On the Desirableness and Usefulness of Autocrats in The Balkans
A brief case-study of Albania
Chances are that you don’t know that there is a country named Albania situated in south-western Balkans and that is totally understandable. We are just a petty people without much notable history behind us, with almost no significance in any human facet as of today. If you take as a reference frame the Germans or Indians then the Albanians completely pale. If you take as a reference frame other Balkan peoples then we indeed have something to show for but ultimately, can be ranked pretty much along the bottom. Apart from a strong political influence within the Ottoman empire of the second half of the 17th century and Mother Teresa (to emphasize it, they came to prominence outside of Albania), we do not have much to offer on a European scale. So what is it to become of such a people in the 21st century?
The Past
Albania was consolidated as a state in the early 20th century owing to the genius and Machiavellianism of a single man whose drive for power served his people and eventually spurred him to be the first and last king of the Albanians. However, any little progress that was instigated here -holding the promises of a golden future- was nullified when the communists took power and kept an entire country underdeveloped for more than 40 years.
I should clarify that with underdeveloped I specifically have in mind a comparison because one cannot deny that progress was made during that area but much more would have been possible under say, a constitutional monarchy or democracy. As a result of this long period of obedience (one might argue that the whole history of Albanians is a history of obedience; even today the country slightly resembles a protectorate of western powers), the ‘fall’ of communism had to come from the communist rulers themselves simply because the people were so compliant.
And not only that but they were happy! Albania, the poorest country in the Europe of that time, whose population was at the brink of starvation, with no development in any human facet whatsoever had a happy and obedient population who still worshiped their recently deceased supreme leader. That this was the case is proved, not least of all, by the fact that the communist party won the first democratic elections that the country had. To be sure, the resentment of the mob that tore down and burned the ‘old’ symbols does not contradict this.
The Present
So where is Albania now? Essentially an autocratic state, where the will of one person is the will of everything, Albania is -in terms of the rate of development-… well… in the selfsame state as it was when Zogu consolidated it and when the communist leaders changed their skin to democracy. Now do not get me wrong, it is of course the case that progress has been made, and so much so that you cannot compare these three points of time in our history and say things haven’t changed but my point is that progress, during this past 30 years, should have been much more.
You see, world history teaches us that notwithstanding temporal drawbacks humans tend to develop and rise higher and higher (essentially the main idea behind mankind since time immemorial) and in this sense, taking into account many variables which are out of the scope of this essay, Albanians did have that kind of progress. But today we are in the 21. century, the century where progress has seen an incredible acceleration and this is what is missing in failed states like Albania. As a foremost example of this unusually high rate of development, one can take both China and India whose rate of progress these couple of past decades has few parallels in world history. Try to compare the noise of Silicon Valley and its likes with Tirana. This is a very apt comparison: Why on Earth would any software developer want to stay in Albania once he knows what is possible?
But to digress from our topic a little bit: there seems to be a discrepancy between the people who run a country and the best that the people of a country can achieve. This seems to me to be a general symptom in the world (which of course in countries like Albania is extrapolated to the point of absurdity) and there are very few world leaders (or more exceptionally, Singapore) for which one can argue otherwise. The immediate question that is here thereby raised is as to whether what we need is a new political system altogether and therefore not this kind of representative democracy? Is it not the case that we should break the old tradition whereby political leaders constituted for the most part a kind of average in the strength of a people? Should it not rather be the case that they should constitute the best of a people so that they might aid and further contribute in the general progress and development of every human facet and also of their own people? Or should we just switch to a direct democracy when the time is ripe (but then how could such a transition be supported when the whole development of the human race has been based on Elitism so far)?
Seen in this frame the current PM is of course, as cliché has it, a rigorous representation of the Albanian people today. The Albanians are the reason why precisely these types of politicians proliferate as it is the trunk of mother Albania which gives birth to them. So in this sense, the PM is neither good nor bad, on the contrary, you can explain with a fair amount of certainty why he must behave in the exact way that he does. But if we are going to agree that development/progress is at all times a desirable (the only) thing for our species then he is to be branded as the most detrimental Albanian there can be: Simply because he has power (but see a foremost example) and misuses this power.
As a matter of fact, this particular PM as a human type most likely belongs to the second half of the 20th century Albania where an artist such as he is would have given some contribution to the state of affairs in that Albanian regime of that seemingly distant time where threatening and praising a people as if they were children sorely needing the guidance of a strict but benevolent father was the rule. But! To have such a leader in the 21st century… Well, this is for sure a solid reason why the development of the country will not see any kind of improvement any time soon.
When one observes the work of the Albanian parliament one frequently gets the feeling that what one is dealing with here is a bunch of naughty and disobedient kids playing with sticks and stones at a time when different space agencies are long pondering the possibility of a moon base. They simply don’t know what they are doing! I mean to say, when you compare this parliament with organizations like Google, Amazon, or Tesla you get the feeling that the widely talked about Neural Link has sneaked up behind us and has been long implemented! The differences are simply huge!
The Future
As I see it, the most likely path that this country will follow is progress, and not so long from now, perhaps when my generation is ready to be swept away, we can exclaim: “yes indeed, Albania made clear, undeniable progress”. But this will have happened by default! Seriously, as long as nothing catastrophically bad happens to us then for sure that in 50 years Albania cannot even be compared to today’s Albania. This should be the case despite the prospect of the birth of artificial general intelligence or other projects which will transcend us as a species.
Therefore one might simply leave such a country be. Isn’t it more effective if energies are directed to developing the human facts themselves rather than lost causes? Isn’t it more beneficial to move to Germany, the USA (where talent is sorely needed), or Singapore where one can help in this hard but joyous path of development that exceeds all development? In the end, one would thus also indirectly have helped Albania.
The second path as I see it, is for a group of people (and this is one of the six factors that drive successful transitions from developing to developed countries according to Ashraf Ghani) to emerge which will act as a kind of accelerator: we know that progress will eventually come but can we make it to 10 instead of 50 years? Although I now think that such an endeavor would probably be a waste of energies even if it succeeded.
And just for the sake of addressing the issue, the western representatives are not to be trusted with such a task as they have a rather ‘preserving the current state of mainstream affairs’ attitude at best and a severely detrimental one at worst (at any rate they are part of the natural course of development and not of an accelerator). Moreover, one need not look at all at their actions in Albania to come to such a conclusion: it is quite sufficient to observe the current state of affairs and general enfeeblement of the EU itself (don’t we need some sort of political entrepreneurs to get us out of this stagnation in our dear Europe?), or US’ political mistakes with other peoples in the past.
Why the Albanians should be grateful to this coterie of politicians
It frequently happens almost by default, that the first thinking is that these coterie of leaders are to be blamed. But this has been shown time and time again to be a wrong and helpless frame of thinking. This situation might also frequently lead to a bitter resentment directed against this coterie, these people inhabiting this country and to hell… the country itself! But as the man put it, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies”. Although I should add that, as long as it pushes one to get out of his country, it has been worthwhile!
If we as a people should rather choose the path of migration then we should be thankful to them and them alone for this. It is they who spurred us into this path which ultimately will only serve to make us stronger. It is indeed only through resistance and strife that we as a species have come to this amazing point of development and we should wish more of the same for us in the future should we want to climb yet higher and higher. Or as Zarathustra magnificently puts it: “Praised be what hardens! I do not praise the land where butter and honey flow.”
In these developed countries we can be sure to give our contribution as it should be given and our energies will not have been wasted at a time when, considering the great encompass of fields of study and different specializations, every human being can have his part into increasing the probability of a positive outcome for the future of our species. Moreover, in this way we Albanians might also redeem ourselves, considering what was discussed above. Would humanity be setting foot on Mars in this decade if Musk had decided to stay in South Africa and help solve the country’s plethora of problems?
Taken as a whole the Balkans have a population of about 60 million, which means that there should be at least a couple of million potentially blossoming flowers if only they are transplanted to a different soil. Then, taking into account the current population decline, these workers will be sorely needed in the western countries of Europe.
And to repeat…
So to conclude this short essay, we examined -rather very succinctly- Albania but I believe that rough parallels can be drawn with other Balkan countries having similar autocratic regimes. I believe that, as is usually the case in the Menschliches, Allzumenschliches field (although the time of a purely rational mankind is slowly dawning), these autocratic leaders are desirable because they spur their more able citizens to move out of their country of origin and give their contribution where it is apt to give, namely in developed countries where much more can be achieved. Moreover, in doing so, they are making these migrants more able, skilled, versatile, and ultimately stronger. This potential would be surely wasted if they are to remain in their country of origin. Accordingly, their contribution will -more so in the long run- very likely surpass the native’s population contribution because as already stated, nothing is taken for granted, everything is fought for.
I believe that we as a people do have a huge potential waiting to be unlocked. Let us not waste it in a time when it is sorely needed! It is indeed true that one should be in the right place at the right time. This is an opportunity for the Balkan people to increase this probability.
Lastly for those who might be more sentimental about such a ‘leap forward’ it can be said that the feelings of the country of origin are completely oblivious and redundant in our century, where we should be aiming for a single state in Europe and should simply be outgrown.
Thanks for reading, and of course feedback, constructive criticism, and debate are most welcome!
