Empty chairs are not dialogue

On Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Edi Rama set out chairs with letters of invitation in front of the Prime Minister's Office. A few hours later, lecturers and students tore up the letters and knocked over the chairs, while the opposition called the invitation a tactic and demanded the prime minister's resignation. Within a single day, dialogue became a stage, and the stage became a rejection.

The chairs made for a powerful image, but dialogue is not built with images. It needs clearly identified parties, an agenda and guarantees that what is said at the table has consequences. None of these were on the steps of the Prime Minister's Office.

Rejection has its price, too. A movement that wants to be heard has to show citizens whom it is sending to the talks and what exactly it is asking for. The Socialist parliamentary group has invited the students to choose their representatives; that question deserves an answer, even a reasoned “no.”

Meanwhile, the street is speaking with stones and tear gas. In seven days, 271 people have been arrested, minors among them, and police officers and protesters have been injured. Every day without a channel for talks makes it harder to restore trust.

The university needs more than a pact proclaimed from above and more than a protest with no address. An independent mediator, accepted by both sides, could be the first step that neither the chairs nor the torn-up letters achieved.