Who gets fame, I'll gouge out your eye

Alfred Lela

Erjon Vishkulli, 28, from Elbasan, was shot in the eye at dusk on Saturday. A former journalism student—trained to report on events, whether protests, police operations, or accidents in which limbs and lives are lost—became the news himself. His scream after being struck in the eye by a rubber bullet will remain, at least for several days, in the memory of those who heard and saw him. But the eye he lost, or that was damaged, will remain with Erjon forever.

Why?

Surely, he and his family asked that question last night. They will repeat it today, tomorrow, and for many days to come.

The answer will always come from silence—from that black well of loneliness and darkness that may now lie where there was once a pupil that communicated with the world through light.

Shortly before a rubber bullet struck him—fired from behind the armor of the State Police—one of the commanders had issued an order over the police radios: “Rubber bullets and tear gas—do not spare them!”

A few hours earlier, a pair as black as ravens—the Prime Minister and his Interior Minister—had appeared live before the public, spouting words in tones reminiscent of the military juntas of Latin America’s past.

Two days earlier, Edi Rama had returned from Montenegro carrying a grim piece of advice from his brother in spirit, Aleksandar Vučić, who, after complimenting him as an “asset,” had rebuked him for being too soft on the protesters in Tirana.

This whirlwind of impulses and episodes became the bullet that lodged in the 28-year-old’s eye. The speed of events, the mounting tension, and yesterday’s clashes in the streets were demanding blood on behalf of those prepared to spill it, so long as they did not have to relinquish power.

One eye would be enough.

And that eye was taken on Saturday through a verdict of violence, mercilessly condensed into the phrase: “Do not spare them!”

This is not a question of heroes and bandits. What value is there in turning Erjon into a hero on the barricades of the “October Revolution,” or, conversely, in demonizing the police officers?

Both sides are instruments: the young man, an instrument of the revolt; the police officers, instruments of the system. Both the revolt and the system were produced in Edi Rama’s workshop of power. The same hand raised over every branch of government, driven by an obsession with seizing everything, also has its finger on the trigger of the weapon the police officer fired at Erjon.

We could turn to protocol—to the rules stipulating that rubber bullets may be fired only at the lower limbs. And so forth.

But that is merely a mechanical explanation. The truth is harsher and, at the same time, simpler.

Edi Rama is a man notorious for corruption, the excessive concentration of power, and egocentrism. Men blinded and tormented by their own infamy gouge out the eyes of others.