By Ben Andoni
If someone were to reach out and peel away the veil covering our society, the entire country would shudder, releasing the foul stench that would dispel many of our historical fabrications. Hypocrisy, chameleon-like adaptation, and above all, the obsession with appearances have kept us in darkness and continue to erode a society that has lived under several socio-economic systems—always trailing behind other Balkan nations.
Our European reference for identity remains largely geographical, and now within the context of EU enlargement, since we know all too well where we stand in terms of economic parameters, the way we manage and exploit our land, and above all, our journey toward continental integration.
Barely noticed was a report from the FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization), which revealed that on the global map of undernourishment for the period 2022–2024, Albania ranks with the highest level in Europe, alongside Ukraine—a country ravaged by years of war. For those living in Albania, this is hardly surprising. According to Eurostat and INSTAT, Albanians spend over 40% of their monthly income on food—the highest percentage on the continent. For comparison, in EU countries this figure is around 13%, and in the region it hovers between 25–35% (Monitor, 2025). Do these figures resonate at all? And why is it impossible for us to follow even the most basic policies of our neighbors to improve our quality of life?
We have locked ourselves in a shell from which we cannot emerge, while our society—laden with structural problems—fails to spark genuine public debate among institutions or stakeholders about how the 21st-century Albanian might live at least like his neighbors. A thick film is growing everywhere: over our eyes, in our minds, blinding us from seeing what is happening to us.
For the ideologues of the last century—an era steeped in totalitarianism—there was an idea tied to the perception of freedom: the less free we are, the less capable we are of articulating our problems. Today, we no longer have the ability to prove freedom because freedom demands evidence. We live merely for appearances and hollow statistics. Freedom, by its nature, requires a space where people can gather—an agora, a market, a polis, a public forum—argued Hannah Arendt in the mid-20th century.
Our current political system, cloaked in democratic garb, has struck hardest at this political space, which in our case is not defined by two main parties but by their real ownership: Rama’s Party and Berisha’s Party. As the current Minister of Justice, Manja, openly admitted at a party event: “If not for Rama, we couldn’t even face the base. He brings in the votes.” Similarly, in the Democratic Party, voices increasingly echo the same sentiment: “Without Berisha, we crumble.” Never mind that the DP today represents nothing of the Right and is more fractured than ever, while the Socialist Party ceased to be a Leftist party long ago.
This lack of freedom blinds us to the country’s gravest issues and the deepening social inequality, which has taken on increasingly consolidated forms. A few hands generate everything and control where the nation’s wealth flows, shaping laws solely for their benefit—while, on the other side, members of PS and PD are far more connected than the artificial divides they display on TV panels. This phase of Albania’s development resembles dictatorship and monarchy: steeped in the absence of freedom, in its narrowest sense.
A suffocating membrane has enveloped our entire reality, preventing us from seeing our constraints. Even the leaders themselves are not free, despite their immense power—because to be free is to be free among equals. Herodotus put it more bluntly: Freedom is equal to non-domination. The more our leaders appear to wield power—and indeed, leaders like Rama hold it without measure, maintaining this dreadful veil that keeps us from evolving—the less free we all are.
And again, on freedom: it is not simply being unshackled; it must manifest in every human activity. According to the ancients, this activity had to be real—perceived, judged, and remembered by others—always without harming them. Today, this is nearly impossible under the dictates of centralized power, unaccountability, and exhausting moral decay. It should not surprise us that, due to this absence of freedom, we avoid confronting truths—truths that range from our thinking to our very sustenance, the foundation of existence, now crushing the average Albanian.
Return to reality, and you recall: Albania maintains one of the highest VAT rates on food in Europe—20%—while countries in the region and the EU apply reduced rates (from 5% in North Macedonia to 0% in Ireland). This tax burden, combined with many factors, has driven consumer prices artificially sky-high. And yet, propaganda speaks only of successes and record tourist arrivals, never the truth lurking beneath the surface, where freedom longs to restrain the tyranny of appearances:
“The veil woven from a life of lies consists of strange materials. For as long as it seals an entire society hermetically, it seems as solid as stone. But the moment someone tears it in just one spot—when one person cries, ‘The emperor has no clothes!’—when a single individual breaks the rules of the game, exposing it as a game—everything suddenly appears in a different light, and the entire veil seems thin, something that can be shredded or dissolved, beyond saving,” writes Arendt in On Revolution, now available in Albanian.
(Homo Albanicus)