Bujar Asqeriu: Young people are not educated with rubber batons; education, art and culture make a person, but in Albania they have been thrown into prisons

A critical speech by well-known actor Bujar Asqeriu against the government has, during this month of mass protests, drawn attention to the lack of investment in art, culture and education — a government neglect that has led to an increase in prisons across the country.

As he says, 24 prisons have been built in Albania, not a single new theater has been opened, and many young people have ended up behind bars.

“Are these people going to educate Albanian youth with rubber batons and prison cells?” he asks, while also saying that if there were theaters, there would be fewer prisons and fewer young people serving sentences in those cells.

“In Albania, 24 prisons have been built. Tell me, how many theaters have been built? Zero! All Albanian youth are in prisons; there is no city without a prison. I ask, are these people going to educate Albanian youth with rubber batons and prison cells? If 4, 5, 6 theaters had been built, we would have fewer prisons, I am sure of that. Because, as Victor Hugo said, education and culture make a person; they turn a beast into a human being, and art and culture ennoble him. But these people do not invest, and we fight among ourselves over a 5 lek coin that they throw like a bone, to see who catches it. Albanian youth, from the age of 20 to 30, are in prisons,” the actor said.