of the parties.”
Kadare addresses this when analyzing Aeschylus’ “Oresteia,” first performed in Athens in 458 BCE—the only complete trilogy from antiquity to have survived into modern times.
The trilogy tells of the chain of murders within the family of Agamemnon.
As Nolan also illustrates in his “Odyssey,” before setting out for Troy, Agamemnon—the king of Mycenae and commander of the Greek armies—sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, to secure favorable winds and the support of the gods. His wife, Clytemnestra, took revenge when he returned from the war. Orestes, their son, killed his mother to avenge his father. But he was pursued by the Erinyes, the goddesses of vengeance, for matricide.
Thus, at the heart of Aeschylus’ work is a question that has remained relevant throughout human history: What happens when someone who has suffered an injustice takes it upon themselves to establish justice, committing another injustice in the process?
According to Kadare, “excessive passion, even when in a state of legitimate self-defense, can cause justice to shift to the opponent.”
Two thousand five hundred years later, this dilemma is being played out in the streets of Tirana.
The October 2026 protest arose from many real injustices. But the fact that you are in the right at the beginning of a conflict does not guarantee that you will remain in the right. The justice of a cause does not give protesters unlimited justification for every action they undertake.
Not only justice, but also the legal obligation, was on the side of the police when they intervened from the outset to stop the acts of vandals who set fire to the Ministry of Education and the Prime Minister’s Office, destroyed businesses on Durrës Street, banks, financial institutions and telecommunications companies, stole phones and perfumes, attempted to empty ATMs, and desecrated the sanctity of the Orthodox Church and the inviolability of the Vatican’s diplomatic mission, as they had earlier done to Israel’s. And as for these last three incidents, God forbid that their resentment was inspired in any way by political Islam, whose winds from Asia Minor and the Middle East have recently been blowing across Europe.
Up to this point, the police should have been encouraged. That is what nearly the entire political class in France is doing today—with the exception of the Islamo-Marxists of LFI—and what all reasonable forces in Italy are doing. Because in a democratic state, the monopoly on the use of physical force belongs not to crowds, but to the state through the police as well, and it may be exercised only lawfully and proportionately.
However, unlike their French or Italian colleagues, the Albanian State Police force suffers from the notorious reputation of some of its former leaders linked to organized crime. And this stain is not easily erased from people’s minds. Therefore, to make its own work easier in relation to the public, the police must avoid disproportionate violence as much as possible, so as not to give people another reason to see it as the police force of a narco-regime.
Testimonies from the ground over the past two days show us that certain police officers, apparently exhausted and frustrated by a situation that is dragging on, have struck out at everything in their path. Meanwhile, exchanges between two officers, recorded by street cameras, reveal dissatisfaction within the police ranks themselves over the indiscriminate assault of young people. “Chapeau!” to the conscientious police officers!
Police officers must not forget that the right to protest peacefully is a constitutional right. In the discussion of justice changing sides, the justice of a cause is not automatically invalidated. A protester may still be right in their political demands even when acting wrongly. Even less can the right of a protester who remains in the middle of a violent crowd be called into question if they themselves commit no acts of violence, throw no stones, launch no fireworks or firecrackers, and do not threaten the physical integrity of a police officer. They are entirely within their rights, even if they shout: “Down with the dictatorship!” And the European Commission, while condemning the violence against institutions and the destruction of property, insisted that the right to peaceful protest is essential in a democratic society.
So:
The police have the right to stop violence, not to use it indiscriminately.
Protesters have the right to protest, not to destroy.
Neither side may use its own rights as a justification for the injustice it commits.
But the idea that justice can so easily turn into injustice is something the police officers should be the first to take to heart. If they understand that, then those 2,500 euros will have been well earned!
