FLASH
Shkruar nga Andi Bushati
Who is interested in failure? Do the critics of the prime minister or the opposition have the advantage that there are fewer flows of foreigners who spend their vacations in the mountains or the local coast?
Edi Rama cannot function without enemies. He is doing this even as he continues to promote the touristic magic of Albania at a frenetic pace. Every time he reports the data of the airport, every time he posts photos with full deckchairs and as many times as he quotes articles from foreign media, the prime minister points his finger at those who want to take off the costume of the hero who produced this miracle.
As long as you do the first there is nothing wrong. In a system where freedom of expression is respected, boasting and beating one's chest are not sins. The problem begins when he uses in this field the same technique of conflict that he keeps alive everywhere. Pumping up his success, he desperately needs a battle with the "bad guys".
When any celebrity talks about failure, the pro-government media jumps down their throats. When Fevziu goes and films the empty beach of Grama, the prime minister immediately publishes the opposite on social networks, and even his personal guests mock the journalist. When Berisha ironizes the propaganda televisions, which he has stigmatized as "teletourism", because they repeat every day the translated words of foreigners who tell the locals in Albanian how beautiful Rana e Hedhun, Palasa or Ksamili are, the opposition leader of flooded with comments that paint him as someone who is jealous of Albania's success.
Edi Rama himself, as the inspirer of this aimless war, has gone too far when he spoke of an organized attack and international conspiracy against the success produced by it, assuring that "our security institutions have turned on the red light".
So, according to him, there are internal and external enemies. There are politicians, critics, opponents and journalists who are barricaded against it.
But, after listening to this rhetoric that has accompanied us all summer, a simple question naturally arises: who are the enemies of touristic Albania? Who is interested in failure? Do the critics of the prime minister or the opposition have the advantage that there are fewer flows of foreigners who spend their vacations in the mountains or the local coast?
Theoretically not at all. Even for those who are against Edi Rama and the kleptocratic way he is leading, tourism can serve as a lifeline. In the near-apartheid regime that he has set up, where if you were not part of the renaissance, a member of the gangs that work for him, or a servant of the oligarchs that share the money, you are almost excluded from a decent life and dignity, so in this environment , the arrival of those who spend euros in this country, serves as an oxygen pipe. A man who can't get a job among the army of militants in the state can let the house on airbnb, a businessman who can't win tenders can rent a hotel, someone can open a cafe, a restaurant or if there is more income, an agritourism, in a not super favorite area. Even for those who are stripped of all these opportunities, there is still a chance that something will trickle down from a larger flow of income.
So, from this point of view, tourism democratizes the distribution of money and allows a little bit to remain even for those whom the ruling clique has excluded from any other opportunity.
Therefore, neither the opponents of Edi Rama nor the voters of the opposition have personal benefit to be against the success of tourism.
Are there, of course, as everywhere where the right to speak still exists, there are conflicting opinions and ideas as to whether or not this should be the model of development? If there is another way besides golemization and concretization of the southern riviera? If the scheme with strategic investors, who privatize the sand, is long-term, so as not to let "those who come down from the mountain to set up their tent as they please"? If the transformation of traffickers into hotel businessmen guarantees permanent security? If a solution is to be thought of, when the influx of vacationers that has driven up prices has, according to statistics, deprived half the local population of the luxury of having such?
Those who raise these questions, that is, who do not fully approve the official and personal "development" line, constitute the first group of enemies. The second ones are those who mock, ridicule or denounce the stale propaganda of our media, with the dizzying successes of touristic Albania. The same televisions that have published polls showing our prime minister as the most popular Western leader among Europeans, the same ones that have announced him as the next head of NATO, the negotiator for resolving the dispute between Ankara and Athens, or the provider of a magical draft that resolves the disputes of the north of Kosovo, are now engaged in a feverish campaign for the "promotion" of an unimaginable success that makes us dream of the Albania of 2023. This tendency has become so ridiculous that there is no news edition where the help of the Dutch is not called to show the highlanders of Theth how steep their peaks are, the Hungarians to teach the Himariots how blue their coasts are and Australians to prove to the Gyrocastrians how delicious the kites are. This tragic comedy deserves the sharpest sarcasm, but doing so does not mean that you have anything against Albanian tourism. It is an instinctive reaction against a creepy brainwashing process.
But that's enough for the prime minister standing in the trenches to announce you in the great crowd of those who fight against Albania. He had to painstakingly build the profile of the enemy of tourism. This imaginary enemy has followed us from behind, like a shadow this season, like a kind of stranger that we cannot meet. He is actually the strangest and most absurd tourist who landed along with the influx of summer, as he is simply a spawn of propaganda. And maybe even this was worth the evil eye, in a country that easily and generously welcomes unknown newcomers.
Lini një Përgjigje