The pinnacle of folly: Sees it daily and awaits verification from Pandora Papers

Alfred Lela

After Paradise and the Panama Papers, Pandora is the largest leak of secret financial documentation, totaling 11.9 million. The big names involved in the leaks range from ordinary despots of the former Soviet space like Putin and Aliyev to the leaders of the former Eurocentric communist space, like Czech President Babis, or to the supposedly impossible borders of the West, where hangs the smiley and the virtuous Anglo-Saxon Tony Blair.

The name of the latter is also an illustration of the fact that, even for prestigious newspapers, such as the British The Guardian, a global scandal becomes a scene of political bias. The daily almost excused the former Prime Minister of the Left Party (Labor), even though he and his wife were involved in a transaction that saved them over mijë 300,000 from the purchase of a house (and removed it from the treasury of the British state, which had run it for three terms). The same media was much more judgmental of the current Conservative Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. Which, in fact, had nothing to do with the scandal. His name was put in the circle by The Guardian only for the fact that some Conservative Party donors were part of the leaked documents.

This game of smoke and mirrors also affects large, respected, Western newspapers. Imagine now our mainstream media or the portalosphere of Tirana.

Which in this case is an indirect and tertiary reporter. The Albanian involvement in the Pandora Papers appears to consist of 13 companies and a politician, of whom BIRN, the Albanian partner of the ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalism) has identified only one. A company in the energy sector linked to the OST, former Socialist Prime Minister Nano, a German GIZ project for interconnection lines and the 'reconciliation' of Albanian governments both left and right with it.

Surely, the great curiosity is related to the 'guessed' politician in the Pandora Papers and it will take a day or two for the ICIJ to download the entire river of 11.9 million documents on its website.

Whatever the name, it means nothing, or very little, both to the scandals and to the extent of corruption, and especially to the reflection that Albanians have on it. The noise about Pandora Papers, Panama Papers, WikiLeaks cables, etc., and the distance of several years between them, emphasize the same thing over and over again. Corruption has turned into an empty vessel that no longer gives news, but quenches curiosity. The repetition and overlapping of accusations, rumors, opposition denunciations, journalistic mini-investigations, lawsuits, and trials of the judicial system, have removed all meaning and importance, both of corruption and its constituent acts. Corrupting and being corrupted today is an empty gesture. As long as it is said that everyone does it everyone should do it. As long as everyone does and no one is punished,

Cases of 'success' against corruption, for example, the recent process of SPAK, and the arrest of some poor people in the Education Directorate of Dibra, who received (find out !!!) 100 thousand ALL for a job, is just the way how, the mechanism gathers, like the hedgehog, to defend itself.  

The same goes for the curiosity, the noise, and the expectations for the names from Pandora Papers: all a  smoke and mirrors illusion. A digestive for the heavy informative food of the day. A way to spend the afternoon with the mystery of one's wealth and to dream of oneself, not unlike him, but quite like him.

There is no need for Pandora Papers, letters that come from the depths of the Virgin Islands and do not say much, for the simple fact that, more than lawlessness are game within the finite boundaries of laws, those called loopholes.

Living in a country where the gap of social differences is growing right in front of our eyes, where the largest shares in the economic benefit a group of 5-10 people/companies, where in 30 years the highest-ranking convict is a former -minority minister, in a minority ministry (like that of Labor), prosecuted for misuse of funds for training.

Expecting retribution, punishment, or transparency from the Pandora Papers is like, one fine day, expensive villas in the Rolling Hills or Green Coast, opening their mouths and saying what their owners' sources are coming from politics, government, or public administration.

They say nothing but shout the clearest: we are a luxury ghetto.

If we go back to the mythology of the name Pandora, we can remember another refreshing moment. Opening the box from where all the blacks came out which the people then obtained. Realizing what he had done, Pandora closed the box leaving the last thing inside: hope.

When there is hope until the end even the villas can speak one day. To tell us that we expect in vain from Pandora Papers.