Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati has expressed his support for young people seeking a dignified life in Albania, while condemning acts of violence and police brutality against protesters. In a public statement, Bushati stresses that the aspirations, revolt and energy of the new generation will shape the future of the country, and underlines that the demands of students and young people cannot be ignored. He recalls the role of Albanian youth in the political developments of 1990 and the efforts for change in 1996, warning that failing to listen to society’s demands may have serious consequences.
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As a parent, I stand with young people who are seeking a dignified life in their homeland. As a member of the university community, I fully support the demands of students. The future will be determined by the aspirations, revolt and energy of a generation that refuses to accept what is offered to it as normal.
As a citizen, I am against acts of violence and against police brutality. When Albania has faced a major turning point, young people have known how to lead the change. They did so in 1990. They tried in 1996. But their demands were ignored, which foreshadowed the horror of 1997.
For months, Albanian youth have returned to the squares, displaying a passion that beats only in the hearts of this generation. It is not always clearly expressed, and rarely disciplined. The youth want a new Albania, because they reject the normalization of corruption and organized crime in public life; the extreme personalization of power that treats the homeland as loot; and the model of predatory capitalism that produces unaffordable living costs, the abandonment of the country and social polarization.
Ignoring the demands of young people and the strategy of dividing flamingos and vultures has failed. The attempt to split young people into good and bad will not work. Nor will threatening language toward them, their parents and the media. Rubber batons, tear gas, water cannons, or the financial incentives for police cannot extinguish the revolt of a generation that knows many scandals and lives amid countless hardships. Even less so the search for culprits in ‘foreign forces’ in a deeply pro-American European society.
Young people want a new Albania. Now it is the duty of teachers, parents, entrepreneurs, workers, academics, and yes, above all, the Socialist Party to rise to the height that the moment demands. The Socialist Party must distinguish what belongs to a political moment from what it owes to Albania.