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Reflection on Rama's kneeling before Meloni

Politiko 2025-06-18 15:52:53

By Fatos Lubonja

The scene of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama kneeling on the red carpet, when Italian Prime Minister Meloni was coming to meet him on the occasion of the European Summit, went viral and was widely commented on in Italy. In one of the debates, which also included former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, a history professor commented on Rama's kneeling by referring to a medieval custom of the king's relationship with his vassals. According to this custom, the vassal, when the king came to him, had to remain kneeling (while all his subordinates had to remain seated) until the moment the king made the sign for them to stand up. This is what happened in this case too - she said - the Albanian Prime Minister stood up when Meloni said "bet". Then, laughing at the anachronism of this scene, she added that an American would take this scene as a marriage proposal. Meanwhile, Matteo Renzi called it "paliaciatta" (panache), but with his comment he showed that he was not upset with the vassal, but with the queen who had made, according to him, a wrong "gift" because with the investment in Gjadra and Lezha she had wasted 800 million euros of Italian taxpayer money, which, according to him, also justified the vassal's kneeling.

What was most striking is that in Albania there was no reaction whatsoever to Rama's behavior. Not only that, but this scene was eclipsed by the summit, which was greeted both on this side and on the other side of the border by many Albanians with a kind of national pride because Albania, according to them, brought to "Skënderbej" square the prime ministers of all European countries, without stopping at all to realize that we were dealing with a "summit-washing" i.e. a washing of the faces of European prime ministers of the regime's blackened face from the recently committed electoral massacre. But it is not the first time that Albanians do not react to such acts, where Rama's vassal behavior combined with his irresistible need to show off, even by being the court jester, is wrapped in national pride. There was also great silence when land was given to the Italians in Lezha and Gjadra to bring in immigrants. Apart from a handful of militants and journalists, the majority treated it as a normal thing, even with pride, as a sign of our traditional hospitality or our historical love for Italy. Albanians did not react in the same way when he gave Trump's son-in-law 48 hectares of the island of Sazan, and even the opposition treated this as normal business.

But where does this feeling of "normality" towards behaviors for which others laugh at us, even despise us, come from? In my opinion, this is explained by the fact that we have deeply rooted in our collective consciousness the mentality of the inhabitant of a vassalage, who is proud when the king comes to his house. We have had it since those early times when this was normal. We even had our national hero, a vassal of the King of Naples. We also inherited it from the Ottoman Empire when the small rulers of our provinces - those who were called "ajana" - had a vassal relationship with the Sublime Porte that, in short, consisted of an agreement according to which the ajan had to send soldiers to the Sultan for the wars that the empire was fighting and in return the Sultan let him rule as he pleased, turning a blind eye to the robberies and mistreatments that he inflicted on his own population. Only when the ayani with his ambitions and oppression became too much of a concern for the Sublime Porte, was it decided to remove him from power. The most notable cases are that of Ali Pasha Tepelena and Kara Mahmut Pasha Bushatlli.

Looking at the historical parallelism I made, Renzi's interpretation seems flawed to me, because the benefit of the vassal and the king in the Rama-Meloni agreement has been reciprocal. Meloni, for his own benefits related to his electoral rhetoric against immigration, received a piece of Albanian land that no one in the world would have given him today, while the "gift" she has given and continues to give to Rama is not the 800 million, but the legitimacy and support she gives him by closing both eyes to what he does in his country. Suffice it to recall her screams against the RAI 3 show "Report": "Did you see what they did?! They took Albania out as if it were a narco-state. We must apologize to Edi Rama." But perhaps Renzi does not like to be talked about as a vassal, as the Italian professor did, because, for the sake of truth, even in Italy the term "vassal" is used sarcastically when talking about dependence on the US, mentioning politicians like Renzi, who, when he sought to change the Constitution to gain more power, organized a visit to Washington, bringing with him a well-known actor, the Oscar-winning Roberto Benigni. But the result of the referendum speaks volumes about the change that time has brought to the other side of the Adriatic in relation to the other side of the Adriatic. Because, although Emperor Obama spoke out after the meeting in favor of the reform that Renzi wanted, over 60% of Italians voted against it and forced him to resign. This is a significant change, which shows that the vassals on the other side of the Adriatic cannot proudly accept every decision made by the Sublime Porte of Washington, as we do, who declare that the decisions made there for us should not even be discussed.

I'm using the word "we" so much, because what I want to say is that in this story the problem is not just Edi Rama. He would never dare to make these profanities if he didn't think that we are left with a people who lie on their stomachs when the king comes to visit. He (and his brothers) would never pay 80 thousand dollars to take a photo with the US president if he didn't think that when we see him side by side with the emperor we will follow him like sheep. Nor would he intrigue at the High Porte in Washington to declare the leader of the opposition non-grata to say to the people: "Can you cross the Atlantic?" and eliminate him. No, no, it's us, who, even when we want to escape from the Ayans, pin our hopes on the Americans, without Rama. Just look at the opposition now wandering through the gates of Brussels to cry that the ayan stole their votes in the elections, or how we sit and passionately comment on the statement of the American Embassy that this time greeted the Albanian people for the elections and not the next ayan, hoping that they have not decided to remove it.

But there is a great contradiction in the happy acceptance of the condition of vassal, which some camouflage with the term partnership or by telling themselves that this time we are vassals of the empire of good. The contradiction lies in the fact that vassalage is exactly contrary to our aspiration for democracy, freedom and the rule of law; to become “like the rest of Europe”, as we are so fond of saying and as our next ally promises us, all the while building autocracy. To understand this contradiction, it is enough to ask the question: how is it possible that for over 30 years, with the help of the empire of good, instead of democracy, freedom and the rule of law, we have built the authoritarian and criminal state of narco-oligarchs? The answer is: because we have not yet learned two things that seem obvious: first, that the empire of good, as the Rama-Meloni agreement shows, but also the horrors we are seeing today in the world, where the murder of thousands of Palestinian children with the empire's weapons screams, is more interested in our vassalage than our democracy. Second, and most importantly: because democracy is neither imported nor exported, it is built by the peoples who want it. And to want it means to want to get out of the mindset of vassalage. And getting out of this mindset is "man's exit from the infantile state for which he himself is guilty", as Kant says when answering the question "what is enlightenment", which means from the state of needing a tutor, to the state of man who uses his mind to interpret the world and protect his own interests. / Panorama Newspaper