The protest we want — or the one they want!

The protests have finally stopped pretending to be civic.

As the crowds thin, they are turning into the kind of protest Tirana knows too well.

The night before, guerrilla groups appeared with flares at the university. Today, the same people showed up outside parliament and began the usual ritual: attacking MPs, shouting abuse, throwing eggs and pretending they were about to storm the building.

For them, this is entertainment — and it is the only thing they know how to do.

This is what the Democratic Party has done for years. Only now, it is doing it with the foot soldiers of a guerrilla group.

The mask has fallen.

The fantasy of memes, pelicans and flamingos is over.

The protest has returned to the old Tirana script: confrontation, violence and staged chaos.

This is not only the protest wanted by those who started it. It is also the protest many of us expected from the beginning, behind the civic mask.

And now everything is easier for everyone.

First, the guerrilla wing no longer has to fear that environmentalists or ordinary citizens with real grievances will take the protest away from it. Violence is its identity, and no one can steal that.

Second, the Democratic Party, Albania’s main school of violent protest, can now enter the game openly and show its talent with Molotov cocktails.

I saw several protest WhatsApp groups now dominated by the Democratic Party leadership. They were giving instructions on what to do at police stations where violent protesters had been detained, and how the protest should continue.

In other words, the kind of protest they wanted has finally arrived. And in this field, they are experts.

Third, the police also have it easier. They know violent protests, they know how to act, and we have seen this scene dozens of times before.

So everyone is back in their own trench and things are clearer.

The guerrillas who once carried out attacks now throw eggs. The Democrats, whose favourite weapon has long been the Molotov cocktail, are trying to move to the front line. And the citizens who filled the boulevard several times will have less and less space from now on.

This is not the protest citizens wanted, but the protest wanted by those who used citizens as a mask to get here.

Originally published in Albanian as: Protesta që dua(m)n!