By Fitim Zekthi
One of the gravest problems today, which shows itself in full force in Albania—and especially within the opposition—is the fact that people are neither trained nor prepared to think about the common good, about the good of the country and society. Instead, they are capable only of thinking about how their own group is affected or how their group might benefit. Mark Lilla, an American thinker, writes extensively that this is a form of the power of ignorance—a refusal to know, and even a desire not to know and not to learn.
People, often deliberately, because of their own interests and those of their group, lose the ability to recognize and understand the truth. This, of course, destroys not only the country’s interest and the good of society, but also their own interests and those of their group. Throughout history, the right—conservatives—have feared this path, shunned this behavior, and spoken of prudence, caution, self-restraint, stepping back and distancing oneself from the pull of emotion and impulse.
It is precisely on these coordinates that the right has been founded. In Albania, the Democratic Party, which for years has claimed to represent the right, has never truly been guided by prudence, maturity, self-restraint, and the discipline to rise above the impulses of anger or resentment. As a result, it has failed to think beyond the narrow question of how political power or reality affects it and its people—at a time when, as a right-wing force, it should have been thinking about how society and the country as a whole are affected.
Now the situation is dire. By allowing, year after year—indeed decade after decade—this way of existing and this way of understanding politics to deepen, things have reached a point so far gone that the Democratic Party today is defined entirely by, and makes decisions according to, the exact opposite of what a right-wing force ought to do.
Even the whole debate, the whole set of discussions within it today, revolves around trivialities: whether some leaders should leave or the chairman should step down; whether branch-by-branch or section-by-section analyses should be carried out; whether to enter Parliament or to boycott it; whether the fault lies with certain MPs, certain leaders, or the chairman; whether “Sorosites” have infiltrated; whether there has been betrayal from within, and so on.
As difficult—indeed as brutally difficult—as it may be, it is possible for the opposition to transform into a truly right-wing and conservative force that internalizes the principles of prudence, self-restraint, self-criticism, refraining from blaming the enemy or opponent for everything, decency, respect for the dignity of every human being, and faith in political liberty, economic liberty, and religious liberty.
It is possible to understand that there is nothing inherently “good” in opposition simply for opposition’s sake. What is good for the opposition is everything that is good for the country and for society.
Here begins—and, in fact, here ends—the role and duty of the right. There is no other solution. Everything else is utterly, completely futile.