Community Solidarity, Heart of Democracy

In a recent post, “The Lingering Pain,” I noted that I would soon write a post about how one society—in many ways a most unlikely one—is demonstrating how to break out of a cycle that historically has fed on hopelessness.

That society is Albania. I have never been to Albania. Except for one close friend who is of Albanian descent, to my knowledge I have no acquaintances with either kinship or historical ties to Albania. I’ve known practically nothing about the country, even less than I’ve known about several of its neighbors.

I suspect you might be similarly unaware of what Albanians have experienced over the centuries, even in recent times. Theirs is a story of centuries of oppression.

Not for Sale

But before we get into the back story, let’s look at what is going on right now. If you’ve read something besides the barrage of atrocities and enormities daily committed by the United States Government by its current regime, you might have taken note that the Albanians have been furious at what is happening on its Adriatic coast.

US news recently reported that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump had spotted Sazan Island and the Vjosa-Narta Protected Area in Albania as prime real estate for the development of a luxury destination for (who else but?) the very wealthy. It happens that the proposed ultra-luxury development spans two closely connected locations on Albania's southwest Adriatic coast.

Sazan Island is Albania’s largest and only major island. It is a highly sensitive, uninhabited outcrop and a former Cold War-era/Soviet-era military base dotted with derelict installations. It is prized for its pristine, verdant landscape and wild fig trees.

The second wing of the development, Vjosa-Narta Protected Area, sits directly across the water from Sazan, on the mainland coastline near the village of Zvërnec. This is a designated marine national park and a critical wetland sanctuary. It serves as a vital nesting ground and refuge for over 200 bird species—including massive flocks of migratory flamingos and Dalmatian pelicans—as well as the highly endangered Mediterranean monk seal.

According to internet sources, the tinder box that ultimately produced the current firestorm dates to an informal VIP vacation in July 2021. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were vacationing along the Albanian Riviera on a luxury yacht owned by British financier Nathaniel Rothschild. While anchored off Sazan Island, they swam ashore and hiked up the island.

During that same trip, Prime Minister Edi Rama personally met Kushner and Trump on the yacht. Rama, who has long sought to position Albania as a premier luxury destination, pitched the country's undeveloped coastline for foreign investment.

Over the next year, direct meetings and dinners took place between Kushner and Albanian officials to cement investment ideas for Sazan Island and the nearby mainland lagoon at Zvërnec.

Once Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, finalized the concept for a $1.4 billion luxury retreat, the Albanian government ran into a legal obstacle: Sazan Island and the Narta Lagoon were legally protected natural reserves where commercial construction was strictly forbidden.

Rather than telling the developers no, Rama’s government changed the rules.

In early 2024, the Socialist-controlled parliament passed a controversial amendment to Albania’s Protected Areas Law. The new law specifically created an exception allowing "5-star luxury tourism structures of excellence" to be built inside protected nature reserves.

Rama personally chairs the National Territorial Council (KKT), which granted Kushner’s project "Strategic Investor" status. This designation fast-tracked environmental reviews, granted long-term state land concessions, and effectively shielded the project from standard public hearings.

This lack of transparency served as a primary trigger for what is now being called the "Flamingo Revolution.”

Parliamentarians, environmental groups, and local residents had no access to the contracts, site plans, or land-concession agreements. The deal was largely negotiated through executive dinners, phone calls, and closed council votes.

Public anger spiked when Ivanka Trump appeared on several American podcasts describing Sazan Island as "our private island" that they "discovered," framing an ancient piece of Albanian military and natural heritage as personal real estate acquired over an afternoon swim.

When environmentalists protested, Rama publicly doubled down, stating Albania "can't afford not to exploit a gift like Sazan" and claiming the project was essential for the nation's economic future.

The protests have reached massive scale, described by international media as some of the largest anti-government rallies Albania has seen in years. Recent major Saturday evening rallies in Tirana have drawn tens of thousands of people, completely filling the main avenue outside the Prime Minister’s office.

Outrage ignited when workmen began destroying ancient sand dunes and pine forests to build access roads, and a private security firm erected a barbed-wire fence cutting off public access to the beach at Zvërnec. Videos of private security guards violently dragging a local landowner away sparked national fury.

Protesters have adopted the local wildlife as their symbol, waving cardboard cutouts of flamingos, releasing red balloons, and blowing horns and vuvuzelas. The movement has projected slogans like "Albania is not for sale" onto the prime minister's building, along with signs reading "Ivanka, go home."

Pondering the Past

Albania is very much unlike The United States of America in just about every way imaginable. It is one of the most homogenous nations in Europe with about 82-85% of the population identifying as strictly ethnically Albanian. Most minorities are people with roots in nearby countries like Greece, Montenegro, Romania, as well as Egyptians from the Balkans. Religiously, it is quite diverse, with more than half the population identifying as Sunni Muslims, 10% as Roman Catholic, 7% as Orthodox, 2% as Bektashi (a Sufi Muslim order with deep roots in the Balkans).

Apparently, the population is disinclined to see the proposed development as a much-needed economic boon. They are not well-off by US standards, with average individual monthly income in US dollars at roughly $1000. Average family income in US dollars is around $14,000 – 19,000 annually.

This economic reality fuels public anger over luxury mega-resorts. When average citizens earn under $1000 a month, seeing public land handed over for ultra-exclusive billionaire tourism creates a stark sense of economic inequality.

Paradoxically, Albania is one of Europe’s oldest distinct ethnic and linguistic cultures (descended from the ancient Illyrians), yet for nearly half a millennium, its history was defined by endurance under authoritarian overreach and foreign domination.

Understanding this history helps explain why current civic resistance—like the opposition to top-down land development—resonates so deeply in the collective Albanian psyche.

After the legendary Christian noble Gjergj Kastrioti (Skanderbeg) led a fierce 25-year rebellion that temporarily united Albanian clans, Albania fell under Ottoman control for nearly 500 years. Under Ottoman rule, land was carved up into feudal fiefdoms (timars), and much of the population gradually converted to Islam to avoid tax penalties and gain legal standing.

Because central state power was distant and oppressive, ordinary Albanians relied on tribal law codes (the Kanun) and customary village assemblies (Kuvend) rather than state institutions, birthing a deep-seated distrust of centralized government.

Following independence in 1912 and a turbulent post-WWI decade, a northern tribal leader named Ahmet Zogu declared himself King Zog I. Zog established an autocratic monarchy, heavily suppressed political opposition, and relied on personal patronage networks.

To fund his state, Zog made sweeping financial concessions to Mussolini’s Italy, effectively turning Albania into an Italian protectorate before Mussolini officially invaded and annexed the country in 1939.

Next came the totalitarian garrison state led by Enver Hoxha (1944–1985). After WWII communist partisans liberated the country, Enver Hoxha took power and established one of the most extreme, isolated totalitarian regimes in world history.

When communism led by Hoxha’s successor collapsed in 1991, Albanians embraced free-market democracy with desperate enthusiasm. Weak regulatory structures allowed massive government-endorsed Ponzi schemes to bloom. When they collapsed in 1997, stripping two-thirds of the population of their savings, civil war nearly erupted. Weapons depots were looted, and UN peacekeepers had to intervene.

The 1997 crisis taught the public that democratic reform on paper did not guarantee protection from financial corruption and state capture.

Today, Albania is a NATO member and EU candidate state. However, politics remains dominated by powerful executive figures and entrenched economic elites. Despite modern infrastructure and thriving coastal tourism, central power often bypasses environmental and civic safeguards to greenlight mega-projects.

The current public uprising over Sazan Island and Narta Lagoon is not an anomaly; it is the modern expression of an old cultural instinct—ordinary citizens drawing a line in the sand when state power attempts to sell off the nation's heritage without public consent.

Underlying Strength

During centuries of foreign occupation—under the Ottoman Empire, when formal courts were corrupt or distant—Albanians relied on customary tribal law (Kanun), in which Besa served as the foundational bedrock of society.

Under Besa, a guest in your home was sacred. The customary law famously declared: "The house of an Albanian belongs to God and the guest."

Besa is the primary reason why Albania was the only country in Nazi-occupied Europe whose Jewish population was larger after WWII than before it. Albanian Muslim and Christian families alike gave their Besa to refuge-seeking Jewish families, housing and protecting them from the Gestapo—refusing money and risking execution rather than break their sworn word.

Besa as Modern Public Solidarity

While Besa originated as a personal and tribal honor code, it has evolved into a powerful psychological foundation for collective civic action today.

In a society where formal political institutions and legal contracts have historically betrayed or failed the people, Besa represents a horizontal trust between neighbors and citizens. It is a shared understanding that "we stand together because the authorities will not stand for us."

When community members make a collective promise to protect a shared resource—such as the Narta Lagoon or local village lands—that commitment takes on the character of Besa. Breaking it or caving to government pressure is seen not just as a political defeat, but as a moral failure and a loss of personal and community honor.

Besa is entirely non-sectarian. It binds Sunni Muslims, Bektashis, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians into a single moral fabric, creating a shared civic vernacular that transcends religious or political party lines.

Democracy Beyond the Ballot Box

When official voting systems fail to protect public assets from state capture or privatization, it is often this deeper, informal covenantal trust among citizens—the refusal to betray one's neighbor or one's land—that mobilizes people to stand together at the barricades.

What the nation saw last winter in Minnesota was, to my mind, a homegrown American example of Besa. We are not Albania nor Albanians. We have a sprawling nation that is and ever will be a mishmash of people who will inevitably seek their affinity groups and comfort levels. But we can learn something from the Albanians.

First, we need to wean ourselves from waiting for political parties and politicians to fix things. Vox populi, vox Dei. “The voice of the people is God’s voice.” I have come increasingly to believe that to be true. It means that we the people need to be very sure that when we speak, we speak for the entire community, not just for our personal interests. If God “makes it rain on the just and the unjust,” then the voice of the people needs to be in accord with universal justice and mercy without exception. Otherwise, though we may call ourselves and our government a democracy, it is simply not one until all voices are respected and all persons accorded dignity. The only exception is that there be no tolerance for those who fight to wrest rights and voice away from those without power. For democracy is at its heart about the equitable distribution of power, not the accumulation of power.

Second, we would do well to observe that the Flamingo Revolution began deliberately decentralized, emerging from the grassroots of civil society rather than traditional political parties.

Once people took to the streets, EcoAlbania and other local environmental groups provided the movement’s initial legal and scientific foundation. These organizations had previously won an international campaign to designate the nearby Vjosa River as Europe’s first Wild River National Park. The Together Movement (Lëvizja Bashkë), led by university lecturer and activist Arlind Qori, and independent journalists such as Loreta Koleci then emerged as key organizers. Koleci and others gained national attention after police pepper-sprayed them during the first clashes.

Village leaders from Zvërnec and Narta also joined the front lines, arguing that ancestral grazing and fishing rights were being unlawfully taken. Although established opposition parties, including the Democratic Party, tried to co-opt the protests, organizers resisted to keep the “Flamingo Revolution” nonpartisan—a movement of “citizens, not politicians.” That’s a thought!

What Will Be the Upshot?

If the government eventually concedes to public pressure, political analysts and regional observers predict several potential ripple effects.

A primary demand is the outright repeal of Law No. 21/2024 (the amendment that permitted luxury commercial builds inside nature reserves). The outcome will likely force a reinstatement of strict environmental protections, creating a binding legal precedent against similar privatization efforts along the Adriatic coast.

Albania is actively seeking European Union membership. EU officials are closely monitoring the crisis, warning that dismantling environmental safeguards jeopardizes compliance with EU environmental laws. Analysts predict Rama’s government will be forced to modify the Kushner-Affinity Partners contract into a heavily scaled-back, strictly environmental-impact-checked model to keep EU negotiations on track.

Demonstrators have formalized demands that go beyond environmental protection, including a two-term limit for the office of Prime Minister and sweeping reforms on how foreign "Strategic Investors" are approved.

Even if Prime Minister Rama survives his current term, the "Flamingo Revolution" is expected to permanently alter the political landscape by cementing a viable, independent third-party/civil-society bloc—breaking the traditional two-party monopoly that has dominated post-communist Albanian politics since 1991.

The truth is we never know what the outcome will be. Neither do the Albanians. Our job is not to figure out what the outcome will be, but to do what we can to build up a community called The United States of America and all its parts like States, counties, towns, and cities that include us.

One of the wisest men I know is Dr. Charles Lawrence III, Professor of Law Emeritus and Centennial Professor at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Law School, and formerly of George Washington University School of Law in Washington, DC. He once said the United States Constitution created a community.

Community is far more a gift than a result. And the gift is far more likely to be appreciated if those who possess it do the work required to keep it.

We need to start living intentionally like the community we are. And that might mean getting fired up enough to get into the streets on behalf of human beings who, like Albania’s vulnerable flamingos, have no one to turn to but us.

Sources and Further Reading

Courthouse News Service: As bulldozers roll, 'flamingo revolution' erupts in Albania against Kushner-Trump luxury resort

The American Prospect: How Jared Kushner's Luxury Hotel Sparked a Protest Movement in Albania

Wikipedia: Flamingo Revolution

Relief Web/ACLED Europe and Central Asia Overview: July 2026 – Albania: Kushner’s luxury resort sparks a massive protest wave

Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung: Understanding Albania's Flamingo Revolution

Yad Vashem (World Holocaust Remembrance Center): Besa: A Code of Honor - Muslim Albanians who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust

Encyclopædia Britannica: History of Albania

Dialogue

Engaging discussions on faith and social issues.

Connect

Explore

frank@angelsandprincipalities.com

© 2024. All rights reserved.