1924-2025, 101 years of the still unformed Albanian state

2025-07-15 18:48:00, Opinione Boris Miska

1924-2025, the 101st anniversary of the still unformed Albanian state. They are few for a people, but many for a nation that is still not managing to solidify its own reliable state, a state with stabilized, sustainable and consolidated institutions, with a functional administration, with memory and heritage. The transitions from one system to another, unfortunately, have not brought visible changes, have not been able to install the modern state, with all its indicators.

To put it bluntly, power has always prevailed over the interests of the state, (even national) as a result, in repeated cases, deformations, malformations, and state perversions have appeared and continue to survive, which are worth studying. Zog, after an unidentified presidency, tried to install the monarchy, but he did not succeed in this either. In that short period of rule (only 15 years) for the sake of power, he allowed parallel 'states' and did not have the courage to dare to fully extend integrity over territories, peoples, and regions.

In a sense, he could not defeat 'customary law' and stopped there until he was ousted from his undeserved throne. This two-three power continued in those few years of occupation, alongside the administration of the conqueror, some worthless elements remained in the background, often in the service of foreign interests.

Even after the War, it must be admitted that alongside the installation of a legal state, with pronounced overtones, unknown forms of state resistance were implemented, the state administration was joined by the party one (sometimes appearing as a dual power), to the extent that the latter managed to dominate it. The state was united with the power, this form became content until it was even enshrined in the Constitution. How real this semi-state stage was again was shown in the 1990s when, together with the power, the entire state apparatus collapsed like cardboard, an unknown theoretical phenomenon that was not seen in any country where similar transformations took place.

Let's get closer to today! Even though 35 years have passed, Albanian society still considers itself in transition, and this sometimes seems endless to the point of 'national fatigue', and seemingly far from being real. Even in this next stage of state formation, a semi-state is ruling, in many cases even dual power. The negative experience of the current pre-party-state period took on a different appearance, underwent other changes, not at all positive, since most of the time the administration has worked under the pressure of the new system; 'party-state'.

Since it is still like this even in these moments that I am writing, the state appears as a strange, cloned, confused 'being'. It is no coincidence that during these stages, this transition, the 'old administration' appears, the customary power, the Kanun, the blood feud, its laws that have nothing in common with time, but that come to life like wild weeds on the barren land. In the face of distrust, the state without a functional administration, the unnecessary permissions and actions when it was possible to prevent them, quite phony forms of customary power appear, assemblies and people with medieval titles that resemble a Don Quixote, not of La Mancha but of Albania.

This is what a semi-state brings, the failure to form a credible state, built on consolidated institutions, from the bottom to the top of the pyramid, of Western quality, that serve civic and national interests and keeps these frightening phenomena on 'museum shelves'.