Auron Tare lashes out at Rama over list of 45 young people: Before judging them, he should say what kind of Albania he prepared for them and what he sowed…

Historian and publicist Auron Tare has responded after Prime Minister Edi Rama published a list featuring the photographs and names of 45 young protesters who, according to the head of government, have criminal records.

In a lengthy statement, Tare says most of the young people on the list were minors when Rama took charge of the country. He argues that they grew up in the Albania Edi Rama provided for them.

Nevertheless, the publicist argues that it would be wrong to place responsibility for the young people’s behavior solely on the individuals without also examining the role of the state.

“But no one should ask us to believe that the state’s responsibility ends where the individual’s responsibility begins,” Tare writes. He adds: “Before telling us who these young people are, can he tell us what kind of Albania he prepared for them to grow up in?”

He points out that the prime minister has published a list of the bad pupils; now he still needs to tell us the name of the teacher.

“After all, hashish was not planted only in the soil. In some settings, it also took root in the upbringing of a generation. And a government that seeks to judge the fruits of a society must have the courage to look at what it has sown itself,” he concludes.

Auron Tare: “THE LIST OF STUDENTS AND HASHISH, THE TEACHER OF A GENERATION”

Prime Minister Edi Rama today published a list with the photographs and names of forty-five young people who, according to him, have criminal records. As we are told, those who have been involved in cultivating and distributing hashish feature prominently on the list.

I do not know whether the prime minister, as he prepared this little gallery of culprits, had time to consider one detail: most of these young people were children when he took charge of Albania’s fate. In other words, they did not grow up under some forgotten dynasty. They grew up in his Albania, the Albania he has governed for years and of which he surely has plenty of photographs to remind him.

Now imagine a child growing up in Tirana, in a neighborhood where apartment buildings crowd one another, where trees are a rare memory, where the sports field has been taken over by concrete, where there is no theater, no museum and no library, and where the cultural center, if it exists in some official document, has never been part of his life.

What is left for this child? The street. The schoolyard. The neighborhood café. Whatever company he happens to find. And an environment where the smoke of hashish has become part of the everyday landscape.

So while children in other countries are offered gyms, libraries, music, sports, theater and opportunities to discover their talents, some of our children grew up in a city that taught them more about consuming than creating, more about passing the time than giving it meaning.

And in this void, hashish was not just a plant. It became the teacher of the street, a companion to boredom, the language of an environment with few alternatives. Where there was no book, there was smoke; where there was no sports field, there was the street; where there was no institution to broaden a child’s horizons, there was the temptation to seek a shortcut through life.

I am not saying that every young person who has broken the law is a product of hashish, or that a city’s cultural poverty excuses wrongdoing. Individual responsibility exists, and the law must be enforced. But it would be admirably naive, if it were not so dangerous, to believe that a generation is brought up in a vacuum and that the state bears no responsibility for the world it leaves to its children.

The prime minister shows us photographs of the young people. But photographs do not show everything. They do not show the neighborhoods where they grew up, the schoolyards where they spent their childhood, the spaces they did not have, the books they were never offered or the institutions that never entered their lives.

A photograph of a young person may show his face. It does not tell the whole story of the society that shaped him.

And here I would like to ask the prime minister a simple question: before telling us who these young people are, can he tell us what kind of Albania he prepared for them to grow up in?

Because governing is not just the art of pointing fingers. Above all, it is the duty to build an environment in which the wrong path is not closer to a child than the path to knowledge.

It is easy to put out a list of forty-five names. It is harder to count the missing libraries, the sports fields that disappeared, the cultural centers that were never built and the childhood years spent without a worthy alternative.

If these young people have committed crimes, let them answer for them. But no one should ask us to believe that the state’s responsibility ends where the individual’s responsibility begins.

A society that does not invest in education, culture and sports cannot be endlessly surprised when the street takes charge of raising its children. And when hashish is the street’s teacher, it is no wonder that some of its pupils end up on the wrong side of the law.

The prime minister has published the list of bad pupils. He still needs to tell us the name of the teacher.

After all, hashish was not planted only in the soil. In some settings, it also took root in the upbringing of a generation. And a government that seeks to judge the fruits of a society must have the courage to look at what it has sown itself.

A generation is brought up not only by what it is taught in school, but also by what is allowed to become a habit. And woe to a country when a bad habit is more prevalent than books, more accessible than sports and closer at hand than culture.