Rama Turns Trump’s Mass Invitation into a Personal Trophy

Alfred Lela

In his Sunday monologue, the Prime Minister did not dwell on what he had previously presented as “the greatest achievement of his life”—the invitation to the so-called Board of Peace. That invitation, as international media have reported, was sent in identical wording to at least 60 other heads of state.

The fact that, so far, only Paraguay, Argentina, and Albania have made Trump’s letter public—word for word the same text—does not prove the insignificance of the invitation itself, but rather speaks to the insignificance or importance of those who receive it, and how they choose to behave in response. Perhaps for this reason, Rama reverted to eclecticism and quietly ignored the invitation in his Sunday monologue.

He no longer wants to say much about an invitation that was sent to dozens of others, even though in his initial post, he portrayed it as a “personal invitation” from Trump, playing loosely with the word “board”—a term that usually refers to bodies made up of six or seven members at most.

But this is a large board, a kind of Trumpian new United Nations, and one cannot boast today about being a member of the United Nations as if one were Enver Hoxha in 1946.

Now that we know there is no exclusivity to this invitation, Rama’s court scribes, who yesterday and today flooded social media and portals with a rapture not seen since the passage of Halley’s Comet, should come back down to earth and talk about the $1 billion price tag required of board members for participation.

Yes—that is the bill for the so-called “personal letter” Rama would have to pay for this board.

A sum that does not trouble him, if one reviews the incinerator scandal, AKSHI, the Port of Durrës, the “gold-plated roads,” and dozens of other monumental thefts, without even mentioning the transformation of Albania into an international hub for hard drugs. Still, $1 billion is a serious concern for Albanians, because that money would come from their taxes.

In this case, Rama must clarify that the invitation was not for him, but for Albania. As Nasreddin Hodja put it, he who pays the money plays the flute.

Rama did not speak about this today in his monologue, but he did not forget the frozen visas for Albanians. In his usual manner—disregarding facts in favor of a convenient narrative—he claimed that visas have not been suspended.

Tell that to those who were waiting, and are still waiting, for a work visa, family reunification, or those playing their last chance in the U.S. Green Card Lottery.

Rama also avoided mentioning the Trumpian seal, which his scribes treated as if Trump had sent him the Nobel Peace Prize he had just handed to Machado—because anyone exercising basic logic could ask: why didn’t Rama lobby so that Albanians would not have their visas frozen, instead of securing a letter and a $1 billion bill?

The letter—though it resembles a wedding invitation, the same text sent to dozens of invitees—does carry weight, because it comes from the President of the United States. But it is not an honor for Rama, nor a special distinction for Albanians.

If it were, Albania would not have been placed on the list of “leprous” countries.

Rama returned to his familiar Sunday internal monologue, where he does not deal with his own affairs or those of the state, but with his opponents and critics—those who refuse to say “well done” to everything he does.

For that, he has the conductors of his court orchestra, who label even a letter hard-lobbied for by Tony and the Gulf oil men, and which, without that lobbying, would have gone to Bajram (Begaj, the President of Albania)  as a work of glory.

Thus, Rama’s only real achievement in this letter is the exhausting effort to have it addressed to him. Had it gone to Bajram, it would have been a great comedy. Bajram, to escape Rama’s retaliation, would have been forced to seek asylum from Erdoğan, to whom Rama once begged for help for the Presidency—a modest building compared to his own monumental ambitions.