FLASH
Shkruar nga Andi Bushati
In this duality, in this act, neither this way nor that, it seems that the still unfading influence of those who cooked up Non Grata four years ago has had a strong impact.
The news that Sali Berisha can travel freely across the Atlantic, coming almost four years after his declaration of Non Grata, is not expected to have any major effect on him.
The electoral campaign for May 11 is nearing its end, and the repeal of this act, which was designed to discredit the domestic opposition, hardly offers time to recover all the damage done to it in four years. So in this sense, it is overdue.
Secondly, the legal process against him, orchestrated by the political machinations of SPAK, to legally justify the decree signed by Secretary Blinken, has sunk into discrediting delays, and all the maneuvers that were made to isolate him have already failed. So in this sense, he is outmatched.
Third, the use of sanctions to remove the leadership of the DP and fragment it, according to a strategy that continues to be applied, has long failed, because Berisha both returned to the leadership of the party and united its major parts. So in this sense, he is worthless.
With the exception of stroking the wounded ego of a leader whose main ambition seems to be the mark he seeks to leave in history, the news coming from Washington does not change anything major in either Berisha's political or legal fate.
As if this weren't enough, the magnitude of what happened is further reduced by the way this news was announced. The method of questioning a journalist at the State Department was found.
No matter how well-known in US political circles, it cannot replace the issuance of an official decree. So, we still do not have a lifting, cancellation, or reversal of Non Grata. At the point where we are, we are simply talking about its devaluation. This is easily understood if you go through the concise communication that the State Department had with the White House correspondent of the Axios agency, Marc Caputo. Clearly instructed by the lobbyists, he does not ask directly whether the sanction has been lifted, but whether Berisha is allowed to travel to America. The answer he receives is a combination of language that is as perfect as it is diplomatically wooden. It talks about the "exceptional" cases when someone can step into the US. The popular translation is: Non Grata has not been lifted yet, but it no longer has any value, as long as Berisha, from now on, cannot be stopped from crossing the ocean.
So we are dealing with a blotch, but not with a triumphant rematch. In this duplicity, in this act, neither this way nor that, it seems that the still unextinguished influence of those who cooked Non Grata four years ago has strongly influenced. The efforts in Washington, the pressure of some media lobbied there and why not and the inexhaustible river of black money from Tirana are interwoven factors that did not give Berisha the moral-political satisfaction he was waiting for. Seen in this way, what happened has no impact on who knows what on his immediate future.
But, if for Berisha personally the measure is half-hearted, its value for public opinion, for the debate that has been raging here on our side, is unimaginable.
For four years in a row, the scene of political-journalistic debate was divided into two extremely antagonistic groups. The first, swore allegiance to an infallible America. They attributed divine attributes to it, not questioning the decrees of its most ordinary officials. Thanks to a coalition of insincere Ramists and oppositionists, who could not emancipate themselves from the shadow cast by Saliu, our environment was infected by the multiplication of the nonsense that Escobar emitted, or the morons of Yuri Kim's retarded maid.
Against this fury sponsored by large means, it was difficult to hear a few voices, in the minority, who could not swallow as a matter of course the dogma that America is always right, that it is infallible, that the will of its great strategic ally must be followed at all costs.
In the name of this madness, some agreed to behave like wolves, for fear of being given grass to eat, others became ridiculous, denying the vote, for fear of participating in anti-American assemblies, the justice system became dirty, denying the real opposition the symbols of representation, while the Rilinda militants strengthened autocratic power by hiding behind the slogan "we do not cooperate with Non Grata".
The latest statement by the US State Department has an extraordinary value in that it destroys the virus of this collective madness. If read carefully, it completely vindicates the second group, the minority that defended the idea of a lobbied, step-and-go sanction. It puts an end to the fable of America's infallible useful idiots.
There is a key phrase there, where the Non Grata act is treated as a political decision by the Biden administration, which is holding Albanian-American relations hostage. There could not have been a stronger expression to pass justice to those who criticized or despised the decision of the sororist Blinken.
Precisely for this reason, what happened has a special importance, which goes beyond Berisha's personal case, or the debate about the extent to which he was purged.
The challenge is much greater. Proving that America sees us in different ways: depending on which political force is in power there, in function of the preferences or interests of the moment, the stance taken recently, extremely relativizes the weight that we give to the decrees that come to us from Washington. Only fools can use from now on the argument "America said so", when the latter itself has drastically rejected the decision taken four years ago, which it today calls destructive in relations with Albanians.
So from now on, to judge Sali Berisha, we do not need to be influenced by either Blinken or Rubio. Both may be right or wrong. But no one has a monopoly on absolute truth. For us, Berisha is the one we know ourselves. The one of the overthrow of communism in '92, but also the one of the collapse of the pyramids in '97; the one of the lifting of visas and NATO membership, but also the one of January 21. The collective memory for him cannot even be imagined as being determined by a momentary decree of an American bureaucrat.
By analogy, the same would apply if, for example, Edi Rama were to be involved in a similar vortex tomorrow. He should not be less adored by his current fans if across the ocean they sanction him for McGonigal. He should not become any blacker, for those who criticize him, if America changes its stance when he falls from power.
No decree of temporary officials can have any influence over the history that a people has experienced on their backs.
And this is the big news of the Trump administration's devaluation of its predecessor's decision on Non Grata. It further relativized the divine power that some tried to attribute to "our great ally." From now on, decrees like Blinken's can no longer be sold to Albanians like mirrors to Indians.
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