There is an expression from Northern Albania, “to hand out money like alms.” For those who don’t know, alms [vitra] are a type of charity given to the poor during the month of Ramadan.
Since a few days our government – our prime minister and his ministerial clones, deputies, directors, and mayors – loadly and proudly proclaims on tv, Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else the fact that this year the government is giving pensioners an end-of-the-year bonus (and, like everything else, the largest bonus of the last 25 years), is raising the wages of civil servants and teachers, while it is still pondering whether also the latter should get a bonus on top or not.
Besides this, the Municipality of Tirana, which naturally is full of “action rather than words,” doesn’t tire of reminding its citizens day after day that they have to donate, to help the social centers for pensioners and orphans, and that with the help of donations they’re opening soup kitchens for those families that are in need.
Considering their immediate impact, such actions need to welcomed, because they help people in need and we all need to be sensitive to that.
But behind the shining smiles full of goodness, we should not forget that the prime minister, ministers, deputies, and mayors are chosen by us and paid with our money to create the conditions and services that improve the life of every citizen in this country, wealthy or poor.
We don’t pay them to do charity or to show where, to whom, and how we need to give charity. We pay them to work for the proper administration of our money, to turn into economical wellbeing and services that benefit all citizens, wealthy or poor.
We didn’t employ our prime minister, ministers, deputies, and mayors to distribute our taxes in “a spirit of charity” as if they were “alms,” nor did we employ them to remind us that we need to be solidary and charitable.
Solidarity and charity need humbleness, conscience, and responsibility, and there’s no way those can be preached by our arrogant, irresponsible, and insidious government, which instead of doing the work for which it is paid, prefers to do some charity to its citizens with its citizens’ money. And this fact we need to rub in their faces until June 18!
