Flag party, up or down?

Flag Day promises to be the most celebrated holiday of Albanians. It is not like the liberation festival that is celebrated only in London Albania, even here some celebrate it tomorrow, some today, while some others do not accept it at all.

It is not like the Eid that you celebrate, the atheist neighbor sees it with indifference or contempt, while the other neighbor, Christian, expects to celebrate Easter, because it is his.

It's not even like March 8, June 1, Valentine's Day or Halloween, that now women, then children, then young people or teenagers, while the others generally leave them as spectators or, even worse, magicians.

The flag belongs to all Albanians who feel Albanian, regardless of whether they live in their own lands or in the lands of the world, so its day deserves to be the most celebrated.

In fact, it doesn't quite happen like that. Flag Day is widely celebrated, but it is not the most massive celebration of Albanians, it is not as widely celebrated as New Year's Eve, for example.

It is not known what causes this. Perhaps because one is conceived as a family holiday, and the other as an official or state holiday, one is accompanied by family joy, while the other is accompanied by respect and veneration for something sublime.

But it can be different: for well-known reasons, there has traditionally been a kind of distance between the Albanian and the official state, they have not always seen themselves on the same side. Even to this day, the state and the statesmen have a heavy shadow, sometimes they are seen only in the role of the punisher or, even worse, in the role of the extortionist or the corrupt.

It can be like this, it can be like that, but one thing remains the same: the flag and the nation add a beautiful dimension to our lives, the feeling that you are not without roots, that you belong to a community, a history and culture, a heritage that here makes you proud, a little further it makes you blush, further still you ask for action and change, but in any case it gives you life and vitality.

Happy flag day, or the red and black holiday, as my niece calls it, with the child's innate tendency for closeness and intimacy.

(From the cycle 'The Catacombs of the Nation')