Arben Gashi: The cause of the protests in Albania is internal and not linked to Kosovo

LDK MP Arben Gashi has rejected claims that citizens from Kosovo had an influence on the protests held in Albania, describing them as attempts to find those responsible outside the country.

In a post, Gashi said the large protests in Tirana reflect internal public dissatisfaction and cannot be justified by the presence of a few hundred people from Kosovo.

He said the issue is connected to the standard of democracy, the way the country is governed, and the lack of trust in institutions, while shifting attention to external culprits, according to him, avoids discussion of the real reasons behind citizens’ dissatisfaction.

Full post:

I am not at all surprised by the way people are looking for culprits outside the country for the protests, when in fact the problem is entirely internal.

I am following the political and media developments in Tirana, and I have the impression that what is happening, beyond the debate of the day, is a deeper indicator of the condition of society and the model of governance.

According to reports by international media and the organizers’ estimates, tens of thousands of citizens took part in the protests, while some sources mention figures exceeding 100,000 and, in certain cases, reaching more than 200,000 protesters. Despite the differences in the numbers, one fact remains clear: this is a massive civic mobilization and not a marginal phenomenon.

In these circumstances, claims that around 100 cars from Kosovo were present at the protests, which would imply around 300–400 citizens, seem entirely disproportionate compared with the scale of the protest. Even if that figure were accurate — which I seriously doubt — it explains nothing in the face of tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens taking to the streets.

In fact, more than 3 million entries from Kosovo are recorded in Albania every year. This means that, statistically speaking, almost every citizen of Kosovo travels to Albania more than once during the year. Therefore, those 300–400 people in the square may well have been entirely random. In this reality, Kosovars are tourists, consumers, investors, and part of a shared economic and social space. For this reason, it is absurd that in moments of public dissatisfaction, attention is shifted to a few hundred people from Kosovo.

This way of reasoning is not unfamiliar. We saw it in 1997 as well, when internal political and institutional crises were being covered up with narratives about external culprits. Kosovars were mentioned then too, while the real debate about the state and governance was avoided.

Neither then nor today is Kosovo the problem. The problem is entirely internal: the quality of democracy, the model of governance, the relationship between the state and the citizen, and the lack of trust in public institutions. When a society takes to the squares on this scale, the debate cannot be reduced to a few dozen or a few hundred people from outside.

Narratives aimed at stirring division among Albanians serve no one. The Albanians of Kosovo and those of Albania today have greater communication, interdependence, and interaction than ever before. This reality makes attempts at artificial division or the search for external culprits outdated.

In the end, if hundreds of thousands of citizens are protesting, the response cannot be a small statistic used to divert attention. The response must be a serious reflection on the reasons for the dissatisfaction.

Democracy does not become stronger by looking for imaginary culprits, but by listening to citizens and addressing the real causes of their revolt.