Professor and media critic Gëzim Mekuli, based in Norway, has launched strong criticism against Prime Minister Edi Rama in an interview for “Bota sot,” accusing him of turning politics into a “personal theater” and, through the narratives he uses, risking the deepening of national divisions.
According to Mekuli, the behavior and statements of the head of the Albanian government are taking the form of a “media king” style, while he also expressed concern about Albania’s relationship with Albanians outside the state borders, as well as geopolitical developments in the region.
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“Edi Rama’s politics have now turned into a personal theater where the truth no longer has any value; Instead of listening to the voice of the people protesting against the destruction of Albania, he chooses to joke around and insult Albanians. When this man aimed his ironies even at the Albanians of Kosovo and Macedonia, Rama showed that, in order to preserve his power, he is ready to do the lowest thing: divide the Albanian nation.
Edi dRama has decided to play the most dangerous role of his career: that of the media king; Faced with a people who day and night are rising up against cultural crime, environmental destruction and the oligarchy in Tirana, dRama did not choose accountability before the people, but the old pattern of fallen dictators: he called the revolt of the Albanian people ‘collective hysteria’ and, with the arrogance of a 19th-century villager, turned the knives of his stale irony toward the Albanians of Kosovo and North Macedonia. Not at all unexpected from dRama, is it?”
Mekuli also said that Rama’s approach toward Albanians living outside Albania constitutes, in his view, a violation of the country’s Constitution.
He stressed that Albanians everywhere are stakeholders in Albania and not guests, while raising the question of “…who is Edi Rama to set emotional and political traps among Albanians?”
“This man’s behavior is a blatant violation of our survival contract as a nation: Article 8 of the Constitution of the Republic of Albania defines as an obligation the protection and strengthening of ties with Albanians outside Albania’s state borders. Therefore, no one has either a constitutional mandate, ethical authority, or moral right to mock the Albanians of Kosovo or other Albanian lands. Albanians outside the administrative borders of 1912 are not guests in their own home; they are stakeholders. Yes, yes, we are stakeholders. Period! Historically, we built, saved and created this half-Albania together. Did men like Isa Boletini, Hasan Prishtina and Idriz Seferi and many others come to ‘save Albania’ or Serbia, Edi dRama? Who sealed independence in Vlora, dRama? And who is Edi dRama to set emotional and political traps among Albanians? Serbia and the Serbian academy of Belgrade have this strategy, dRama. How is it that you adapt so well to old Serbian propaganda aimed at dividing and fragmenting Albanians?
dRama openly displays his favorite strategy: Divide et Impera (divide and rule). He wants a confused people, divided into regional parcels, because only on division can he build his empire of propaganda,” the political analyst elaborated.
Further on, Mekuli assessed that Rama has caused great damage to the Albanian nation, especially through cooperation with Vučić and a critical and rejecting stance toward Kurti.
In this context, he also mentioned the plan to divide Kosovo, as well as the “Open Balkan” project.
“Geopolitically and culturally, this (non)prime minister is the person who has brought irreparable damage to the Albanian nation; remember the infamous ‘Open Balkan’ project, a plan created solely for the sake of the Serbian geopolitics of Aleksandar Vučić. Remember the knives in the back that dRama repeatedly drove into Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and into Kosovo’s very statehood. Remember his feverish lobbying for the partition of Kosovo, coordinated with a corrupt political and media class in Pristina. When you see this photograph, you understand that dRama lives completely outside the historical and geopolitical context of the Albanians; isn’t that so, dear readers?
There is nothing original in dRama’s theater; the attempt to sell pan-Albanian resistance as ‘collective hysteria’ is simply a frightening copy of fallen dictatorships; they too read popular anger as ‘mad,’ ‘manipulated,’ or ‘hysterical.’”
He then listed several political figures whom, according to him, Rama is imitating, adding that his fate could be similar as well.
“Here below I remind dRama of the fate and language of those he imitates:
1. Erich Honecker and the GDR (1989): When East Germans rose up in popular protests for freedom, dignity and national reunification, Honecker and his corrupt propaganda apparatus called them precisely ‘collective hysteria’ stirred up by foreign agencies. Honecker arrogantly declared that the Berlin Wall would stand for another 100 years. But, just as is happening today in Tirana, where the high political and cultural spirit of Albanians from all territories is coming together, that German ‘hysteria’ was in fact the awakening of a nation. Within a few months, that wall of shame, which divided the German nation, was torn down and Honecker ended up exactly as he deserved. Therefore, the protests of Germans in 1989 in Berlin have many similarities with the protests of Albanians in Tirana in 2016…
2. Nicolae Ceaușescu (Romania): Just a few days before the people showed him his place in December 1989, Ceaușescu called the protesters in Timișoara ‘hooligans’ and ‘hysterical provocateurs’ who wanted to destroy the country. He gave his last speech from the balcony, surrounded by a crowd that began to boo him; a scene that so closely resembles the fear dRama today has of the square and of the protesting people across Albania and beyond it.
3. Anwar Sadat (Egypt): When he was confronted with popular revolts against oligarchy and agreements that sold out the country’s interests, he treated opposition movements as ‘mental deviations’ and ‘collective hysteria,’ refusing to see the reality of economic oppression and political betrayal.”
Mekuli continued his criticism of Rama, focusing on what he described as his mocking approach toward Albanians from Kosovo and North Macedonia.
He also warned that history has repeatedly shown that the end of dictators’ performances is always the same.
“Just as Germany in 1989 shook the foundations of communism through German reunification, today’s protests in Tirana are not ‘collective hysteria,’ but a manifestation of a high cultural and national spirit. When dRama mocks the Albanians of Kosovo and Macedonia marching in Tirana, he forgets that just as the Germans did not ask about Honecker’s barbed wire, neither do Albanians ask about the administrative borders that left us outside Albania in 1913; because Albania is the public and political oxygen of Albanians wherever they breathe, isn’t it, Edi dRama?
dRama is acting on his final balcony, but history has shown us that the show of dictators always ends in the same way: with the triumph of the sovereign people,” the analyst underlined.
In the end, he stressed that Albanians from Kosovo, Macedonia, the Valley, Montenegro and Chameria have been, are, and will always remain at Albania’s side, while warning Rama that “your chair will break and the propaganda will run dry.”
“How can a prime minister be so idiotic in the face of our blood and collective memory? During the horror of the war in Kosovo, the poor but big-hearted people of Albania opened the doors of their homes, shared bread, salt, tears, suffering and bullets with their brothers and sisters expelled and abused by the Serbian army. Today Albania needs the help of Albanians from Kosovo and of all Albanians. Therefore Albanians together must be in Tirana, not only against one man but against a rotten system that this man created with his oligarchs.
Consistent to the end; No theatrical performance can undo the truth: Albanians from Kosovo, Macedonia, the Valley, Montenegro and Chameria have been, are and will remain at Albania’s side and will help Albania, just as the Albanians of Albania helped Kosovo. Solidarity is not ‘collective hysteria,’ but the light of a national consciousness that will not be extinguished, regardless of the tired scenarios of dRama & Co.
Mr. Prime Minister, when your chair breaks and the propaganda runs dry, how will you look the Albanians of Kosovo and Macedonia in the eye after insulting them just to protect your own a**?” Gëzim Mekuli concluded for “Bota sot.”
