“Sparta” is blind

By Frrok Çupi

Women of Lycurgus’ Sparta did not know who their husbands and the fathers of their children were. Men used to come back from war during the night and early in the morning, they woke up and set out again for war. At that time, many researchers called this “Blind Sparta”, now knowing when someone would come back to in the evening and go to in the morning…

What about us, the Albanian “Spartans”, don’t we know when we will have Justice? When there will be “Redemption”?

I don’t think the destiny of Albanians has been predetermined. But given that the majority of people is convinced about this, then let us get into it. This notion of Fate for the Albanian people is as old as Sparta. Given that we take pride of the fact that we’re the oldest nation in our lands, then our flaws are as old as our origins. But this is an issue belonging to history.

We’re here today and like the blind people of Sparta, we touch each other and ask: “Are you here?... Did the reform end or was I dreaming?”

1.

When does the justice system reform start?

We’re the only nation in the civilized world who doesn’t know when the justice reform starts and when it ends, for instance. How can we know when the contract with the state starts and ends?! If, for a moment, we consider the people of a country as being students of a school and if we were to ask them: “When did the judicial reform start and end?”, everyone would fail the class. Neither the “teacher” has ever revealed when the reform started and when it will end. On the other hand, the students have not asked him either. The teacher has been hiding from the students and the students have been hiding from the teacher. Thousands of speculations have risen. Communist type speculations such as “be patient, because the reform is going to make miracles”. Speculations such as “you will see how we will imprison the bosses!”. People are happy because they will see state officials behind bars and as a result of this, they have forgotten their wife and child… (the same as the blind warriors of Sparta).

And the most recent speculation: “The reform will send criminal gangs behind bars!” Have you noticed anything? The United States of America are more interested in fighting criminals in Albania than Albanians who raise their children here are…

It seems that once again, we’re dealing with the Lycurgus’ Sparta, where men did not know who the children were and the women had never seen their husbands…

2.

Who is the best?

And we’re not talking about the people in the barracks of Sparta, where sometimes there are whispers and sometimes there’s absolute silence. We’re talking about those who are chosen among the crowd to govern Sparta. In other words: Who should we choose, the blind Sparta or the open-eyed one?

The last time when this phenomenon of “blindness” was noticed was on 25 June of this year. Albanian voters decided to vote the same one they had voted four years ago. Why? The analyses made so far have not yet come to the essence of the answer, which relates to the phenomenon of Blind Sparta. Voters gave power to the one who stood out the most, to the one that they had seen and the one they knew. The socialist government with PM Edi Rama, asked them the “steering wheel” and they granted him that.

People could not look around. The opposition went inside a tunnel. The Christian democratic parties, agrarian parties and minorities hid behind the promise of a “gift”. The Democratic Party too hid very deep. On the last day, when it promised that it would leave the tent that it had set up for three months, it entered another dark room to strike a secret deal with the government. After this treason, the tent assumed the look of the barracks of the soldiers of Sparta in the eyes of the people, where men came during the night and left their wives’ bed during the night. So, having seen nobody else around, voters awarded all of the power to the Socialist Party. Even the DP’s soldiers did not vote their commander. 230 thousand of them to be more accurate.  

So, the “best” one was chosen. In fact, the instincts of the people were perfect: They voted the one they saw and not the one who was hiding in the dark.

3.

The allies can barely see us and we can barely see the allies. This is where the nation’s politics has come to.

This is how relations with the US stand:

One side claims that it is an ally of the US, but there is no proof on this. The only proof is a frozen photograph with president Trump. Even the other side, which has announced the biggest ally as an enemy, has the same proof: A photo with the US president.

When they are in America, they go to the White House, but they have dinner with Soros the billionaire. When they are in Tirana, all the sides are not Trump’s creatures, but Soros’ creatures. Who is the ally then?

This is how relations with Europe stand:

Even these relations are not clear. Albanians “right” wing is more left than the actual left. The conservatives of the continent (representatives of Brexit, Trump, sovereignty, safer borders, etc) have no partner in our country. When they look on this side, they see nothing.

All the sides here are “infatuated” with the EU, but, in fact, without saying that today, the EU is in a crisis. The EU tells fairytales about Albania and the Balkans: One of them promises negotiations in 2018, another one says that there will never be any negotiations, a third one offers a “Balkan Treaty” and not a European one. Even they do not see very clearly.

This whole thing is like ancient Sparta.

Lycurgus the tyrant, had forced his warriors to go to their barracks during the night, to sleep with their wives, but never look at each-other. When they sculpted Lycurgus, they made him blind.

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