Arben Ahmetaj's solo plot

Alfred Lela

In the third interview of former Deputy Prime Minister Ahmetaj, one is confronted with helplessness. Not with the question "What is happening?" but "Who are these people?". Who is Edi Rama and those around him, and why has this circle, as corrupt as it is, drowned Albania in betrayal?

In the desolate territory around Edi Rama, there are subordinates, needy sycophants, soldiers of greed, and people afraid of him but not loyal. Loyal is someone who believes in your idea and your strength to materialize that idea. This is a big difference from the serf, who has no idea or strength, not even to believe in someone else's idea.  

This makes Edi Rama calm when he abandons his own, especially when they refuse to offer him the ultimate service: to sacrifice themselves so that his idea of ​​power can move forward. Arben Ahmetaj was put in the crosshairs of the Prime Minister's attack also because he was not willing to put his head in the guillotine and serve a few years in prison. Rama's expression 'those who disrupt the unity of the party should screw themselves,' should be read as "those who are not ready to sacrifice themselves for me...".

Ahmetaj, every time he appears - or doesn't appear - serves as a reminder that even an egomaniacal autocrat has limited power - he cannot beat individual freedom.

This is a premise of power, both for Ahmetaj and for a part of the public, but it is powerlessness in the face of resistance to evil, which Rama and his circle represent.

This powerlessness stems mainly from the impossibility of the drama to resolve the conflict and turn it into a tragedy. In the Rama-Ahemtaj case, the conflict is not the clash but the political reality that this confrontation reveals. Usually, events are resolved by degrading or through a tragic element. The first case creates comedy and the second tragedy. The great tragedians, from the ancient Greeks to Shakespeare, have resolved the conflict through cruel murder. Such grand conspiracies in fiction and life, such as Caesar or Trujillo, are not resolved solo. Therefore, co-conspirators are needed. Brutus, alone or with just Cassius, could not have killed Caesar. He relied on a circle of senators, military men, and many others, who later formed the army to battle with the other side. What Arben Ahmetaj likely does not understand, and what makes him powerless, is his solo role in the conspiracy. So, he is in an impossible plot.

Unconsciously - or not - during the interview for "Çim Peka Live," he made fluid and virtual alliances, both with Fatmir Xhafaj, with the 'socialists' as a group facing Edi Rama, with Saimir Tahiri or even with Erion Veliaj. Ahmetaj's political role may be precisely this: as the 'first repentant,' he must act as if he does not allow himself to be the last. The first question that he - or anyone among the exponents of the government or the SP - can ask is: whose turn is it? Is he ready to sacrifice himself or resist? How far is he prepared to go for his freedom, but also for society? Is he loyal to Rama or a servant, and how is he being hit, as of the first or second type?

What Ahmetaj announced on live TV is true: Rama 'has lost four electoral districts.' Still, as a fact in itself, as isolated episodes of corruption, the MPs and ministers are nothing more than corrupt senior officials and political people who 'do stuff behind Rama's back.' In the other case, of a collaboration with the justice, as repentant and as a group of repentants, it is not Rama who takes their heads, but it is them who behead his.

Arben Ahmetaj expressed some regret for Saimir Tahiri last night, but it was too late. Five ministers who are against the plan of cannabization, that is, the criminalization of the country and society, who rebel publicly, would be a political movement. The fact that they bowed down and served, abandoning the idea for the man who had the wrong idea, becomes their preordained fate. Saimir Tahiri went to prison, Arben Ahmetaj is in exile, Fatmir Xhafaj was fired, and so was Ditmir Bushati.

Arben Ahmetaj's solo plot is something to watch and enjoy as a spectator, but without becoming tragic, without bringing others into it, it is doomed to fail.

No Brutus, alone, can kill Caesar.