Arben Ahmetaj, or the sons who eat the Renaissance

Alfred Lela

The interview of Arben Ahmetaj for Çim Peka Live on SyriTV may have quelled curiosity from those that even Big Brother cannot satisfy, but it has also opened some wounds. Not only those mentioned, those who were implied, but the whole structure of the Socialist Party, what Edi Rama baptized as "Rebirth" in 2013.

What Ahmetaj said, "When the Albanians find out that Edi Rama and the Socialist Party are not the same things, it will probably be too late," cannot possibly be true. SP and Rama are, in fact, the same thing, but what kind of thing they are, that is the debate.

At least according to what Ahmetaj told us last night - and others that he may say in the future - Rama, under the shelter of Rilindja and this under the SP, is directly responsible for Albania as a country, or for the transformation of the common homeland in what is known as a 'failed state.'

Although the incinerators took up most of the lengthy interview, other diamonds shone on their ores, which structurally explain what Renaissance has done to this country over a decade. Ahmetaj revealed, for example, a position he took at a government retreat related to the disagreement with the canabissation of the country. It may or may not be true, but what is worth it is that a socialist has thought like many opposition or independent voices that, almost out of desperation, have been ringing the country's cannabis bells for so many years.

The country is today paying the tribute and haram of that anti-national decision, which allowed the main industry, agriculture, and tourism of the country for 4-5 years to be the planting, processing, and export of cannabis sativa. The cannabis light industry created a get-rich-quick eldorado that, in turn, fueled many economic and social illusions. When the cannabis craze passed and the big beneficiaries diversified their investment 'portfolio,' moving into construction or hard drugs, what remained were those with the weight of an illusion. Since Albania no longer fed them, they took the path of exile. Not by chance, young Albanians chose Great Britain because they could work in an industry they knew well: 'bar houses.' Rilindja, after producing it, recycled this contingent, asking for fiscal amnesty for what Minister Damjan Gjiknuri called 'London's junks'.

This was the second largest criminalization done to Albanian society during Rama's government (the first was electoral criminalization). Not at all paradoxically, all the action of enriching the young elite around the Renaissance moved to gambling, health, cryptocurrencies, and call centers. All ephemeral industries, something between services and technology (IT). Construction and waste were the only 'heavy industries' outlined as profitable. The tall towers, which eventually killed the skyline of Tirana and also the lungs of the city, and the three (virtual) incinerators not only produced income for a handful of people connected to the government but also shocking contradictions.

Each of these industries had its martyrs (victims) and heroes (both infamous). An illustration of the former is Ervis Martinaj and of the latter Amant Josifi (note that the former is against Rama and the latter is his). There were, of course, also categorizations in the middle of the table, such as Ilir Beqja, who became neither a victim nor a hero, remaining, in all likelihood, an expensive thief.

Arben Ahmetaj is something between the two, a half-victim and a half-hero, an intermediate being in the evil mythology of the Renaissance, at the head of which (Zeus, as the government official called him ) stands Edi Rama.

Arben Ahmetaj, in last night's interview, showed more or less the will not to let the Renaissance eat him (he mentioned death, according to a motif borrowed from the series "Vikings" - an ancient Nordic tribe, even those victims and heroes of history). Here, you have more or less a reprise of the 'revolution eating its own sons' theme. The former deputy prime minister appeared last night in an inverted role of events and history: the son of the revolution (Renaissance) seeking to eat the revolution.

This is a typical Albanian epilogue because history teaches us that the opposite is the norm: the revolution eats its children. But it is not the epilogue (closure), but the prologue (start) that makes the Renaissance different from other revolutions. It started on the premise not to make Albania but to rule or extort it. Revolutions, as a rule, even if they degenerate along the way (including Enver Hoxha's communists), were started on the desire or illusion to do something better. 

The informal slogan of the Renaissance was 'the alliance of stinkers.' So, it is not a voluntary union of the best for the best, as these initiatives are mostly whoever can, and at any cost, take power.

This produced this government cyborg that Arben Ahmetaj exposed in about 2 hours of the interview. The former number 2 of the Renaissance government returned as the son who comes to eat the revolution, a sign of refusal to end itself in its jaws.

At this point, he can be brave, a fool, or, why not, a pioneer. Whatever the actor, such acts usually herald the end of the revolution. It does not matter whether he eats his sons or his sons eat him. In any case, and regardless of the silhouette of the victim, it is the stench that remains and its smell that tells us that the end is near. The ones making the noise are the ravens, as it happens over all the carrion.