Democratic Party MP Agron Gjekmarkaj said in Parliament that “there is no chair that can save a government when the people lose their fear,” as he commented on the opposition protests and accused the government of blocking institutions, competition and political rotation.
In his speech, he also drew comparisons with George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” declaring that Albania, in his view, is being held hostage by a government that has produced arrogance and pushed citizens away from decision-making.
Të lidhura
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Full speech:
Honorable chairwoman of the session, honorable deputies, since we are talking about animal feed, I think it is appropriate to say a few words about “Animal Farm,” George Orwell’s book that has left its mark on our civilization, and about its characters. As you know, there are many characters there. I will stop at only four of them. The first is Napoleon, the pig who seizes power and becomes authoritarian. The second is Snowball, the intelligent and idealistic pig, driven out by Napoleon, who embodies the revolutionary rival. If Ms. Spiropali were here, I could ask her for an explanation, but she is not, and so we are left without an answer. The third is Boxer, the honest, loyal and hardworking horse, who represents the working class that sacrifices everything for the regime. Perhaps Ervin Hoxha can explain this metaphor when he has time. And the fourth is Squealer, the propagandist pig who justifies every decision of Napoleon. Perhaps Mr. Balla could also help us here, if he sees fit.
Honorable colleagues, Herodotus recounts that in the Battle of Salamis, a Greek warrior, while gripping a ship tightly with his hand to stop it, lost that hand, but stretched out the other and grabbed it again; when that too was cut off, with the determination to defend the freedom of his homeland, he clung to the ship with his teeth. Only after his head was cut off were the enemies able to free themselves from him. If Fan Noli were among us, he would surely say that the warrior of Salamis is perhaps less relentless than the chair-devourers of this majority, glued to their seats, tenders, corruption, banality and the public arrogance that has occupied every space. This, then, is a country held hostage by a government that has blocked everything. You have blocked institutions, political elections, local elections, political rotation and competition. You have turned pluralism into a façade, blocked hope, destroyed social pacts and the social hierarchy. You have denatured this Parliament to the point that citizens no longer follow it, when they see whom you have brought inside and what they dare to say before them without blushing or paling, with a face worse than a shoe sole.
It is precisely for this reason that Albanians have been in the streets for 30 days. They are protesting not because they want the past returned to them, although its plundering angers them, but because they are demanding justice and those who have the duty must provide it. They are demanding the present that has been denied to them and the future that is being stolen before their eyes. Between the government and the citizens, corruption rises everywhere like a wall that does not fall. Between the government and the people stands arrogance with its pompous vocabulary, which has even stripped the Albanian language itself of meaning. Between the office and communication stands the idiot, the rogue, the ignoramus, the thief. To solve a problem today, you have to know someone, you have to be powerful. The status of citizen is no longer enough, that status which changed the history of Europe from the time of Voltaire onward.
Between poverty and prosperity, everywhere stands the oligarch, the client of the government and the prime minister. He is at sea, in the mountains, on the roads and in the fields. His presence is everywhere, like the presence of God, and it makes you want to say: “Oligarchs, give us this day our daily bread, O Lord,” as in the prayer we address to God. Between propaganda and truth stands the prime minister, who turns everything into propaganda. Today Prime Minister Edi Rama stands alone against society. Before Albanians there is not a strong government, nor a just one, nor an honest one; before them stands a naked, banal government, one that goes so far as to lock up students and punish me because they put up a banner in their own home, which is the university; a government hidden behind puppets and towers, wrapped inside the package of the great mountain of corruption.
This government, he said, today speaks the language of ignorance and of that courage born from the fear of the tainted. Behind the so-called strategic investments, he said, there is no national strategy and no great minister of development; hidden there is only the strategy of enriching a caste with the wealth of this land, the strategy of plunder and the depersonalization of the individual, and then of society itself, through the acceptance of authoritarianism. In his view, the people in the streets are trying to stop a transformation, a regression and a curse, so that the land of the Eagle does not change its name and become the land of thieves.
A citizen who loses dignity, he said, is more easily ruled. A society without memory is also more easily manipulated. But when he and she decide to show dignity and restore memory, then the citizen becomes society and takes the fate of the country into their own hands. You are building towers while Albania is being emptied with money coming from the dark world of crime. You are building with the 21 million euro planks, while families count the days until they leave. You speak of imaginary records, while young people know only one record: leaving the country. Under this government, he said, there is nothing European. According to Gjekmarkaj, a government has been built with dwarf ministers, unknown for any values by family, neighborhood and Albania, but distinguished by greed, wheeling and dealing, blind language and a gigantic thirst for power, privileges and wealth. Their bravery, he said, vanishes before the strong, while toward them they behave like obedient servants.
History, he continued, is merciless toward governments that despise citizens. They begin to believe the propaganda they themselves produce, confuse fear with respect, silence with agreement and submission with loyalty. But history has never been written by strongmen; it has been written by citizens. That is why Albanians are in the streets for themselves, for their children, for the country, for their disappointments and frustrations. They are there neither for Iran, nor for Israel, nor for Soros. They are there against injustice, for a normal society that, according to him, has been denied to them for 14 years. They are not protesting to turn back the clock of history, but to set it to the time of democracy. They are demanding free elections and a technical government. They are demanding institutions that serve citizens and not a pyramid that ends with one individual at the top. They are demanding a state where the law is not elastic, stretched over the belly that you feel today.
Loneliness, he concluded, makes you lose your way, retreat, ramble, lie and rave, and tomorrow this will be felt even more strongly, because a government separated from the people and not deriving from them is like a dried oak. It may still appear to be standing, but its roots are rotten. Albania, he said, is greater than any government, any party, any individual, any wheeler-dealer, any gang of swindlers or patronage agents who violently intrude into people’s lives. Democracy is greater than any majority, the will of the people is greater than any majority, and freedom is stronger than any government. When a people decide to be afraid no more, then there is no chair that can save that government, there is no chair that will not break beneath it, there is no majority that will not fall, and there is no prime minister who will not surrender. Thank you.
