Politicians are elected to do politics, not comedy shows

Cheers Tushi

Paradoxically, I believe that there is no other place more adequate than the Albanian Parliament, where instead of politics, which is generally due to the quality, ability and culture of politicians more than a political product, humor becomes. This situation has become so typical that people often follow parliamentary sessions and debates, not so much to wait for decisions and political solutions to the many economic and social contradictions that our society experiences, but with the hope that at least we can "make fun" of jokes, accusations, specifically banal political language, with comic gestures and unbridled stage body language. It seems as if a symbiosis is being created between the show as a place of humor and professional actors with the deputies and the Parliament hall, as an "alterego" for the dark parliamentary humor.

There are even some characters from the political world who, with their extra-parliamentary "talent", have become very "competitive" and are very close to the profession of a comic actor. An unnatural alloy, a degradation of the true role, mission and function of the professional politician. Sometimes it seems that the use of "parliamentary humor" serves not only as a modus viventi, but also as a way to compensate for the "deficit" of skills, culture and political language. Parliamentary humor is completely out of place, it is exercised in the wrong place and by actors with "unnatural humor".

This mixture of "gender and genres" between the seriousness and public responsibility of politics and the lightness of humor played on television screens and specific scenes of professional or dilettante humor does not indicate the health or well-being of politics, but the incompetence, lack of responsibility, vanity and the insecurity of the politician, who in this country plays the "political role" as he pleases, without having any scruples of dignity or moral responsibility before the public and the electorate that elected him. This tendency to ambiguity is neither transitory nor accidental. It has been a long time since parliamentary politics, not only has emerged from public "gender and responsibility", but some politicians have created the belief that they have a "pleasant sense of humor" and in this respect they believe that they have "specific" skills to compete even the actors of the show.

It is not to laugh, but to cry, that in Albania these two worlds of life, art and politics, MPs and comedians have started to be concrete from the point of view of attraction, audience and affecting public opinion. And behind the "parliamentary humor" the events, the facts, the moral and financial truths articulated by the media and the public fade away. Politics has found a way to manipulate opinion through barren debates, softened accusations as an efficient way for its own purposes, which are always related to the omnipotence of power. Can we say that the trend is accidental, that politicians have competed with the "world of spectacle"? Albanian politics and politicians have lost much of the dignity and standard stature of the professional politician, of its values ​​and specificity. Many times, willingly or unwittingly, it has been put in competition with the spectacles of humor and entertainment (although it has no role at all for politics).

Personally, I think that in this almost equal conception of politics with art and the world of the spectacle, there is a deformation of the true essence of politics, of the stature of the politician as its fundamental actor, which comes either from the archaic and simplistic conception of politics, or from the impossible alloy as its paradoxical syncretization with the spectacle and professional comedy actors. It is true what political scientists say, that in the postmodern era it often seems that "politics has become like a cinema", because of course it cannot be otherwise, when we all already live in this society, in which we are integrated, even merged all together politicians, artists, prominent people of life and citizens, all together in the "spectacle society".

Meanwhile, politics cannot flow, cannot avoid the comprehensive process of that universal phenomenon that in modern sociology is called "mediatization of society". But the parameters of modern politics and politicians as political missionaries and not gallatazhin, in contemporary politics, are quite different from this "pop cacophony" of Albanian politics, from this confusion of politics with non-political and extra-artistic manners, which have often made it Albanian politics a sui generis syncretic model, in which the citizen "melts gas" from the parliamentary gala and forgets where he is, in front of the politician or the stage actor, the humorist.

This situation that develops in the Parliament and especially in the media debates of Albanian politicians, we can say without fear that the little is a sign that shows the standard of politics, the level of culture of our politicians. But above all, the situation sometimes worsens to such a degree that you no longer doubt the low level of democratic maturity in general of the "political class".

Albanian politics and politicians often seem as if they are still in the "infant stage", showing themselves to be politically immature. Many of them also culturally seem to be far from the conditions to meet the standards of the stature of the political class. If they have any special merit, it is only one: they have made us smile, laugh and sometimes even tear gas, because they have formalized their activity on purpose or without realizing it, by "spectacularizing" politics parliamentary with humor, jokes, grimaces and spectacular political stage actions.

I believe that all sociologists of spectacle and philosophers of politics (Albanian political scientists) are concerned with this cacophony, this formal mixture and alloy of spectacle and politics, of the politician and the artist. Especially ugly, perhaps due to the lack of culture or the inelegant imitation of "Western politicians", it has become the mania of our politicians who use all the means from verbal bravado to iron fists to "spectacularize politics" to make politics as variety show arena.

This strong tendency of estradesk formalization, ugly aestheticization of the Albanian political arena, stripping the role of the politician of responsibility and specific essence, confusing political life with the spectacle of humor, is not in favor of the specific nature of politics and public personality of the politician as its actor. In politics, unlike the spectacle, the appearance, the form of the debate, the intensity of the dichotomy and the variety of mutual personal slanders are not so important as the essence of politics as a serious activity related to the "general good" of society.

In this context, the content, essence, but also the form of realization and values ​​of the actors who play politics, personality, moral integrity, skills and civic coherence of part of their public and private life are important. For the politician, I believe that the main goal of the activity is not and should not be only exposure and fame. They are natural, understandable and justified frenetic desires for the performance of the artist. Jurgen Habermas rightly thinks that "participation in political engagement has another purpose...".

It is true that this treatment of politics as "humor" happens for another reason. Unfortunately for this country and as a disaster for the situation of society, the time has not yet brought "humor" to turn into a boomerang for the politician or for any or some of them to morally face the public, especially the law, for understand how difficult it is to make "politics fair" or to "make politics fair". But I believe that things are moving and surely this day will come. Because the Albanian political class is losing credit and public trust. This situation comes from the politicians themselves, who, beyond their humor, are essentially losing their political authority and "sanctity".