After more than a month of protests on the boulevard, Rama: Citizens’ real concern is the protest’s “clear water,” while the failures have gathered in its black crust

Edi Rama said that, beyond the irony, what must be underlined is that changing the administration is a very complicated, difficult process that requires something that is found less and less today, both in the world and in Albania: time.

According to him, this requires time because it involves building mechanisms connected to many people. He said that, if we look back and remember that the first basic law on public administration was adopted nearly a decade ago, it becomes clearer what kind of transformation the civil service has undergone.

Rama stressed that a distinction must be made between the administration and the civil service, because they are not on the same level, and this, according to him, is not a feature unique to Albania. He said that in the public administration, which also includes the human resources that have made exemplary progress in the negotiations possible, there is now a new quality in state administration. However, he acknowledged that a major challenge still remains in relation to citizens, because they are entirely right to demand better treatment in many cases.

He went on to describe this as an intense moment in society’s journey, and recounted an episode that, according to him, helps explain the boulevard protest in the part that matters fundamentally to the government: the real voice and concerns of citizens, what he called the protest’s “clear water,” beneath the black crust of its visible and noisy part, where, according to him, all of Albania’s failures and angry people have gathered.

He said that the mother of a friend of his had also joined the protest. Her son, Rama said, had been worried when he learned that she had gone to the protest, because given her age, the first thought in a crowd is the risk of physical injury if you stumble.

According to his account, the son had returned home alarmed and asked his mother what she had been doing at the protest. Her answer, Rama said, sums up the essence of the anger many citizens feel toward the state administration. Because of a health problem, she needed to go to the polyclinic. Knowing the routine of the doctor who is supposed to care for them, people show up as early as five or six in the morning, wait for the doctor to arrive, and hope that by being first in line they will have a chance to be seen.

Rama said the doctor does not always show up on time and that the elderly wait. He added that the doctor does not stay until the end of working hours, but after seeing three or four people, leaves. According to him, this elderly woman, a grandmother, had joined the protest because she felt insulted. He even described the word “insult” as too mild for this case, saying that it amounts to humiliation. The feeling of being humiliated by your own state, by people who are paid to serve you, Rama said, only needs to be imagined to understand that it is the ultimate indignity.

He stressed that people do not feel insulted or humiliated simply because a problem is not solved for them, since not every issue can be resolved through administrative channels. According to him, many matters require judicial solutions, because the administration cannot become a court. Rama added that if the government or the prime minister were to take on the role of judge, it might do five good things and five thousand bad ones, and that is precisely why things are kept separate.

Finally, he said that regardless of whether an illness is cured or not, a doctor is not obliged, either by law or by custom, to cure an incurable disease. But, according to Rama, the doctor is obliged to give a sick person all the comfort that comes from humanity. He concluded by saying that the lack of humanity is something people are not prepared to tolerate.