Rama's battle with CNN/ How the protest painted the portrait of a sick prime minister

Edi Rama took the first false step this weekend by presenting himself as the protesters below his office describe him: as "a finished politician" who cannot provide a solution for the "new Albania" that they imagine in that square. 

And this is evident more than anything in the long post he wrote against CNN and other prestigious media outlets that are covering the ``flamingo revolution,'' where he projected the personal plight of his chair as a problem that threatens global democracy, where the Albanian case is showing how the ghosts of the past and fascism reborn through algorithms can be resurrected. 

So, something so simple, the taking to the streets of young people dissatisfied with mismanagement, corruption and the breakdown of the social elevator, the prime minister cannot accept. Therefore, his old media apparatus, not to mention his brain that needs treatment, has to invent an international conspiracy that puts the fate of the world order at risk. 

Within this paranoid concept, Edi Rama describes a country affected by "a hurricane of digital hysteria, apocalyptic headlines, fabricated anger". He accuses the major international media of legitimizing calls for his death, or for personal revenge, something that no one has heard of so far. He lashes them out as instigators of fables about "enemies of the people". 

Of course, he is surprised, confused, disoriented as to how this time neither the evil Greek's Gogol nor that of the Russian, Serbian, or Iranian agents worked. Locked in his ivory tower, in the Eden Palace that cost 5 million euros, or at the table in the flower room, where he consumes with crime bosses, Romane Conti that goes up to 33 thousand euros a bottle, he does not understand that those who protest have a very basic concern, the way he is ruling this country. Therefore, unable to think or digest this, he needs a conspiracy theory. For this he asks in surprise in the indictment he directs against the media of the free world:  

“How could a small country become global news?” Or: “How could a local protest turn into an international spectacle?”

Look at the degree of the disease: a man who has always sold himself as a global phenomenon, as a protagonist who could become world news by attacking the Russian ambassador to the UN Security Council, as a negotiator reconciling Erdogan with Mitsotakis, playing the role of Angela Merkel's scapegoat or laying the foundations of a great peace between Albanians and Serbs, is unable to perceive that what he could not achieve personally, can be produced by those thousands of compatriots who are on the road against him.

And because he can't face this, he needs to rock himself on the bed of conspiracy theories. Like most of those who have succumbed to paranoia, he seems to raise the initial question right: "how is it that a large part of the world has seen something so big, so dramatic, so overwhelming in recent days"? 

The problem begins when he tries to answer yes himself. And his theory is: because an experiment is taking place in Albania that is putting the entire world order at risk. According to him, this piece of land that he until yesterday commanded with an iron fist has suddenly turned into the laboratory of “a world where perception can travel faster than reality itself” and lies faster than truth. And based on this fact, he sees the collapse of his regime as an alarm bell that “should worry every democracy.”

But why?

He claims that he has the solution: that by falling prey to hybrid warfare and the power of algorithms, the ground is prepared for the seizure of power “by demagogues, charlatans and professional anger merchants.” Given this danger that looms in his mind, he calls on CNN, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Manifesto, etc. that, “this story should matter far beyond Albania, because others may see in it a warning of what is to come.”

So, what the world's largest media outlets, those with the strongest control filters in democratic societies, fail to notice, is only noticed by a visionary in Surrel, who is accused of going to eradicate the Dalmatian pelican. 

That's how simple the fable is. And that's how far removed from reality he is who will continue to remain in the prime minister's chair. But apart from the international media, the expiration of his time has apparently been understood by those who shouted in chorus below his office: "Edi Rama has been killed, has been killed, has been killed".

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