Mira Kazhani: (It's not) easy to be Albanian and the lesson from a protest
2026-06-06 09:31:20
Mira Kazhani
By Mira Kazhani/ And I thought I had learned the greatest lessons from my illness. But life surprises you. There is always a new step to take when you least expect it.
And this step was this week's Albania. Albania of the first week of June.
An Albania that laughed when we thought it had sunk into the depression of reality. "This is us", "this is how we are", constantly cursing itself. Without trust in each other. Without trust in our country. And not without reason.
Trust is the thing that breaks the easiest. Even easier than an egg.
A country where opinion is shaped by television stations that shut down for two weeks if they don't cooperate with the government. Not because people are afraid of cheese, but because they often don't have the strength to fight the untouchables.
But everything has a limit.
And the container broke.
By releasing people into the streets.
Those of us who stayed here don't have it any easier than those of you who left. It's not a competition about who has it worse. But it's not easy to be an Albanian in Albania.
For a year I wasn't sure if I would drive home because after ten o'clock at night a concrete mixer would come and act like we owed it to them to cross our street. They put up a barrier and blocked the street. Our street...
I looked at my neighbors and thought: have they gotten nervous too? Are they thinking of leaving? Or are they just enduring it?
To get used to the noise of the concrete mixer, I started to make black humor. I called it the "piano of development."
One day it was over. The palace next door was built. Life went on for everyone.
But the trauma remained inside.
The disregard. The arrogance we live with. They accumulate. And one day they turn into revolt. Sometimes even into anarchy. It's no wonder.
But let's try new disappointments. Let's boycott old habits.
As for the Zvërnec issue, nature is precious. But to be completely honest, more than for a resort, which could probably be even better than many others that we have never protested about, the value of this week lies elsewhere.
To establishing protest as a way of life.
As a fashion.
As a citizen.
This protest gathered the cream of Albanian society, and this is easily recognizable in the faces, banners, flowers donated to the police, and the atmosphere it created.
It's the most beautiful thing that has happened to Albania in a long time.
A protest without a cult of the individual.
No buses.
No obligation.
A Boulevard filled with families and young children.
A square filled with Gen Z and millennials.
An Albania that we rarely see on screen. An Albania completely different from what international media has often shown: the country of hawks, of grassroots houses, of asylum seekers or of people who fight just for a living.
Two extremes.
This was a protest that put dignity first.
People who don't live by bread alone.
They don't live just for show.
They live for dignity.
And perhaps this is the most beautiful lesson we can learn in life:
That a society is not lost when there are still people who come out not for interest, but for dignity.
