The real source of violence against public critics

This morning, two thugs ambushed the publicist Ilir Demalia outside his home.

They waited for him and attacked him as soon as he came out, leaving him bloodied.

The suspects have been declared wanted, and a full investigation should establish the direct motive behind this barbaric attack.

But one thing is already clear.

A climate has been created in which violence against public critics feels justified.

Every evening on the boulevard, people appear on the protest podium and name public figures who have criticised the “flamingos”.

One person denounces a television moderator. Another holds up placards against journalists. A website serving the revolution has published dozens of names to be lynched as enemies of the revolution. That appears to be the work of the revolution’s guerrillas.

This lynching language is now in complete contradiction with the reason the protest began as a peaceful movement.

It encourages anyone who recognises a public figure in the street, at home or in the neighbourhood, to see that person as a target.

The attack may have nothing to do with the official cause of the anarchist revolution on the boulevard.

It may have nothing to do with any personal fault of the public figure being attacked.

But an entire online army has been organised to lynch anyone who publicly disagrees with what is happening.

And once that is normalised online, someone in a neighbourhood or apartment block may decide he has the right to wait for you in the morning and hit you over the head with an iron bar.

For those who say I am exaggerating, and that the barbaric attack on Ilir Demalia was not inspired by the “guerrillas” of the revolution, look at the online comments.

They are full of hatred. They approve the attack. Some even sanctify it. I checked Facebook comments written in a terrifying language of hatred. Some users were openly disappointed that Demalia had not died. Open those profiles and you find the “flamingo” on them. In other words, they are part of the revolution.

At this point, it matters little what the thug who hit him is called, or what his accomplice is called. They now have a name bigger than their personal names. They have been convinced that they can kill someone they disagree with.

The lynching spirit spread by those manipulating the boulevard has entered every cell of society.

Look at a repulsive politician such as Agron Shehaj and the way he lynches every businessman or investor in Albania, as if they have taken his share. Look at how he spreads the 20 members of his party through the crowd, then meets them again to ask whether they will make him prime minister.

Look at how agendas of violence are built against businesses, from Rrjoll to Kakome, in the name of the revolution.

Look at how causes are invented from Bënja in Përmet to the Cem River in Tropoja, wherever the state makes investments, with calls to rush in and destroy them because “the oligarchs” are taking them.

But above all, look at those who remain silent about the barbaric violence against Ilir Demalia.

They are the so-called journalists who hold the microphones of the “revolution” and draw up lynching lists against their own colleagues.

Not one word from them yet about the violence against him.

They are the fake associations, created to collect funds, which have not raised their voice against the public lynching of journalists, publicists and public figures being anathematised in the name of the revolution.

That is the real address of those who attacked Ilir Demalia.

The names of the actual attackers, or the motives they may invent, matter little.

What matters is the message they have absorbed in recent days: anyone who is against the “flamingos” can be attacked in the name of the “people”.

In every revolution, killers are baptised as “assassins” to make them sound noble, as if they have simply carried out an order and performed a duty for the revolution.

They are trying to frighten society. They are trying to show that anyone who stands against them can be attacked.

And they are doing this to someone who was among the first to rise against communism in Albania in 1990. Someone who helped lead the entry into the Western embassies. Someone who gave Albanian society hope for change through his Voice of America interviews from exile.

He is someone who was not frightened by tigers. Naturally, he will not be frightened by cats.

Originally published in Albanian as: Adresa e vërtetë e dhunuesve barbarë të Ilir Demaliaj-t