By Ben Andoni
The latest battle against informality has once again portrayed Prime Minister Rama as relentless in his sudden and bold actions. Right in the harshest season of the year—when most people lower their daily commitments and seek rest to face the remaining part of the year, and when a small portion of the population who have built their livelihood around tourism and service are confronted by a campaign that is fundamentally just but, given its timing and the way it’s been fed and tolerated by the administrative and field control mechanisms, becomes exhausting and absurd.
The opposition has put up a weak resistance, and their lack of any idea on how to confront informality in this case has left them looking like failed accomplices. Now, in the early part of the third week of July, things have cooled off—except for the mafia-style threats, which never seem to end. Business owners have begun dismantling their own installations; dairy producers are figuring out how to adapt to the new realities; on the beaches, owners are trying to stay “in line,” despite the draining prices and services that seem unable to meet any standard we can grasp. The average Albanian citizen, without these “headaches,” waits for the year to pass, for survival, and for the next confrontation with the institutions. Everywhere you turn, people speak of truth and order. Rama expresses and enforces it with conviction, Berisha demands it, the residents of Theth invoke it, and it’s echoed across the country. But which truth are we talking about?
This has been the dilemma of Theth’s residents these days—and, more broadly, of the Albanian citizen when facing their institutions. Where were all these inspectors before the violations happened? What about the directors who resigned in unison without even the slightest defense of their responsibilities? Where is the country’s development plan?
In reality, truth is constantly prejudged—because we perceive it one way in daily life, another way in history, and completely differently in science. One thing is certain, especially in Albania: we have never fully understood it. History repeatedly, particularly in crucial moments, shows us how truth is altered. In science, it endures more—hence, in more advanced countries, reason is guided by rationality, and as a result, their development is more solid. Their administrations and inspection bodies, unlike ours, don’t stand still like trees when held accountable. Be it any Authority, or even personalities like Rama, or the many accusations hurled by our opposition—which now seems completely adrift.
One of the finest authors of our time, the Spanish writer Javier Cercas Mena, articulated the concept of truth very simply during an interview with the well-known Greek journalist Anteos Hrisostomidis. The author of Soldiers of Salamis said that if we are to speak simply of the existence of truth, then:
“…it must be the sum of all variants of reality. This might apply to History, but not to Morality: in morality, there exists a great multitude of truths. There, we don’t have just one truth—but many.”
This is today’s great dilemma: should we side with the truth presented by institutions, the one dictated by morality, the one demanded by the opposition, or that ‘sublime’ truth that Rama delivers to us?
The Albanian individual is not only weakened by themselves and by the greed of segments of the administration, but they’re also unable to gather themselves after these sudden “shifts” to form any long-term development vision. Add to that the confusion projected by certain opposition figures like Noka, Vokshi, Alizoti, Shehu, Boçi—wherever they went, speaking of purges, cancellations, and measures. Rama’s campaign, shaped his own way, now sees the Left’s power looking like a slick cover for a deeply aggressive Right—one that the Democratic Party itself would rightfully envy if it ever managed to return to power.
Beyond this, what is truly exhausting is the assault on the weakest and most vulnerable, while a small elite remains untouchable. And the reality of this so-called “relative equality” in our country is telling: in the annual report of the Deposit Insurance Agency, submitted and published by the Albanian Parliament, it is revealed that 7% of deposit holders—i.e., the wealthiest—hold €7.4 billion, or 58% of all individual deposits in the banking system. Meanwhile, the remaining 93% hold only €5.34 billion, or 42% of total savings.