Andrea Dangli
Shortly after the murders in Durrës, a crime reporter colleague wrote to me suggesting that I not publish the gruesome footage of the tragedy on digital platforms.
It even brought me some reactions on social media as a reference that asked for the same thing, including officials who were more than a little confused by what the media was doing.
I know many of them. They are the same people who on other occasions take pride in being petted by the police, beat their chests when they show their muscles to a frightened officer, or when they escape fines with what they call "Just a phone call!".
The media has many sins, but today was not "Judgment Day" for it.
In addition, the truth is that journalists themselves have been taking extra care to properly handle information amid the turmoil, despite the fact that there are pigs in every television forest and snakes in every portal meadow.
In fact, one mistake the media made is that many of the reactions should not have been published at all as much as the images, although in cases like these, the pain itself gives people a manual of touching words, to demand extreme punishments, to hold public trials with hangings, electric chairs, life imprisonment.
For these, all you have to do is write to ChatGPT and it will immediately transform you into a competent lamenter and moralist, a model citizen who probably puts the lid on or dots the i's, j's, and s's.
All of these statements are currently receiving a lot of likes and shares, but none of them save lives, except to try to melt away the fat of empathy that has gripped our daily lives.
That may be worth it, but the point is, how much of a lifesaver are we in our daily lives?
When we show the police officer our job title and not our license, when Maliqi has more weight than the law, when the phone has more attention than the sign, when we proudly show the miraculous power of a 20 or 50 cent note to a cash-hungry officer, when video gangsterism against blue uniforms is the hero's reel on social media, when the roads become runways for flying cars, when we remain silent and laugh as we watch this hellish situation.
All of this puts us in a trench with the murderous Halabak, even though it's hard to hear and harder to accept.
This is where the tragedy begins, not in a one-minute accident!
It starts from the fact that in everyday life we tolerate, nurture, and even admire transgression to the point that in front of the lawbreaker, everyone seems to be the "Last of the Mohicans".
It continues with the fact that institutions seem to ask us for reflection today when the correction itself is not achieved in a moment but through daily battles, where the fight against the road becomes more ruthless every day.
And it all comes down to how we approach the killer.
He is undoubtedly a scoundrel who today says he doesn't deserve to live, and tomorrow, if they release him, he will probably want to get back in the car without breaking his head to drink beer.
And even more so since he had "arranged" with the police to move around like a madman until the traffic and the crowd would eat him up.
Yes, he is not the last of the scoundrels, even if he catches all the curses we have unleashed on him.
You find portraits like him abound, and you even see some of them driving like crazy and sharing their madness on social media as bravery. You then see them on the podiums of politicians who present them as models of success.
But where did these people grow up? Who "braved" them? Who made them feel untouchable?
If we do not answer these questions honestly, it is our collective hypocrisy that we demand exemplary punishments only after the tragedy.
The rest then remain a spectacle, and the spectacle of pain unfortunately sells so much, and for some it sells even when they make it disgusting.
In the end, as Albanians, we must have the minimum humanity to let family members grieve their own dramas.
No one needs virtual pathos and tears.
Everyone reflects in their own way, just when we start the car, we think that one day we might not be that murderous scumbag that everyone wants dead today, including ourselves.
For the rest, God forgive us, we don't know what we're doing!
