The people defining the protest

Now that the protest is at a historic low, and its afternoon crowd on the boulevard looks like one of Berisha’s old rallies, someone has decided that only violence can revive it. So on Thursday, they have announced violence in the morning and a protest in the afternoon.

The organisers hope to clash with police outside Parliament in the morning. Ideally, the police will use water cannon or tear gas, giving them something to complain about that afternoon.

It is a familiar script. Violent protests have become routine in Albania. There is nothing unusual about it.

The problem is that the people sent in to attack MPs or police are becoming the face of the protest. So far, they are also the only political figures it has produced.

Every day, I see a young man from Kukës wearing a traditional white cap. Every sentence exposes how crude he is. He speaks in the name of patriotism and says he works in tourism, while encouraging attacks on Albania’s tourism industry.

Then there are the egg-throwers, who seem to believe they invented the tactic. Their little guerrilla campaign makes them feel all-powerful.

Then there is a young woman with serious psychological problems who follows MPs around, shouting: “You do not represent me.” In fact, that is the sanest thing she says. How could any MP represent someone as crude as her, someone who chases every passing politician to shout that they do not represent her? Of course they do not.

MPs may have personal flaws and political problems, but none appears to have problems as severe as the woman pursuing them. Albania has had stupid MPs and may have them again, but not people so seriously disturbed that they should be in hospital. There were a few on Lulzim Basha’s Hope List, but at least they were not aggressive. They were entertaining.

Among the Marxist radicals, meanwhile, the spotlight is increasingly going to their dimmest members. A few days ago, I saw a post by one of Arlind Qorri’s closest associates. He had worked himself into a rage because several Rama supporters had insulted him online. He said their faces were burnt by the sun from picking olives in Greece.

How he had seen their faces was unclear, since he also called them anonymous. On one hand, he claims to belong to a left-wing party that defends workers. On the other, he sneers at workers as though they were some inferior breed, simply because their faces are sunburnt from picking olives.

This is simply a man with serious problems. Yet he is virtually Qorri’s number two, judging by how often he appears at his side. He attacks and harasses businesses while claiming to fight for workers, then insults those workers because they prefer Edi Rama to him.

With this strategy, the protest is being reduced, day by day, to its crudest figures. They are the ones being turned into its “heroes”: the people who throw eggs, harass MPs or force their way into police stations.

That is all the protest has produced politically. We all expected at least one new political talent, or perhaps two or three young men and women who could bring fresh energy to Albanian politics. Instead, its standouts are the stone-throwers, the egg-throwers, the woman who screams “you do not represent me” into people’s ears—as though anyone representing her would have to be mad too—and Qorri’s followers, who spend all day trashing Albanian tourism online and then complain at night that their critics are ordinary workers picking olives in Greece.

These crude people have always been among us. We know them. Most have been drifting from protest to protest since at least 2013. They are the leftovers of a decade of failed demonstrations.

The protest began by collecting the organic waste left on the boulevard. What remains of it is now collecting the human debris of those earlier protests and presenting it as its political face. Much like that “eat, drink and get laid” revolutionary.

Originally published in Albanian as: Produkti politik që po identifikohet me protestën