Our dark side that the western media sees when they need to

2024-04-22 15:37:00, Opinione Andi Bushati

Our dark side that the western media sees when they need to

Analyst Andi Bushati

In the middle of the whirlwind of writings and lemonade chronicles about the wonders of Albanian tourism, the investigation of "Report", in "Rai 3", had the effect of a bolt of lightning in a clear sky. In it, the autopsy of a state executed by the mafia was rarely performed.

Let's be fair to the end. The show was engaged and with a specific aim. He was the fruit of the grudge that the Italian left has towards a fascist post like Giorgia Meloni. He was attracted by the anti-racist and pro-immigrant atmosphere that encounters xenophobia in his country. As such, he should not be seen unaffected by the positions of the SP's sister party in Italy, one of whose MPs went so far as to propose the exclusion of the political force led by Edi Rama, from the family of European socialists.

Edi Rama and Giorgia Meloni

The documentary was addressed to the public of the neighboring country and its message was clear: you see what a corrupt and criminalized government Meloni has chosen to force him to violate the rights of immigrants who leave Africa to land on our shores.

And to convey this message, the facts were not lacking. The 11-year rule of Edi Rama has produced plenty of events for anyone who wants to make a real picture of this country. And Italian journalists did not forget to remind us of an interior minister like Saimir Tahiri, who helped traffickers export drugs to their shores. They took care to go all the way to Switzerland to interview Zagani, the former policeman who was imprisoned for revealing the criminal connections of his own minister, from the country where he is politically sheltered. They unearthed from retirement the former general who headed the Guardia di Financa, the force certifying an Albania cleansed of cannabis. And why did they do this? Because the Italian general was given fat gifts by drug traffickers. And who served as an intermediary? The man standing in Edi Rama's hall, Engjëll Agaçi.

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But, this panorama benefited from this early predecessor of McGonigal would be incomplete, if the Antimafia prosecutor in Naples, Nikola Gratieri, did not declare that the power of the Albanian mafia stems from the shelter it has in a corrupt state, or if ex-prosecutor Francesco Mandoi would not confess how Prime Minister Rama made fun of him, who allegedly took him as an advisor, but never asked him.

The puzzle of a criminal state is also completed by the failure of a justice, which has given the government the opportunity to close media that it did not like, such as "Agon Ghannel", or when the name of the prime minister's relatives comes up in traffic deletes them from the files. According to "Report", this has an explanation: because the selection of prosecutors and judges was made according to a politicized Vetting.

Rarely, very rarely, except the "Bild" wiretapping on vote stealing, the "New York Times" or "Washington Post" articles on the corruption of FBI chief McGonigal, or those on how the regime in Tirana is buying international support, it happened that some media investigation reflected such a chilling reality of Rama's power. The RAI 3 show did, going deep into our evil and bringing it out into the light of day.

Charles McGonigal

Unfortunately it didn't for us. He did it for the internal Italian political struggle, to show the public across the Adriatic who Giorgia Meloni is cooperating with. If Edi Rama had not signed the memorandum for the opening of the refugee camps in Shengjin e Gjadër, perhaps we would never have seen this commitment of the journalist Sigfrido Ranucci. Just as we probably wouldn't be able to read in the "New York Times" lobbyist maneuvers to lure Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, if our prime minister wasn't entangled in political games bigger than his stature.

So let's not have any illusions, when western journalists are interested in us, they don't do it because their soul is burning for our democracy, nor from aspiration for a better Albania. The harassment comes to them after they see that the regime of the satrap of Tirana is also interfering in their internal politics.

But no matter how cynical and hopeless this conclusion seems, it also has its positive side. For he, first, shows us how easy it is for any stranger to discover truths in a country where they are plain. Secondly, because it puts in the light of the projectors the lobbied palaces of touristic Albania, which is propagated every evening by our TVs.

This was the wonder of the "Report" investigation, which told us in Italian things that we had known here for a long time.