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Democracy explained with three jokes

2024-08-08 10:40:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

I had three coffees yesterday with three different people.

Of course, the conversation was about what worries Albanians the most: Democracy! Knowing my commitment in the 90s, the first one told me: "We have this situation from you! You brought us to this point with your idealism. Or am I wrong?

"You are right, - I answered - we are guilty. But today we resemble that defendant in the courtroom, who after killing his parents asked the judges for mercy, because he was an orphan!". The person I was drinking coffee with saw me with a look over his glasses, didn't speak, silently approved and left. I paid for the coffee.

I had the second coffee an hour later with a middle-aged man, who, because he is from an area of ??Vlora that stands out for irony, keeps himself to sarcasm. Again the same discussion, again the same accusation. I gave him right too. "We are like that husband betrayed by his wife, who to punish his wife cut his own tool!" It seems he didn't like the issue of betrayal and the tool, as he also left without paying, without even finishing his coffee.

In the afternoon I sat for my pleasure in a cafe by the sea, in Lungomare. A very high-ranking former official in Vlora came and sat at my table for his own pleasure. We talked about a lot of things, until the conversation came back to our fragile democracy.

"Our democracy," I said, "resembles that story with Hoxha Effendi, the rabbi and the priest." How? - he asked me with surprise.
- Yes, I answered. The faithful once asked where the money they gave for the mosque went. And Hoxha Effendi made a dash in the square and said: "I will throw the money up. Those that will fall to the left are mine. What will fall to the right are of the mosque. And threw away the money, of course with the tendency to the left.

Same thing with the rabbi. The rabbi made a small circle in the square and said: "I will throw the money up." What will fall in the circle are God's, what will fall outside the circle are mine...

The priest was asked the same question. (I left the example for the last with his grace, because I am Orthodox myself and made it a little more difficult so as not to offend the religious feelings of others.) And the priest took the money from the treasury and threw it into the air. Then he sat down and collected them all. “I gave it all to God when I threw it up. If he wanted you, he would have kept it all," he said and ran away with the money in the deep pockets of his raso.

So is our democracy. Not a democracy at all. Half democracy. Semi-democracy. That's the expression of that surgeon who told the patient's family: "The operation was successful! The patient died!"

Our politicians resemble their graces. They don't think only about democracy and the people, but about themselves. And for this we are also to blame for enduring 34 years; that we follow with chairs by our side up and down through the squares; that we gather under the balconies, because we think we will cure cervical hernias by raising our heads in anticipation of some bone; or do we "like" Like posts on top of metal advertising structures, mountains or rivers where one dives to train to cope with the problems of the people...

ps: Thank goodness I ended the day with three coffees, because the fourth joke would be more bitter and not at all metaphorical... /CNA