At a time when Albanians in Macedonia should be unique and transcend personal egos, the opposite is happening: students are being used as pawns in political parties' power games.
Those who should be the voice of representation of the people and guarantors of acquired rights often find themselves instrumentalized for narrow ambitions and personal rivalries.
The students, rightly, demand what the Albanian parties have failed to do: implementation of equality, respect for the Ohrid Agreement, the use of Badinter as a means to prevent Macedonian majority rule, and strengthening the rights of Albanians as fundamentalists in North Macedonia.
The failure of Albanian parties cannot be covered up with empty rhetoric or by spreading the blame among the younger generations.
Especially the parties that emerged from the people's dissatisfaction and from the war of the National Liberation Army, should have used the historical moment to consolidate rights and set an example of Albanian unity.
But often, in the absence of a solution to problems without distinction, all Albanian political parties have chosen the path of divisions, narrow interests, and weak compromises, for purely personal interests.
Anyone who dares to use students for political games, anyone who tries to instrumentalize them to score political points or deepen divisions, will end badly.
Students are not a tool, nor a means for political manipulation, they are our children, they are the generation that demands justice, equality, and space that is being squeezed out by others, without any logic or meaning.
Students have the right to reject political manipulation and to demand and demonstrate strongly that their voices be heard with respect and responsibility.
Do not misuse students for political interests, let them manifest what you have failed to accomplish as a mission for 30 years.
Students do not need political parties in protest, let them freely express their Albanian citizenship. You fulfill the obligations that the people have given you in the institutions.
Students have the right, they are our present and our future. Students will awaken North Macedonia and Europeanize it, this is the student spring that legitimizes the existence and the Albanian language.
I am with them in heart and mind!
* Arsim Sinani is a professor at the University of Pristina, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Anthropology.