Rita Petro on the protests and the role of the citizen: Albania needed to be shaken up

In a period characterized by social tensions and persistent public discontent, the analysis of phenomena such as protests and civic reactions becomes an absolute necessity to understand the essence of democracy and civic development.

In an interview on the 'Pasvon' podcast with Alfred Lelë, writer and intellectual Rita Petro offered an in-depth sociological and psychological treatment of the protests in Albania, focusing specifically on the nature of those who fill the squares and the way they are perceived by power structures.

To understand the dynamics of the latest developments, it is essential to examine her approach to crowd psychosis, the historical return of civic revolt, and the language of political labeling.

The genesis of a revolt and the repetition of history. When a society finds itself in a state of stagnation or what Petro calls a 'stagnant water', the need to shake up and oppose becomes an essential mechanism of social cleansing. For the speaker, the squares filled with young people, many of whom belong to a generation born after the 1990s, are a hopeful image and at the same time a cyclical return of history.

She recalled her personal memories from 1990, when she participated in the mass protests that brought about the fall of the communist regime. Today, seeing the children of that generation raise their voices against the arrogance of the current government, she emphasizes that regardless of whether individuals may have their own reservations about specific causes, the very act of protesting generates a vital adrenaline rush.

This adrenaline rush of dissent serves to prevent the installation of harmful institutional comfort and to awaken a society that can get used to submission.

On an aesthetic and creative level, Petro also dwells on the dominant color of this youth movement, the color of flamingo or pink that naturally spread through social networks and memes. Beyond aesthetics, she particularly appreciates the appearance of humor and poetic depth in the slogans of the youth, elements that profoundly replace the traditional and hateful language that we are used to hearing constantly from the mouths of our politicians, such as calls for 'to prison' or radical curses.

This fundamental shift from politically sponsored hate speech to pure civic creativity further emphasizes the conceptual and mental shift of society. This youthful approach manages to unite people with a free spirit and distance them from the destructive mindset of the past.

Crowd Psychosis and the Role of the Individual. A central element of Petros’s analysis is the so-called phenomenon of ‘crowd psychosis’, a concept widely addressed by classical philosophers and sociologists. As individuals, she argues, people can feel powerless, silent, or even somewhat cowardly in the face of substantial power and its oppressive mechanisms. However, spontaneously uniting in a crowd gives them a new power, a loud voice, and a total collective courage. It is precisely this union that transforms silent individuals into courageous protesters. However, this transformation has and carries its own concrete dangers, especially in the presence of provocateurs, children without fear of consequences, and entrenched political manipulations that can easily direct civic anger in the wrong direction.

Language Battle: Crowd or People?

The writer's analysis reaches its peak when she examines the tactical use of words by politicians. Why are protesters constantly called 'the mob' by their political opponents? For Petron, this is a pure and deliberate choice to denigrate and delegitimize civic anger.

Politicians prefer to call a civic movement a 'mob' when it openly threatens their seats or exposes their affairs, but they never hesitate to call that mass a 'people' when the same crowd of people gathers to applaud them in their campaigns. According to her, when an organized crowd possesses a high public self-awareness, when it gathers because of a righteous indignation at injustices and has a common civic purpose based on demands for civil rights and equality, it is fully and fundamentally 'people'. This intellectual redefinition gives the discourse another depth.

In conclusion to this line of analysis, this in-depth segment of the television conversation clearly demonstrates that observing political events through the eyes of an engaged intellectual and writer undoubtedly adds a deeply human, critical, and objective dimension to Albanian public discourse. The continued refusal to blindly accept media propaganda and the intellectual insistence on seeing the revolted crowd as a fully sovereign entity carrying the will of the people offer a modernist approach that invites every citizen to reflect directly on his or her essential role in democratic society.