Today I read a news story about the belief on the “resurrection of Christ”, but it looked as if it was written to evoke the current events and time here in Tirana. This was the news story:
A journalist of the US newspaper “The Chicago Tribune”, Lee Strobel, had proclaimed that he was an atheist since the ‘70s. This was also made known at Yale University where he studied. But recently, one Sunday, his wife, Leslie, was seen going in church.
Many years had gone by since Strobel had proclaimed himself an “atheist”, but he didn’t know that his wife was a believer. She did the impossible to “win” his wife, after this. So, he started to discover the mysteries surrounding Christ: “Has he carried out the services they say he has?” “Has Christ resurrected or not?” These were existentialist questions that Mr. Strobel dared to manifest them openly. And they resulted to be true; his service and the resurrection.
Time had frozen for man; he had not insisted on finding out about Christ and during this time, he had also lost his wife.
This is where we are:
1
A civil protest projected with the biggest care. The protest is being held in the middle of the big Boulevard, between two institutions which are “guilty” for the bad and “unbelievable” situation in the country, according to the opposition that is holding the protest on its feet. For four years, the opposition has been accused for doing nothing against this government. The classic behavior of an opposition was no longer being effective; neither in Parliament, nor through big protests, or through courts and lawsuits. In front of it there was a team which didn’t really care about the opposition, about the disgruntled, about injustices, poverty or lack of stability. The Establishment had taken the shape of a horse and did everything it wanted. The government has been accused for being arrogant by its own political militants. Then, in an allegoric way, the opposition decided to freeze time. It froze time through a very simple way: A tent in the boulevard where everyone has gathered, people from this country and foreigners and where there was no “final time”, like the leader of opposition declared since the very first day. Its final limit was not time, but the scope: “a technocrat government” and “free elections”. Time froze at this point.
2.
In the meantime, the Establishment (which includes the government, parliament, law enforcement agencies…), was living in front of its own “mirror”. A colossal mirror, in front of which it used to look at itself and take pleasure from everything that it saw in the mirror. It saw luxury offices, paintings made during office hours and expensive suits. In this mirror they also saw big speeches, their big promises, the applauses of one million Albanians (they had frozen too, but nobody had seen this). Everything looked
as a pallet of endless colors. Everything in the government mission moved with the speed of light and the dynamism of race horses.
But, on the other part of the mirror, time had frozen. There were millions of discontent people, people who didn’t feel the government’s presence. The promises that were so big, were no longer visible: no more talk about employment, free healthcare. Corruption grew fast, like the US State Department noted.
Thousands of plots filled with narcotic plants were now present everywhere in Albania, up to a point that in the recent days, the government was obliged to admit that it “can no longer control the territory”. The whole place was filled with criminals and they had also managed to occupy key posts. Parliament had adopted a resolution, where it declared that it was incriminated, but this wasn’t read on the mirror. Irony and abhorrence against the arrogance of ministers and the prime Minister was well present, but it wasn’t being seen on the other side of the mirror. For the government, time had also frozen on the other side of the mirror.
3.
The government could never catch up with the time that separated it from the West. The EU used the promise for “accession” as a threat against those who didn’t obey. Relations with Germany were perceived as “war against the others”, starting with America. With the neighbors, they built ridiculous relations and not a policy of stability. On this side of the mirror, the government saw itself as a “global mirror” and lost touch with the Globe. The Prime Minister attacked the US President and insulted Americans by saying: “It’s your problem if you elect Trump and not mine”.
In the meantime, there was a growing discontent against empty political elites, who do not serve to the people, who give away sovereignty, who do not fight crime, who respect borders and the nation. Europe now is looking for a new EU. Today, the Brexit leader, Farage, declared in the European Parliament that the “EU is a mob of its own”. But the people in power here pretend as if nothing has happened: Propaganda, demagogy, lies, corruption, arrogance. As if nothing had happened in the world.
But the world has changed while time for them had frozen.
Now we’re ahead of a solution; a technical government, a movement for elections, for a pluralist pluralism which was freezing, for a freedom which doesn’t allow anyone to deceive us. This is what’s happening: Time is merely thawing.
