Lefteast
This article is part of the multilingual ELMO series Transnational migration in CEE from intersectional perspectives of race, gender, class and citizenship. Recent limitations to the freedom of movement imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19 led farmers’ organisations (as well as other employers’) across Europe to sound the alarm, lamenting the sudden dearth of workers […]
The recent price increases hit large parts of the people in Albania hard – especially because the living conditions of most people have already been difficult. On the other side, few rich people in the country have accumulated enormous wealth. In the last month, a movement has evolved that criticises the price increase and challenges […]
Note from the author: Girls and women in Albania rise up (again and again) throughout the country against domestic and systemic violence. From an almost infertile context, we can finally talk about and describe the arcs of the feminist movement in Albania. It is truly sedimenting its roots, with stable organizations, massive public activities, and […]
Note from LeftEast editors: We reprint this article, which appeared in the Black Box East section of the Berliner Gazette in German on December 2, 2021. After the post-1989 shock therapies imposed on “communist” regimes forced countless workers to move to Greece, where they became essential to the country’s economy, Troika’s austerity measures imposed on Greece at […]
The candidacy of Elton Debreshi – a mineworker from a peripheral town north of the country – in the upcoming general elections in Albania could be genuinely considered as an unwarranted intrusion into politics as usual. Thirty years after the collapse of the old regime, the political scenery has crystalized into the systemic rule of […]
Patriarchal morality and house chores: Do you believe in life after work? The concept of the Albanian “nuse of the house” is deeply embedded in Albanian culture and social norms, to the point that a direct translation in English language would be impossible without sacrificing some of the concept’s underlying meanings. The word nuse is […]
It is these conditions that prompt the need for a reliable and hopeful alternative. Elton Debreshi is such an alternative. A figure with the potential to challenge the hegemony of the corrupt power and bring hope to all the marginalized social groups. It is not his political ambition that pushes him to the podium of the parliament, but the historical demand of miners and citizens for a real and honest representation. A representation intact from the influence of criminal groups, violence and dubious businesses. Elton Debreshi has, for many years, sustained through his work the system that produces goods, on behalf of the oligarchs. Now it is time to seek on behalf of the city of Bulqiza the fair share of those people who work and live on a rich land, blessed with chromium, but spend their lives in poverty.
Although the shooting of an unarmed citizen can be considered an isolated event, there has been an increasing escalation of violence by the police in recent years. We, as activists of Organizata Politike, have witnessed it while protesting alongside chromium miners, oil refinery workers, and students. A very violent intervention by the police took place last year against the artists who were defending the National Theatre against demolition.
This wave of repression also relates to a decision by the Ministry of Interior to send into early retirement more than 1,000 policemen from the older generation, replacing them over three years with younger newcomers in better physical condition but lacking any experience in handling complex situations. Such was the case of the policeman who killed Klodian; a man in his early twenties who had joined the force only recently, and who had been immediately transferred to one of the most infamous police units: “The Eagles.”
Wealth concentrates while poverty spreads. While gravitational forces cause objects to fall toward the earth, market forces cause value to fall by the same place with orthodox rigorosity, year after year. The pattern is however cyclically interrupted. Social movements, financial crisis and technical advancements trigger systemic changes that open the way toward the reconstruction and […]
What PD and LSI leaders hope is that by withdrawing momentously from political privileges, such as the MP salary, they will be accepted by the popular classes as their genuine political representatives. In addition, they have tried to imitate some of the slogans, the gestures, and ideas of the student movement. They promise an uncompromising war against the oligarchs, and organized crime, tuition-free universities, the implementation of other important social rights, while maintaining, in a characteristic right-populist agenda, neoliberal economic policies like a 9% flat tax, and other pro-business mantra. Secretly, they hope that by withdrawing from the system, history will repeat itself.