By Ben Andoni
Albania is submerged in a multidimensional crisis, a moment in which clear ideas for renewal seem absent. At a time when the crisis of the individual within society — including our own — is reaching one of its peaks, many scholars and concerned observers increasingly turn to the past in search of lessons for survival. Back then there was no artificial intelligence, nor the endless technological possibilities that define our era — an era that paradoxically confronts us with deep existential limitations.
Today’s human being feels more and more abandoned: by society, by political power, and above all, by himself.
Albanians, who within a single century have lived through several economic and social regimes, feel this exhaustion just as people elsewhere do. From the extreme political isolation and poverty of earlier times, we now inhabit a period of liberalism that has entered its own decay, accompanied by a profound disillusionment with the values it once promised.
Once, driven by pathos and fear, Albanians stood in line to vote for a candidate preselected by the regime. Today, they can barely bring themselves to vote for their own candidate. Once we knew almost nothing about political concepts, parliamentary functioning, or modern sociological theory — we were philosophically empty. Today, through the rhetoric of our rulers, we pretend that we have reached our peak, that we stand equal to everyone in the age of globalization.
And yet, without ever truly enjoying democracy — which failed to improve our lives as we had dreamed — we now face its open disregard by political elites and the unchecked autocracy of our leaders.
Among them, Prime Minister Rama stands virtually without any mechanism capable of controlling his executive power, while he himself shows little respect for parliament. Basic norms of political conduct have long been casually ignored. For many deputies, the only interest that remains is how to penetrate and remain within the orbit of the leader, who distributes wealth, favors, and opportunities at will. The rest are mere numbers.
Much of today’s political elite no longer even recognizes what a normal state looks like. This is where both the majority and, ironically, the opposition remain trapped.
Within this swamp of democratic absence, a fragment of the opposition is attempting internal regeneration. It is commendable — a step different from the sterile posture of the Democratic Party — though still powerless without broader social reflection. Drowned in daily apathy, in the stagnation of things that never change, in the absence of meritocracy and real careers, in the impunity of those who have amassed unimaginable wealth, society finds no strength to react… to change.
The construction of our cathedral of values seems impossible.
Everyone can picture it in their minds.
No one can begin to build it.
Worse still, the Albanian left-wing populism embodied today by the Socialist Party has deepened democratic backwardness and normalized cynicism. Meanwhile, the harsh language of the Democratic Party and its disrespect for institutions has shattered any remaining trust in meaningful change. Party reform, internal democracy — these sound almost utopian. Party leaders hold power like providence over their communities.
Even before elections, Prime Minister Rama can predict almost mathematically how many seats he will win. And indeed, that is precisely what has happened in the last two elections.
Justice, weakened and fragile, allows uncontrolled influence from favored business interests and so-called political elites. Albania increasingly resembles a system where voter support is secured through patronage rather than ideology. Ideology has become merely a concept; the solid social base that should sustain it has vanished.
This is why many voices on the Left criticize these policies and the shadow-laden governance of Rama. But what truly erodes trust is simpler: living conditions do not improve. Public skepticism grows. Few believe change is possible in an environment where corrupt practices have become both power and normality.
On the other side, the Right seems barely concerned with ideology at all — only with returning to power. Comfortably entrenched in opposition, justified by declining votes, it maintains a stagnant tandem that satisfies only a small circle of beneficiaries. Activists and smaller parties attempt change with good intentions, yet ignore a fundamental truth: if parties themselves are not democratized — and Albania’s right-wing parties are prime examples of immobility — no real transformation is possible.
Meanwhile, the wider world, shaken by the erosion of basic values and by the uncertain shape of the emerging international order, feels a crisis whose consequences weigh even heavier on peripheral societies like ours.
Albanian society, having rushed through historical periods without ever forging a strong identity, displays profound deficiencies in formation. After the 1990s we falsely convinced ourselves that anything was possible. The once constrained, impoverished, humiliated individual suddenly believed he had no limits: no moral limits, no restraint in enrichment, no respect for values built across centuries — the very values that form the identity of a state.
And yet, instead of fulfillment, today’s Albanian feels increasingly dissatisfied, disoriented, incapable of navigating this new world whose doors have been flung wide open.
On a global level, Yuval Noah Harari explains this in Future of Being:
“What psychologists call the paradox of choice reveals a disturbing truth about human nature. Evolution did not program us to cope with endless options. Our brains, developed to make quick decisions within small groups and limited possibilities, simply cannot properly process the overload of modern life.”
This is the Albanian’s dilemma: facing uncontrolled change, personal crisis, and a politics that changes faces but produces nothing new.
The more we understand the condition of today’s Albanian — on one side immersed in the meaningless life of artificial reality-show platforms, on the other struggling merely to survive — the more we might find solutions. Yet our society seems internally rotten in the most extreme way. Daily news about family breakdown and institutional decay confirms this.
Public policies that genuinely care for community well-being are foreign to Rama — and even more foreign to the opposition’s vision. Everyone seems to hold calculators, boasting about economic growth that never translates into real welfare for the poorest country in the region.
At this cliff’s edge, today’s Albanian tries to lighten his existential burden through a life that has changed too fast to comprehend, unable to gather itself into a solid structure of values.
“It is like trying to build a cathedral with toothpicks. It may look impressive from afar, but collapses at the first breeze,” Harari says with bitter irony.
This is the greatest paradox of our time — and the quiet self-destruction caused by the abstract world we are stubbornly trying to erect and keep standing… to our own detriment.
(Homo Albanicus)