A protest is not simply a list of accusations against those in power. When it lasts more than a month, when it brings together people beyond traditional alignments, and when it refuses to become the property of a political party, it turns into something else: a test for everyone. Not only for those it opposes, but also for those who claim to be the alternative.
This protest is not merely giving public actors a “chance”; it is holding up a mirror to them.
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1. It is showing the government the limits of arrogance.
The vote won last year is not a hunting license for four years. A parliamentary majority does not replace social legitimacy, nor does it make listening to citizens unnecessary.
When thousands of people come out every evening, without parties, without buses and without pay, the system cannot blame the discontent on polls, algorithms or foreign agents, even though it has tried them all.
2. It is showing the traditional opposition something that until yesterday seemed unthinkable: the square is not its property.
The protesters did not ask for party membership cards or permission from opposition headquarters. In many cases, they even distanced themselves from them.
If the opposition does not understand why it was rejected, it will find it even harder to convince citizens that the alternative it offers will be anything different from the power it seeks to replace.
3. It may be sending the media its last possible warning.
This protest, too, was reported mainly through a partisan lens, either for or against, often depending on who pays the bill. Citizens noticed.
Credibility is not restored by changing the tune for a day. One news story is enough to lose it, and it takes years to win it back. It must be understood that the square is not against journalists, but against the “media product.”
These 34 days were a test for the media. How many outlets passed it will be shown by the audience in six months.
4. It is showing big business that capitalism without social responsibility is self-destructive.
A sustainable economy cannot be built on an impoverished and dissatisfied society.
Business that has grown on monopolies, concessions, favors and state capture has not built sustainable capital, but dependency. And dependency on favors becomes especially dangerous precisely when the state begins to fear its own citizens.
5. It is reminding civil society of the distance between the project and the problem.
Organizations that have worked for years on democracy, transparency, accountability and good governance often found themselves outside a movement that was demanding precisely these things.
Perhaps because the language of projects is one thing and the language of problems is another. It is one thing to talk about civic participation in a hotel conference room and another to recognize it when it appears, uninvited, in the square.
6. It is reminding the police that a uniform is no guarantee of immunity.
The way a peaceful protest is managed, the communication, proportionality, restraint and respect for the citizen all become part of the collective memory.
A police force that protects the state while respecting the citizen gains authority. A police force used as an instrument of political pressure may win a clash in the street, but it loses something far harder to restore: trust.
7. It is asking the justice system the question it cannot avoid indefinitely.
When will the case files be ready for the publicly known cases, for suspicious contracts, for decisions taken outside procedures, and for flagrant violations of the law and of logic?
SPAK does not owe anything to the square and should not be rushed by pressure from the street. Justice dictated by the crowd is not justice, but slow-moving investigations, by candlelight, into calamities committed in broad daylight make the question increasingly legitimate: who benefits from the delay?
8. It is offering new parties their hardest test: not to become like the old ones.
The first signs are not always encouraging; even among new voices, old reflexes are appearing: the search for a savior leader, emotional rhetoric without a program, the personalization of the movement and the temptation of a cult of the chairman.
Change is not proven by a new logo, nor by the leader’s young age. It is proven when the number two figure in a movement, if such a figure exists, can oppose the number one figure and survive politically.
9. To the protesters themselves, these 34 days are showing that anger can turn into endurance.
But endurance without organization and without a negotiating structure has an expiration date. The demands exist. The way to impose them is still unclear. The square can generate pressure, but pressure that does not achieve concrete results, over time, produces fatigue and attrition.
After the courage to take to the square comes another kind of courage, perhaps even more difficult: organization.
10. And to the entire system, without exception, it is showing that the cost of indifference has risen.
Not every protest brings down a government. The history of Albania’s transition bears witness to that. But the success of a protest is not measured only by the mechanical fall of a government, especially if it is replaced by another that governs in the same way.
Success is also measured by the rising cost of arrogance and the lack of accountability.
It is measured by the fact that, next time, anyone making a decision in the name of citizens must know that the price of arrogance is no longer zero.
P.S.
Whatever path this movement follows, partial reform, a change of government or quiet exhaustion, one thing has already happened and will be difficult to reverse: the collective expectation has changed.
Not yet the institutions, not yet the way of governing, but the expectation.
People who took to the square for 34 consecutive nights have learned something about themselves that the system cannot easily make them unlearn: that they can come out, they can stay, and they do not have to comply when they are told that everything will be fine. The protest may end, it may shrink, but what is certain is that it can return in other forms, over other issues and at a higher cost for those who choose to ignore it.
By: Lutfi Dervishi
