Continuation of an article about socialist comrades who are silent, not doing anything...

2025-05-10 11:33:00, Opinione Luan Rama

Continuation of an article about socialist comrades who are silent, not doing

Apparently, what I wrote yesterday in reaction to hearing a statement by Socialist Party Chairman Edi Rama that "...the Socialist Party is not what it used to be, it was once a brothel..." was not enough for some socialist comrades to believe that everything that was said was completely true.

So, no more about them, because I am not too concerned about whether they believe it or not, but, provoked by a conversation with a friend, with whom I worked for many years in the Socialist Party and in its government, who called me very worried early this morning, and (instead of asking me, at least to hear my version), accused me that the video with the voice and image of Edi Rama where he says word for word that "...the Socialist Party is not the party that it used to be, it used to be a brothel..." that I used to accompany my writing with a concrete fact, is edited , I am forced to return once again to the fact and comment on everything the Chairman of the Socialist Party said.

As for the fact, once again I am telling you that Edi Rama's statement is true. I have not edited or manipulated what he said. Nor have I taken it out of context. Anyone who is curious should go to YouTube, and not type "Edi Rama naked" as he himself recommended a few days ago in the presence of comrade Pandi at a meeting with young people in Spille, Kryevid, but search for "72 hours before the elections, Edi Rama in Top Story in front of journalists for Albania in the EU" and they will find the entire Grida Duma show. The statement of the Chairman of the Socialist Party is almost at the end of the three-hour show, precisely at 2:54 minutes and 57 seconds, precisely in response to the question asked by journalist Robert Rakipllari.

While I do not have a comment today for Edi Rama, I want to express my regret for the numb, not only intellectual, state in which my socialist friend finds himself, once a fiery polemicist and very eloquent in every activity of the Socialist Party forums.

Edi Rama is the Chairman of the Socialist Party. He is also the Prime Minister of the country. He is on the campaign trail and tomorrow he, the government and the party he leads will be judged by the voters. It is also his right and responsibility to say whatever he wants. Within his freedom of expression, he can say whatever he wants about the Socialist Party. He will even say brothels, just like he said in Dibër that half of the men are gypsies or like he told the women in Durrës that if they tried to take the ferry and go to Italy for a month, upon returning, they would find the men with tails. So, he, he is.

The problem I have is with my socialist friend. Because he and a few others have chosen to remain silent. They have chosen to keep their mouths shut and perhaps “react” in silence, meditating or dreaming. They humbly accept the humiliation, the insult, the smearing, the rape.

I have worked for the Socialist Party for 18 years of my life and have represented that party with great dignity and integrity in its newspaper as a journalist and editor-in-chief, in the Parliament as a deputy and in the government as a socialist minister. In no day of that period has the Socialist Party ever been a brothel. Neither before nor after the “famous KPD”. Not when Fatos Nano initiated from the prison where Berisha had been imprisoned, with the help of some socialist friend, the famous “motion” for change, or later with the Movement for a Different Mind, etc.

I have been a socialist since the first day of the founding of the Socialist Party as the youngest delegate at the founding congress and I continue to be just as socialist today. If I became a socialist, my choice was also determined by the intellectual and civic models with which I found myself on one front and in one party.

The Socialist Party was fortunate that Dritëro Agolli and Fatos Nano, Spiro Dede and Servet Pëllumbi, Ismail Lleshi and Namik Dokle, Gramoz Ruçi and Luan Hajdaraga, Arta Dade and Ermelinda Meksi, Xhevat Lloshi and Moikom Zeqo, Fatmir Kumbaro, Sabit Brokaj, Bashkim Zeneli, Shaqir Vukaj and Fatri Sinani, Et'hem Ruka, Anasas Angjeli and Maqo Lakrori, Ylli Bufi, Fehmi Abdiu, Musa Ulqini, Halil Lalaj, Limos Dizdari, Spartak Poçi, Petro Koçi, Spartak Braho, Bardhyl Agasi (sorry for any names I unintentionally forgot!), who were later joined by many others such as Professor Rexhep Meidani, Makbule Çeço, Valentina Leskaj, Bashkim Fino, Arben Malaj who became prime ministers, ministers, mayors or representatives at various levels of government.

Just a few months after the Socialist Party was founded, young people joined it, including Pandi, Monika, Ilir Zela, Lavdrim Krashi, Haki Morina, Ndre Legis and hundreds of others after them, (including Ilir Meta and Erion Braçe) and founded the Albanian Eurosocialist Youth Forum (FRESSH), transforming the Socialist Party into a great emancipatory and developmental force in Albanian society.

I do not want to make the history of the Socialist Party, because it does not allow itself that right, but if I react with indignation to the comparison of it to a brothel, I do so also because I want all those who feel themselves socialists in today's party to be proud of all that it has done for this people and this country. Its good history or its history of successes does not begin with the time when Edi Rama was elected party leader or even after he became prime minister.

A "brothel" party would not be able to rule the country's destiny in the most difficult moments when the very existence of the state was in question.

A "brothel" party would not be able to govern the country in rebuilding the destroyed state and would not stand by the KLA's fight for the liberation of Kosovo.

A "brothel" party would not be able to re-dimension democracy within itself to become a model of emancipation for the entire Albanian society under the motto of inclusiveness, transforming the debate into a real institution that generates ideas and projects, where even the current President himself found space to get involved, compete, and win.

A "brothel" party would not have been voted by Albanians to be the governing party in 1997 or 2001, nor to return to power in 2013.

But, to be honest, I don't understand the socialist comrades who are silent and don't speak up. I can't understand them because I know that they, like me, and even many more than me, have worked in the Socialist Party and not in what the current president says was like a brothel.

Of course, they are not obligated to remain silent. Nor are they obligated to react. Because ultimately it is all a matter of sensitivity. It is also a matter of dignity, a matter of citizenship. And when it comes to sensitivity, dignity, self-respect, and respect for what we have done together, the choices are entirely personal. The way of reacting is also personal.

Then there is also the matter of interests; someone has a son's worries, another has a daughter's, a job, a project, an application, a tender. They are all personal.

But, still, I can't understand the socialist comrades who are silent, who don't speak up. Even though I know they have never worked in a "brothel"!.../CNA