Taulant Balla today chose the language of labeling toward protesters, calling them hooligans and some of them thieves. A government official, who should be answering for citizens’ discontent, decided to hand out brands.
But the counter-question from courageous journalist Ambrozia Meta turned the debate exactly where it hurts the government: yes, with the theft of the budget and the unjustified enrichment of officials, what is being done?
Here the bubble of political moralizing bursts. Because it is easy to raise your voice against the citizen in the street; because answers and responsibility are needed when the question reaches the people who administer the money of Albanians.
Violence at protests must be condemned and every theft must be investigated. But this standard also applies to the office, the tender, the contract and the state signature. Public budget is no less sacred than the property damaged in the street. On the contrary, its misuse affects the school, the hospital, the pension and the lives of hundreds of thousands of families.
Balla cannot close the issue of corruption by opening the sack of insults against protesters. A government’s political responsibility does not disappear every time someone who breaks the law appears at a protest. Nor is citizens’ discontent declared invalid with a label from the podium.
Ambrozia Meta did what a journalist should do: she returned the question to power. She did not hand down verdicts of guilt; she demanded that the standard preached for the street be applied also at the top of the state.
Mr. Balla, whoever demands accountability from citizens must be the first to account to them. Otherwise, lectures about the law remain nothing but arrogance with a microphone.
