By Lutfi Dervishi
Tirana Times, June 11, 2026 – From the very beginning, this movement has been placed under immense pressure. The questions : “Who is behind it?” and “Will it become a political party?” are not innocent. They are meant to shift attention away from the real reasons behind the revolt and to weaken its civic character.
A giant magnifying glass has been placed over the protesters. Every speech is dissected, every slogan judged, every meme condemned. The search is not for meaning, but for a flaw and when a small flaw is found, it is turned into a major accusation. In this way, the essential question is deliberately forgotten: why are citizens in the square?
There is also an attempt to reduce the entire protest to Zvërnec alone. People may have first come out because of Zvërnec, but they are staying in the square for many other reasons. The protest has become larger than one project, one fence, one decision, or one scandal. It has become a public expression of accumulated disappointment.
The slogans, chants and images of these days speak clearly. They express anger at a system that has worked like a Ferrari for a handful of people and like a cart for the majority. They express frustration with a government intoxicated by its 83 parliamentary mandates — a government that seems to believe it can do whatever it wants, wherever it wants, whenever it wants, however it wants.
But this is not only a revolt against power. It is also a revolt against representation. It is a revolt against the media’s failure to reflect society’s real concerns. It is a revolt against television banalities, empty debates and the same tired faces explaining a country they no longer seem to understand.
Unfortunately, some journalists and analysts bring to mind George Bernard Shaw’s famous line: a journalist is someone who cannot distinguish between the collapse of civilization and a bicycle accident.
The government, meanwhile, has chosen to wait. It appears to hope that people will get tired, that summer will arrive, that another event will distract public attention. But waiting in front of a fire is not a strategy. It is a risk.
The reported plan to bring party militants to “Italy Square,” only a few hundred meters from the protest and at the same hour, is a clear provocation. At a moment when other public activities have been cancelled, the idea of celebrating the Socialist Party’s 35th anniversary next to a citizens’ protest looks like a wedding invitation sent to a house in mourning.
As for the State Police, its attempt to test the dispersal of the crowd under the pretext of the Albania-Israel football match has already delivered a lesson: a peaceful crowd of young people, women, mothers and children cannot be broken by force without consequences.
Even in the most minimal scenario, if no one returns to the square tomorrow, if the government does not move, if the opposition remains where it is, if television continues with the same charlatans , one thing is already certain: Albania has changed.
The protest has unsettled the government, the opposition, the media, the analysts, the police and even the citizens themselves. It has broken the belief that nothing can move. Sometimes, before power changes, society changes first.And that may be exactly what is happening in Albania today.
