By Dom Mark Easter
Today was supposed to be a day when we would all talk about school, its greatness, books and the importance of education. We had to create an atmosphere where those who will step on the school benches for the first time, will keep this day as one of the most beautiful memories of their lives. Many students ran with flowers in their hands for their teachers, not knowing that throughout the day there would be talk about a “fistful of bullets”.
In Shkodra, the usual happened. The extraordinary ordinary, which from month to month has taken on the form of the ordinary in recent years. The same scene, the same chronicle, the same mystery that everyone tries to uncover, but which surprisingly everyone knows. Neither the time, nor the place, nor the way – only the victims change.
From event to event, there is no shortage of innocents who, without their will, are called upon to dance the victim's dance in the crime that others initiate and they put their heads down. Of course, there are many more experts than me who know how to explain the technical-tactical schemes used, to show the origin, the genesis and every other detail of the event.
But one thing is certain: the concept of the “strongman”, which has been planted in our society for years, is reaping its successes. The strongman makes the law, everyone obeys him, and “everyone respects him”. He has a place everywhere and enters any space, when he wants.
Although I am very afraid of the opposite, I do not want to believe it and I do not want to accept that as a state, as a society and as individuals we are not able to prevent and eliminate from our lives this common Shkodra routine – and not only – that shocks us from time to time. We all go out on the pedestrian crossing, and in the place of the waiter or the random passerby, any of us could be.
The culture of the strong in the streets, in the neighborhood, in school, in public institutions must end. Otherwise, instead of flowers, we will always have a handful of bullets, which we will not know where they will come from – and events like today will continue to be common.
May it be the last!
