To those who think violent protests can stop the NATO or EU summit

There has been an odd reaction to the NATO Secretary General’s confirmation that the next NATO summit will be held in Tirana. Some are trying to present it as a provocation against the protests in Albania, or as a show of support for the government.

The same reaction appears whenever senior figures from the European Commission or the European Parliament speak positively about the protests, describe them as a democratic expression, and call for them to remain peaceful.

The problem comes from a political culture that has been deeply rooted in Albania by Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party: the idea that protest means violence. As long as the protests were peaceful and presented as civil society action, they did not damage Albania’s image. If anything, they strengthened it by showing the country as a functioning democracy.

In the West, protests are not usually seen as violent attempts to seize power. Governments are not brought down by mobs in the street. Protests are taken seriously when they have a clear, legitimate aim and remain within democratic limits.

But in Albania, some want the West to see protest the way Berisha sees it — or rather, the way he imagines it: people in the street, a coffin on their shoulders, the doors of the prime minister’s office forced open, and power taken by force. He has never managed to turn that fantasy into reality, but he has never stopped dreaming of it.

That belief in protest as a violent challenge to the state is what exposes the people now leading the square. They are the ones angered when the NATO Secretary General, Marta Kos or European Parliament figures treat the protests as a normal democratic expression while continuing to support Albania.  They seem to think the government is using them as democratic decoration.

That is the clearest sign that the civic protest is over. What remains in the square are Berisha’s people. They believe violent protest can send a message to Europe, NATO and the United States: that Albania cannot be stable unless they return to power.

If the protest were still civic, as it first tried to be, it would use these developments differently. It would welcome NATO’s decision to hold its summit in Tirana for the first time. It would use Albania’s EU ambition, and the positive signals from Brussels, to challenge the government as a Western, peaceful and credible alternative.

A protest should not panic because Albania is moving forward. It should not allow itself to look like a backward, anti-state movement.

Trying to undermine events that put Albania on NATO’s and the European Union’s agenda is not illegal. But it belongs to a minority that does not represent Albanian society.

Like every country, Albania has violent minorities. It has people who hijack protests to target neighbours they dislike, then call them enemies of Albania. It has people who attack rival businesses by putting them on public blacklists. It has failed or resentful figures who cannot compete with public personalities, so they list them too as enemies of the country.

But that makes the protest smaller every day, just like the people who have hijacked it.

As it is developing, the protest is becoming a mafia-style tool of intimidation. Everyone seems to think they can use it to attack a neighbour, a competitor, a colleague, an ex-husband, an ex-wife, a business they cannot beat, or anyone else they resent.

That is intimidation in the name of protest. And it could carry consequences, both collectively and personally, for the people involved.

A protest becomes large, and stays large, only when it moves in the same direction as the majority of the country.

Every country has violent minorities, conspiracy-minded minorities, anti-system groups, ethnic factions and groups linked to foreign interests. But when these forces come together, they often become smaller, not larger, because they are also divided against each other.

And if there is one thing any government can use easily, it is exactly this kind of crowd: people who imagine they can stop the NATO summit in Tirana or Albania’s path towards EU membership.

As if Albanians are waiting to be rescued from the world order built around the European Union, NATO and the United States — only to place their future in the hands of people who have somehow convinced themselves that “anti-system” politics is Albania’s salvation.

Originally published in Albanian as: Për ata që mendojnë se do të ndalojnë Samitin e NATO-s apo BE-së me protesta të dhunshme