Prime Minister Edi Rama has once again reacted to the citizen protests that have been taking place in Tirana for the past 18 days.
In a lengthy message on social media, Rama said he understands the concerns of citizens who joined the demonstrations over environmental issues. However, he accused political actors and public voices who, according to him, thrive on disinformation, conspiracy theories, and the rejection of facts of attempting to exploit the protests and hijack the public interest.
Rama’s Full Statement
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” says an ancient proverb, and there is a reason why this expression has survived for centuries.
It does not diminish the value of good intentions. On the contrary, good intentions are the essential first letter in the entire alphabet of ethical public engagement. Yet human history teaches us that good intentions alone are never enough.
History is full of movements that began with the noblest slogans and the most sincere emotions, only to end in intolerance, fanaticism, or destruction because the connection between perception and reality, imagination and facts, concern and reason, was broken.
If good intentions are not subjected to the test of facts, if the passion for change is not guided by reason, and if strong convictions are not accompanied by a willingness to listen, then the distance between defending a principle, a cause, or an ideal and turning it into an exclusionary dogma becomes very short. That is why the road to hell is not paved with bad intentions, but with good intentions that refuse to be measured against reality.
I have genuine sympathy for everyone who joined this protest out of concern for nature. In fact, the aesthetic form of the demonstrations, with the pink flamingo silhouettes, brings a sense of elegance that would otherwise be missing from a citizens’ protest for nature that has been hastily transformed into a political demonstration—poor in ideas, weak in arguments, degraded in language, and marked by street and digital bullying against anyone who thinks differently.
But it is precisely this beautiful image that brings me back to the proverb about the road to hell.
Because the problem is not the flamingos. Their intentions are good. The problem is that the flamingos refuse to listen to the facts, discuss solutions, and coordinate efforts with institutions and serious sources of expertise in order to protect everything that needs protection while allowing the right project to move forward. In doing so, they become tools of the crows and ravens that surround them.
I have listened to the flamingos and I understand them. I respect their concerns without prejudice, precisely because those concerns have always been mine as well. What I cannot understand is why the flamingos refuse to distance themselves from the crows that feed on noise, slander, and conspiracy theories, and from the ravens who, through bullying and the categorical rejection of every fact, seek to hold Albania hostage.”
The post Rama on the Protests: The Problem Is Not the Flamingos, but the Crows and Ravens Trying to Hold the Country Hostage appeared first on Euronews Albania.
