Free from scandals

By  FRROK ÇUPI

We’re a group of people (nation or state), without scandals. “Are we”?...

Or, we have so many scandals that one scandal covers the other and they lose their “importance”. Or perhaps, we don’t care about scandals since the very beginning. In both cases, the scandal is among us.

How long did the scandal of the former minister of Interior, who was caught by Italian authorities as a collaborator of criminal gangs, last? I’m afraid that the scandal only lasted that night when reporters gathered in front of his apartment and the cameras were waiting for him to be handcuffed. But, nothing happened and the scandal continued.

I don’t want to go deep into this scandal, which is unprecedented in the continent. But, we also have an invisible scandal:

The media was expecting the minister to be arrested. Had the media investigated a little deeper, they would conclude that the young minister had not worked and had never been paid until the day he became minister. Four years later, he has a luxury apartment in one of the most expensive residential areas of the capital. Neither the minister, nor anybody else asked how the minister got all this money. They only pointed out the price of his glasses (11 thousand euros). They left a whole scandal uninvestigated. The majority of the big police chiefs, appointed during the term in office of the minister who was waiting to be arrested, have purchased homes in the residential area where the minister lives. What’s happened? Either the minister has paid the developer of the properties with illegal money (i.e from drugs); or a group of shareholders in the construction sector have accommodates officers of the state police in their properties. In any case, police senior officials, who live in the most expensive residential area, are involved in corruption.

Even in this case, the scandal is not “seen” or “it doesn’t exist”.  We, the people who live in the capital and others who don’t, remain “free” of scandals.

But, another scandal has loomed. The crimes committed by senior police officials were unfolded by a police officer, who was immediately sent behind bars. Now, everyone is after officer Zagani who unfolded these crimes. The party has also joined them. On behalf of police (and crime), the party issued a statement yesterday. The SP’s general secretary said that “Zagani was convicted of crimes”. In fact, he was never convicted by the court or questioned by prosecution. Another “enemy” officer who unfolded the scandals, has not been questioned by prosecution either, but he was nonetheless detained.

These are other scandals; outrageous scandals. Each one of us should be alert and defend ourselves from these scandals. Tomorrow, it may be your turn to be taken in and become a convicted criminal without ever been questioned by the prosecution or tried by court.

However, we “have no scandals”. What is happening among us?

1.

We earn freedom from scandals thanks to the “freedom of neurobiology”. We have told ourselves that “scandals are not important” for us and we live in this neurobiological freedom. Our obsession was created by the system of the lack of freedom and the system of freedom too. During the dictatorship regime, we had no rights and responsibilities to think about scandals. The communist leadership protected us; we, individuals, only had to turn in the responsible people and believe that “there are no scandals”.  

Even the current system of freedoms does not tell us that “we’re threatened by scandals”. Again in “freedom”. Freedom has exaggerated the notion of “scandal”. In order to undermine what it is, media also include the theft of a bicycle as a “scandal”. By undermining something is the best way to avoid the true scandal…

2.

Don’t we want to see the scandal? Are we happy that both those who lead us and individuals live amid a scandal? Or are we not able to make out the scandal? What happens? They look like existentialist questions, but this is what happens: Scandals lead to other scandals, but “we don’t seem the”. Why?

Philosophers David Hume and Emmanuel Kant have exchanged different ideas on the fact that a man who doesn’t live in an advanced reality, believes that scandals also happen in the world outside. Some others believe that the world outside of them “doesn’t exist”. Both of them are related to our “scandal” phenomenon. Dictatorship had pushed people to believe that “the world outside of us only has scandals”, crimes, poverty, injustices, murders…, something which gave rise to the feeling that deep inside of us, “we’re clean”. This psychosis continues to dominate a part of people when it comes to scandals. Others have started to exaggerate with criticism against themselves and the nation and say that “everything is hopeless here”. But even this way, one scandal covers the other. The energies that people spend on the so called problem become an obstacle to reach the scandal. There’s nothing more serious than “freedom” from the scandal.

Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy