Dictical Discretion of Albanian Politicians

The first mention of “hosis publicecus”, the public enemy, refers to Emperor Nero and was used by the Roman Senate against him. Shakespeare resumes the term at the beginning of the 16th century in his drama of the fate of Roman General Coriolanus, who played a role in early history of the Roman Republic.

In my knowledge, the first time that the term was used in the modern sense, as weapons in the hands of demagogues and dictators, part of the presumptions of totalitarian rule was during the French revolution. In 1792, Robespier declared that the revolutionary government has as duty to good citizens all state protection it owes nothing to the enemies of the people, except death to”. We all know how many people died in guillotine during the course of the revolution or during the massacres in countries and in many other cases related to the regime of Terror, as this period of French revolution was later called.

At that time, an ideology had developed, which was used to justify these atrocities. Particularly, the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau were used as the foundation for the totalitarian idea of a “General willow”, which allows the lawmaker to claim that he embodys the will of the people and, as much totalitarian, that there is an absolute and perfect political truth that can and should be used to reform society and that legitimises the uncontrolled exercise of power. This allowed Robespire and his disciples to form the first totalitarian dictatorship in modern times and try to shape an entire society according to their vision. This meant the physical annihilation of “counterrevolutionaries” and all those considered unintelligent in the future perfect society, that is, <x4... enemies of the people. ”

No wonder Hitler, Lenin, Mao, and Paul Pott admired Robespier and based on his concept of fighting the people's declared enemies: Hitler and the Jews, Lenin with bourgeois and mensheviks, and so on. I don't know if Enver Hoxha mentioned Robespier, but he acted on his teachings.

All of these based the legitimacy of their power on an almost mythic identification of the leader with the people, on a leader/fyhrer, which epitomized the general “willpower” of the people and there was no need for any other legitimacy of power, of course not for such a common legitimacy as the one coming from the ballot box.

Early in the 20th century, the concept of the enemy of the people had already been put into art: Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen wrote the extremely grim drama with the same title, describing the use of the term for fear, isolation, and use of expectations against those who differ.

In drama and history, the concept of the enemy of the people is one of the central pillars of totalitarian thinking, where facts no longer relate to the theory, which for the followers and the mindless, lies on the facts. In such a situation, a point comes when it is no longer talked about questioning and proving or rejecting the theory, but to believe in it with almost religious zeal. In such circumstances, truth and debate disappear from intellectual grounds and are replaced by slogans and power.

We have not long left behind these totalitarian dangers: a British photographer called “enemies of the people” judges who ruled on limiting the executive power of the government in the context of Brex; or recall the so-called “Media providing false news” labeled as “.

How long are the shadows of the totalitarian past in Albania? The more debate becomes heated, the more we hear group discussions of those who think otherwise. We hear no arguments against their views. It's spoken and written to undo characters and not facts or logical arguments against the attitude they represent. Dialogue with political opponent is rejected. Those who try to establish facts against myth are attacked.

Sadly, I hear this dictatorial discourse very often from many politicians of the Albanian political spectrum, from the fall of the communist regime down to this day. So the shadows are long. Many key political actors, sooner or later, end up accusing each other of metaphors and rhetoric characteristic of the way the methods of the people's <x0 enemy” understand politics and public life. This continues to damage society even today, long after the murderous dictatorial political regime has given up, by keeping alive the perception that a single person has the power to define and punish enemies in the name of a fabricated notion of morality, supposedly derived from the masses.

But there are also thinkers who differ. I mentioned Russo. Carl Popper has identified an array of philosophers who have supported totalitarian policies against open societies with their own opinions. It formulated a powerful alternative against the idea of “General willpower” as the legitimate form of power. He taught us that the “question who should govern” is wrong. This question has led to the cruel dictatorships of most, to “the general will” embedded in a single leader, or to “the will of the proletariat” embedded in the Communist party, or to the will to wipe out the embroidered Jewish population of the Fuhrer.

The question that Popper offers as an alternative is: How can we control the use of power, how to prevent abuse of power? Regular elections with broad participation, independent institutions, unpolluted rule of law, open societies where citizens have the right to inform so as to control power and make decisions with the facts in hand are his fundamental answers.

Albania still has enough way to go before it reaches this ideal stage. As we have seen, the road is filled with challenges, even in centuries - old democracies.

We, as the presence of the OSCE, are here to help Albania continue to walk on this road.

(O chairman's Word The SBE at the international scientific conference, “The face of the enemy of the people during Albania's proletariat dictatorship, 1944-1990”, May 17, 2019)