And what are we gaining from the protest?

2026-06-06 17:19:00, Opinione Lutfi Dervishi

For those who say "the protest has accomplished nothing," perhaps we should remember that it has only been a week.

In seven days, more has happened than many protests organized by parties or the administration.

1. Young people showed that they can organize mass protests even without parties, without leaders, and without militants.

2. First the barbed wire was removed in Zvërnec, then the fence was removed. When a protest manages to move even the wire and concrete, it's hard to say that nothing has moved.

3. The people who behaved like the "state" in Zvernec were identified and detained. The police chief lost his post, and this would not have happened without public pressure.

4. Zvernec once again highlighted the crisis of traditional media. The lack of reporting became news in itself.

5. The protest is showing that in the age of social media, a clever meme can have more impact than 10 speeches and a hundred Molotov cocktails.

6. Forced the Prime Minister to speak publicly about the project. Until now, the debate was conducted as if citizens should only see it after it had become a fait accompli.

7. It turned a local issue into a national and international topic. Foreign media, organizations, and commentators began to follow it closely.

8. He reminded the government and the opposition that there is a public outside of the militants and outside of the polls.

9. Restored protest as a civic tool. For years, the mantra was that without a party, people wouldn't gather. It turned out that sometimes people gather precisely because there is no party.

10. It is the first protest in decades that continues day after day with the same intensity, without a classic political structure and without visible funding.

11. This is probably the first protest where the vast majority of speakers are not public figures. The microphone has not been taken over by political professionals, but by citizens.

12. It has produced a new generation of activists, names that no one knew a week ago and that today are heard by thousands of people.

13. It has broken the monopoly of political interpretation. For the first time in a long time, the event is not being explained only by parties, analysts, and television studios.

14. It has raised a question that seemed unimaginable a week ago: what if change comes not from parties, but from citizens?

15. It has proven that there is still youth in this country and that Albanians are rising up.

Will he win? No one knows.

But to say that it has achieved nothing, after moving fences, forcing reactions, bringing resignations, attracting international attention, and keeping the square full for seven days straight, is a bit like saying that it's not raining when you're soaked to the core.