Ditmir Bushati supports protesters: Young people are seeking a new Albania

Former Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati has reacted for the first time to the mass protests by young people and citizens calling for Prime Minister Edi Rama and his government to step down.

Full reaction:

As a parent, Bushati says he stands with the young people seeking the opportunity to live with dignity in their own country.

As a member of the university community, he says he unreservedly supports the students’ demands. In his view, the future will be shaped by the aspirations, revolt and energy of a generation that refuses to regard as normal what is being offered to it.

As a citizen, Bushati stresses that he opposes both acts of violence and the police’s use of excessive force.

He recalls that whenever Albania has faced important turning points, young people have been the ones to pave the way for change. That was the case in 1990, while in 1996 they tried again. In his view, ignoring their demands paved the way for the tragedy of 1997.

For several months, the reaction continues, young Albanians have returned to the squares and displayed the particular passion of this generation. This passion is not always articulated clearly and is not accompanied by discipline in every case.

Their demand is for a new Albania. They reject treating corruption and organized crime as a normal part of public life, oppose the extreme concentration of power that regards the homeland as personal property, and refuse a predatory model of capitalism that brings unbearable living costs, emigration and deep social divisions.

Bushati says that ignoring the young people’s demands and attempting to create divisions between flamingos and crows have failed. In his view, the attempt to classify protesters as good or bad cannot work, nor can the use of threatening language toward young people, parents and the media.

He adds that rubber batons, tear gas, water fired under pressure and the police’s financial incentives cannot extinguish the revolt of a generation that is aware of many scandals and faces numerous difficulties every day. Equally inadequate, he says, is the attempt to blame “foreign forces” in a European and deeply pro-American society.

Young people are seeking a new Albania, while the responsibility to respond to this demand belongs to teachers, parents, entrepreneurs, workers, academics and, above all, the Socialist Party.

The Socialist Party, Bushati concludes, must rise to the demands of the times and understand the difference between what is linked to a political moment and what it owes Albania.