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In Albania, you are not who you are, but who you declare yourself to be!

2025-08-21 17:57:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

In Albania, you are not who you are, but who you declare yourself to be.

An Albanian phenomenon, but not only.

Reality has no weight; the word spoken aloud on a television screen is the absolute truth. It is not what you do that matters, but what you say you have done. It is not who you are that matters, but what you claim to be and what you tell others you are.

You will be a VIP, declare yourself a VIP!

You will be a poet, declare yourself a poet!

Do you want to be a singer? Declare yourself! And you're immediately a singer like those TV models, who "make their voices heard!"

Will you be a patriot? Declare yourself and automatically gain a national halo even though you have lived your whole life feeding off the money of corruption.

Do you want to be a politician? Declare yourself and be one! Even the neighborhood coffee shop owner who hears political gossip and gossip at the tables has an opinion about politics and considers himself a politician, and even wants to run for MP.

Declare that you are “honest” and immediately you are honest and become an example in television studios, even though your honesty is as good as a pickpocket who swears that he has never touched another person's pocket.

Our politicians are the masters of this national sport: they declare transparency, while behind the scenes they wink at each other and sign agreements that not even the August sun can see.

And our “fathers of the nation” every Monday declare themselves as saviors of the nation, on Tuesday they become fighters against corruption, on Wednesday they are their own opponents, and on Thursday they are declared innocent of everything. On the weekend, this whole package is sold as a “sacrifice for the people.” And the people, as always, listen and often believe it.

Will you be a revolutionary? Declare yourself! Every three months declare a new revolution. Today with the "revolted people", tomorrow an agreement with the government, the day after tomorrow again as a "warrior of truth"! But there is no problem: every time declare that you are on the right side of history. And when you declare it with conviction, who dares to oppose it?

In Albania, you are not who you are. You are who you proclaim yourself to be, who you write in your biography, who you post on social media. All you have to do is rent a luxury car, take a couple of filtered photos in restaurants or on a yacht, and suddenly you become a successful businessman.

In a normal country, a person is evaluated for his results; in ours, for his statements. In a normal democracy, accountability is given by deeds; in Albania, accountability is settled by strong statements, repeated several times until they become “truth”!

Therefore, it is no wonder that we live in a false reality, where people hide behind words like carnival masks.

And so, the Albania of declarations continues: the land of lies where success is measured by a CV of lies, not by what the world knows.
The land where morality is triumphantly proclaimed, but is trampled upon as soon as it is put on the pedestal.
The land where, unfortunately, we are not who we are, but who we declare ourselves to be.