SPAK for the revolution — and the flamingos for Berisha

Every revolution dreams of its Robespierre: the moment when, after victory, it can cut off the heads of its enemies.

The “Flamingo Revolution” is different.

Robespierre built his own Committees of Public Safety and organised the guillotine himself. Our revolutionaries want SPAK to do the work for them.

They are lazy revolutionaries. They want to write the lists and have SPAK carry out the executions.

One protest organiser yesterday called on the Special Prosecution Office to arrest the corrupt politicians named every day from the platform. Otherwise, he warned, protesters would surround SPAK and not let prosecutors leave without signing the arrest warrants.

The threat is not serious in itself. It says more about the person who made it. But it does reveal what is hiding behind the mask of a civic protest.

The truth is that SPAK is the only justice institution that has given this “revolution” a real cause. Its intervention in the Zvërnec land investigation, the freezing of the land and the decision to send some of the people involved to trial for money laundering and drug trafficking have all made the protest look more serious.

If any institution has given weight to the revolution, it is SPAK. It has confirmed not only the protesters’ wishes, but also the original reason the protest began.

Freezing the land seller’s account and blocking €10 million in the notary’s account is as far as this story can go if the aim is to separate the land dispute from the investment itself.

But those speaking from the platform have already forgotten why the protest began.

After SPAK’s action, the landowners’ concern over Zvërnec has effectively been addressed. The only slogan the protest should have for SPAK is: “Thank you, SPAK.”

Instead, no one remembers the starting point anymore.

What the protest has inspired now is something else: vigilante justice across Albania. Wherever protesters see an investor fencing off a construction site, building a hydropower plant, a solar park, a hotel or an apartment block, they feel entitled to act.

Anyone who dislikes a project can now come to the protest, announce an attack and leave with a group of organisers to spread the revolution around the country.

That is why the protesters want SPAK under their command. They want arrest warrants drafted from the platform and executed by prosecutors whenever the protest is blocked.

If this were a normal civic protest, it would be a protest shaped by SPAK. The truth is that only SPAK has given it both the facts and the reason to protest. And in the future, only SPAK can give it reasons to feel like a force punishing power.

But they want SPAK as an arm of the revolution.

That is also because the revolution is slowly moving from the flamingos to Berisha’s rallies— not just because of the people now speaking from the platform, but because of the mentality taking over it.

So the only salvation left is to threaten SPAK and put it under the orders of the revolution.

And once the whole revolution is under Berisha’s orders, we know how it ends.

Like yesterday’s march toward the airport, looking for a martyr who could justify violence.

All Berisha needs is one coffin, and he can finish quickly with the flamingos of the boulevard.

Originally published in Albanian as: SPAK-u të jetë në varësi të revolucionit dhe Flamingot në varësi të Foltores