LET’S TAKE A PLACE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROWD. AND WHOEVER WINS, THEN WE APPLAUD
(Satirical editoribal)
Flamur Buçpapaj
Albania is no longer a country in transition, because transition implies movement, while here we have perfected standing still. It is a country that moves noisily without direction, a crowd pushing from every side and yet remaining in the same spot, swearing every four years that this time it will be different, while every other day rehearsing how to get used to the same old thing. Change here is not rejected openly; it is simply postponed endlessly, until it grows old, gets tired, and is no longer demanded.
Poverty is not a social wound, it is a social environment. It has become part of the landscape, like cracked sidewalks, unfinished buildings, like the words “there’s no money” spoken with philosophical calm, as if they were a law of nature. People no longer ask why they are poor; they only ask how to survive this month as well. The pensioner makes military-style calculations for medicines, the young person makes emigration plans more precise than any government program, while parents master the art of hiding fear from their children. At the same time, politics speaks of growth, development, transformation, as if the people lived in press conferences and not in reality.
Corruption has become so normal that if it disappeared one day, society would panic. It would not know how to function. It is no longer a scandal; it is a working method. It has technical language, documents, justifications, experts who explain why the theft was necessary for the country’s future. Public money does not disappear; it transforms. From tax to tender, from tender to villa, from villa to collective silence. And silence is part of the contract.
Demolitions are the purest form of state pedagogy. They do not speak, explain, or persuade—they simply demolish. They are a practical lesson for anyone who thinks they have a right to something. The message is clear: everything you have is temporary, except power. The strong man’s house becomes a symbol of development; the weak man’s house becomes a legal obstacle. And thus, the law turns from an instrument of justice into an instrument of fear.
On this exhausted stage, the Socialist Party does not win because it is the best, but because it is the most endurable. It has understood that power is not maintained through love, but through the absence of hope. It wins because people are tired of disappointment, not because they are convinced by the program. It wins because it has become part of the national furniture, like a wall you cannot tear down, but do not like either.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, plays the role of the opposition like an actor who knows the ending of the play will not change. It fights with big words and small steps. It protests enough to appear alive, but not enough to truly endanger power. It is an opposition that talks about revolution but acts for political survival. It loses, complains, swears that next time it will win, and in doing so serves perfectly the continuity of the system.
Meanwhile, the people have chosen the safest role: active spectators on social media and passive ones in real life. They know everything, comment on everything, mock everything, but change very little. They have learned that virtual anger is safer than real action. They have learned that laughing at misfortune is the best way to endure it.
Standing in the middle of the crowd is a philosophy of survival. There, no one asks you to take sides. No one asks for courage. You can curse both camps and feel intelligent. You can say “they’re all the same” and end the discussion with a cigarette or a coffee. It is the ideal position to feel responsible for nothing while everything goes wrong.
And then comes the climax, the familiar ceremony, the final act of this political theater: the applause. An applause without joy, without enthusiasm, without hope. Applause by habit, not by conviction. Applause to close the chapter, to move on to the next day, to continue life as if nothing happened. Applause because silence would be too loud.
And so Albania goes on. Poverty deepens calmly, corruption becomes institutionalized elegantly, houses are demolished procedurally, hopes leave on low-cost flights, while politics reproduces itself with frightening precision. Every four years, the same ritual, the same fatigue, the same question without a real answer.
We take a place in the middle of the crowd, because life there is less dangerous, even if more empty. Because there you can survive without believing in anything. And whoever wins, then we applaud. Not because the winner deserves it, but because this is our way of going on without facing the truth.
Because in Albania, applause is not a sign of joy.
It is a sign of orderly surrender.
