In my previous life, I was an artist. I still paint. I love art. I love the joy that color can give to our lives and to our communities, and I try to bring something of the artist in me in my politics, and I see part of my job today, the reason for being here, not just to campaign for my party, but for politics, and the role it can play for the better in our lives.
U prošlom životu bio sam umjetnik. Još uvijek slikam. Volim umjetnost. Volim radost koju boja može donijeti našim životima i našoj zajednici, i ja nastojim uključiti umjetnika u meni u moju politiku, i ja vidim, to kao dio mog posla danas, da razlog zbog kojeg sam ovdje nije samo kampanja za moju stranku već za politiku, i ulogu koju ona može imati u poboljšanju naših života.
For 11 years, I was mayor of Tirana, our capital. We faced many challenges. Art was part of the answer, and my name, in the very beginning, was linked with two things: demolition of illegal constructions in order to get public space back, and use of colors in order to revive the hope that had been lost in my city. But this use of colors was not just an artistic act. Rather, it was a form of political action in a context when the city budget I had available after being elected amounted to zero comma something.
Jedanaest godina bio sam gradonačelnik Tirane, našeg glavnog grada. Suočavali smo se s mnogim izazovima. Umjetnost je bila dio odgovora. I moje ime je na početku bilo povezano s dvije stvari: rušenjem ilegalnih konstrukcija kako bi vratili javni prostor i upotreba boja kako bismo probudili nadu koja je bila izgubljena u mom gradu. Ali ova upotreba boja nije bila samo umjetnički čin. Bila je to prije forma političke akcije u kontekstu u kojemu je gradski proračun koji mi je bio na raspolaganju, nakon što sam bio izabran, iznosio nula zarez nešto.
When we painted the first building, by splashing a radiant orange on the somber gray of a facade, something unimaginable happened. There was a traffic jam and a crowd of people gathered as if it were the location of some spectacular accident, or the sudden sighting of a visiting pop star.
Kad smo obojali prvu zgradu stavljajući kričavu narančastu preko tmurne sive boje fasade, nešto nezamislivo se dogodilo. Nastala je gužva u prometu i gomila ljudi se okupila kao da se tu dogodila neka spektakularna nesreća ili iznenadni posjet pop zvijezde.
The French E.U. official in charge of the funding rushed to block the painting. He screeched that he would block the financing.
Francuski predstavnik Europske unije zadužen za financiranje, požurio je da zaustavi bojanje. Počeo je vikati da će zaustaviti financiranje.
"But why?" I asked him.
"Ali zašto?" pitao sam.
"Because the colors you have ordered do not meet European standards," he replied.
"Zato što boje koje ste naručili ne odgovaraju europskim standardima", odgovorio je.
"Well," I told him, "the surroundings do not meet European standards, even though this is not what we want, but we will choose the colors ourselves, because this is exactly what we want. And if you do not let us continue with our work, I will hold a press conference here, right now, right in this road, and we will tell people that you look to me just like the censors of the socialist realism era."
Pa, rekao sam mu, "okruženje ne odgovara europskim standardima, iako to nije ono što želimo, ali sami ćemo birati boje, jer to je točno ono što mi želimo. I ako nam ne dopustite da nastavimo s radovima, održat ću novinarsku konferenciju, ovdje, baš sada, baš na ovoj cesti, i reći ćemo ljudima, da gledate na mene baš kao cenzori socrealističke ere."
Then he was kind of troubled, and asked me for a compromise. But I told him no, I'm sorry, compromise in colors is gray, and we have enough gray to last us a lifetime. (Applause) So it's time for change.
To ga je malo zabrinulo i zatražio je kompromis. Ali rekao sam mu ne, žao mi je, kompromis među bojama je siva, a mi ovdje imamo dovoljno sive za cijeli život. (Pljesak) Znači, vrijeme je za promjene.
The rehabilitation of public spaces revived the feeling of belonging to a city that people lost. The pride of people about their own place of living, and there were feelings that had been buried deep for years under the fury of the illegal, barbaric constructions that sprang up in the public space. And when colors came out everywhere, a mood of change started transforming the spirit of people. Big noise raised up: "What is this? What is happening? What are colors doing to us?"
Rehabilitacija javnih prostora oživjela je osjećaj pripadnosti gradu, kojeg su ljudi izgubili. Ponos ljudi na njihov životni prostor i osjećaji koji su bili zakopani duboko godinama ispod bijesa zbog ilegalnih, barbarskih konstrukcija koje su niknule na javnom prostoru. I kada su se boje pojavile svugdje, duh promjene počeo je mijenjati duh ljudi. Počela je galama:"Što je ovo?"Što se događa? Što nam boje rade?"
And we made a poll, the most fascinating poll I've seen in my life. We asked people, "Do you want this action, and to have buildings painted like that?" And then the second question was, "Do you want it to stop or do you want it to continue?" To the first question, 63 percent of people said yes, we like it. Thirty-seven said no, we don't like it. But to the second question, half of them that didn't like it, they wanted it to continue. (Laughter)
I organizirali smo glasanje, najfascinantnije glasanje koje sam vidio u životu. Pitali smo ljude: " Želite li ovu akciju i da zgrade budu ovako obojane?" I drugo pitanje je bilo: "Želite li ovo prekinuti ili želite da se nastavi?". Na prvo pitanje 63% ljudi reklo je :"Da, sviđa nam se." Trideset sedam je odgovorilo:"Ne, ne sviđa nam se." Ali na drugo pitanje, polovica onih kojima se nije sviđalo, željeli su da se nastavi s tim. (Smijeh)
So we noticed change. People started to drop less litter in the streets, for example, started to pay taxes, started to feel something they had forgotten, and beauty was acting as a guardsman where municipal police, or the state itself, were missing.
I primjetili smo promjenu. Ljudi su počeli bacati manje smeća na ulice, na primjer, počeli su plaćati porez, počeli su osjećati nešto što su zaboravili i ljepota je služila kao čuvar tamo gdje gradska policija i sama država nisu bili uspješni.
One day I remember walking along a street that had just been colored, and where we were in the process of planting trees, when I saw a shopkeeper and his wife putting a glass facade to their shop. They had thrown the old shutter in the garbage collection place.
Sjećam se da sam jednog dana šetao ulicom koja je baš nedavno bila obojana i gdje smo bili u procesu sadnje drveća, kada sam vidio vlasnika trgovine i njegovu ženu kako stavljaju staklenu fasadu na svoju trgovinu. Bacili su staru roletu na mjesto gdje se skuplja smeće.
"Why did you throw away the shutters?" I asked him.
"Zašto ste bacili rolete?" , pitao sam ih.
"Well, because the street is safer now," they answered.
"Pa, zato što je ulica sada sigurnija", odgovorili su.
"Safer? Why? They have posted more policemen here?"
"Sigurnija ?Zašto? Postavili su više policajaca ovdje?"
"Come on, man! What policemen? You can see it for yourself. There are colors, streetlights, new pavement with no potholes, trees. So it's beautiful; it's safe."
"Ma, daj čovječe! Kakvi policajci? Pa, i sam možeš vidjeti. Tu su boje, ulična rasvjeta, novi asfalt bez rupa, drveće. Prelijepo je, sigurno."
And indeed, it was beauty that was giving people this feeling of being protected. And this was not a misplaced feeling. Crime did fall.
I zaista, ljepota je davala ljudima osjećaj zaštite. I to nije bio pogrešan osjećaj. Stopa kriminala se smanjila.
The freedom that was won in 1990 brought about a state of anarchy in the city, while the barbarism of the '90s brought about a loss of hope for the city. The paint on the walls did not feed children, nor did it tend the sick or educate the ignorant, but it gave hope and light, and helped to make people see there could be a different way of doing things, a different spirit, a different feel to our lives, and that if we brought the same energy and hope to our politics, we could build a better life for each other and for our country. We removed 123,000 tons of concrete only from the riverbanks. We demolished more than 5,000 illegal buildings all over the city, up to eight stories high, the tallest of them. We planted 55,000 trees and bushes in the streets. We established a green tax, and then everybody accepted it and all businessmen paid it regularly. By means of open competitions, we managed to recruit in our administration many young people, and we thus managed to build a de-politicized public institution where men and women were equally represented.
Sloboda koja je pobijedila 1990. donijela je stanje anarhije u grad, dok je barbarizam devedesetih donio gubitak nade za grad. Boja na zidovima nije nahranila djecu, također nije brinula o bolesnima ili educirala neuke, ali je davala nadu i svjetlo i pomogla ljudima da vide da postoji i drugačiji načini da se neke stvari naprave, drugačiji duh, drugačiji pogled na naše živote. I da ako unesemo istu energiju i nadu u našu politiku, možemo stvoriti bolji život jedni za druge i za našu zemlju. Uklonili smo 123.000 tona betona samo s riječnih obala. Srušili smo više od 5.000 ilegalnih građevina u cijelom gradu, najviše od njih su imale i do osam katova. Zasadili smo 55.000 stabala i grmova u ulicama. Uveli smo ekološki porez i onda su ga svi prihvatili i svi poslovni ljudi su ga redovito plaćali. Kroz otvorena natjecanja uspjeli smo u našu administraciju zaposliti puno mladih ljudi i tako smo uspjeli izgraditi apolitičnu javnu instituciju u kojoj su muškarci i žene jednako predstavljeni.
International organizations have invested a lot in Albania during these 20 years, not all of it well spent. When I told the World Bank directors that I wanted them to finance a project to build a model reception hall for citizens precisely in order to fight endemic daily corruption, they did not understand me. But people were waiting in long queues under sun and under rain in order to get a certificate or just a simple answer from two tiny windows of two metal kiosks. They were paying in order to skip the queue, the long queue. The reply to their requests was met by a voice coming from this dark hole, and, on the other hand, a mysterious hand coming out to take their documents while searching through old documents for the bribe. We could change the invisible clerks within the kiosks, every week, but we could not change this corrupt practice.
Internacionalne organizacije su puno investirale u Albaniju tijekom ovih 20 godina od čega nije sve potrošeno na dobar način. Kada sam rekao direktorima Svjetske banke da želim da financiraju projekt izgradnje modela dvorane za prijem građana baš u cilju borbe protiv endemske dnevne korupcije nisu me razumjeli. Ali ljudi su čekali u dugim redovima ispod sunca i dok je kišilo kako bi dobili certifikat ili samo jednostavan odgovor kroz dva mala prozora, dva metalna kisoka. Plaćali su da ne bi čekali u redu, u dugom redu. Na njihove zahtjeve odgovarao je glas koji je dolazio iz mračne rupe, i sa druge strane, misteriozna ruka koja se pojavljuje kako bi uzela njihove dokumente tražeći među njihovim starim dokumentima mito. Mogli smo mijenjati nevidljive službenike u kioscima svakog tjedna, ali nismo mogli promijeniti ovu korumpiranu praksu.
"I'm convinced," I told a German official with the World Bank, "that it would be impossible for them to be bribed if they worked in Germany, in a German administration, just as I am convinced that if you put German officials from the German administration in those holes, they would be bribed just the same."
"Uvjeren sam", rekao sam njemačkom službeniku Svjetske banke, "da bi bilo nemoguće za njih primati mito kada bi radili u Njemačkoj, u Njemačkoj administraciji, u istoj mjeri u kojoj sam uvjeren da bi, kad bismo na njihovo mjesto stavili njemačke službenike iz njemačke administracije u ove rupe, da bi i oni također primali mito.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
It's not about genes. It's not about some being with a high conscience and some others having not a conscience. It's about system, it's about organization. It's also about environment and respect.
To nema veze s genima. To ne znači da netko ima savjest na višem nivou, a da netko drugi nema savjest. To ima veze sa sustavom, sa organizacijom. Također je vezano za okolinu i poštovanje.
We removed the kiosks. We built the bright new reception hall that made people, Tirana citizens, think they had traveled abroad when they entered to make their requests. We created an online system of control and so speeded up all the processes. We put the citizen first, and not the clerks.
Uklonili smo kioske. Sagradili smo novu dvoranu za prijeme, zbog koje su ljudi, građani Tirane, mislili da su otputovali u inozemstvo kada su u nju ušli kako bi predali svoje zahtjeve. Napravili smo "online" kontrolni sustav i tako ubrzali sve procese. Stavili smo građane na prvo mjesto, a ne službenike.
The corruption in the state administration of countries like Albania -- it's not up to me to say also like Greece -- can be fought only by modernization. Reinventing the government by reinventing politics itself is the answer, and not reinventing people based on a ready-made formula that the developed world often tries in vain to impose to people like us. (Applause)
Protiv korupcije, u državnoj administraciji, u zemljama poput Albanije -- da ne kažem, kao što je i Grčka -- možemo se boriti samo modernizacijom. Rješenje je reorganiziranje vlade kroz reorganiziranje same politike, a ne reorganiziranje ljudi na osnovu već smišljenih obrazaca koje razvijeni svijet često uzalud pokušava nametnuti ljudima poput nas. ( Pljesak).
Things have come to this point because politicians in general, but especially in our countries, let's face it, think people are stupid. They take it for granted that, come what may, people have to follow them, while politics, more and more, fails to offer answers for their public concerns or the exigencies of the common people. Politics has come to resemble a cynical team game played by politicians, while the public has been pushed aside as if sitting on the seats of a stadium in which passion for politics is gradually making room for blindness and desperation. Seen from those stairs, all politicians today seem the same, and politics has come to resemble a sport that inspires more aggressiveness and pessimism than social cohesion and the desire for civic protaganism.
Stvari su dosegle ovu točku zato što političari općenito, a naručito u našim zemljama, suočimo se s tim misle da su ljudi glupi. Uzimaju zdravo za gotovo da će , bilo što da se dogodi, ljudi morati njih pratiti, dok politika, sve više i više ne uspijeva u nuđenju rješenja za brige javnosti ili potrebe običnih ljudi. Politika je počela nalikovati na ciničnu timsku igru koju igraju političari dok je javnost gurnuta u stranu kao da sjedi na stolicama u stadionu na kojem strast prema politici postupno ustupa mjesto zasljepljenosti i očaju. Gledano s tih stolica, svi političari danas izgledaju isto i politika je počela nalikovati na sport koji stvara više agresivnosti i pesimizma nego društvene jedinstvenosti i želje za građanskim protagonizmom.
Barack Obama won — (Applause) — because he mobilized people as never before through the use of social networks. He did not know each and every one of them, but with an admirable ingenuity, he managed to transform them into activists by giving them all the possibility to hold in their hands the arguments and the instruments that each would need to campaign in his name by making his own campaign. I tweet. I love it. I love it because it lets me get the message out, but it also lets people get their messages to me. This is politics, not from top down, but from the bottom up, and sideways, and allowing everybody's voice to be heard is exactly what we need. Politics is not just about leaders. It's not just about politicians and laws. It is about how people think, how they view the world around them, how they use their time and their energy. When people say all politicians are the same, ask yourself if Obama was the same as Bush, if François Hollande is the same as Sarkozy. They are not. They are human beings with different views and different visions for the world. When people say nothing can change, just stop and think what the world was like 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago. Our world is defined by the pace of change. We can all change the world.
Barac Obama je pobijedio -- (Pljeask) -- jer je mobilizirao ljude kao nikad prije korištenjem socijalnih mreža. Nije poznavao svakog od njih, ali ih je sa zadivljujućom genijalnošću uspio transformirati u aktiviste dajući im da u svojim rukama drže argumente i instrumente koji su svakom od njih bili potrebni da vode kampanju u njegovo ime stvarajući vlastitu kampanju. Tweetam. Obožavam to. Obožavam to jer mi pruža priliku da prenesem poruku, ali također omogućava ljudima da prenesu svoje poruke meni. Ovo je politika, ali ne od vrha na dolje, već odozdo na gore i sa strane. I mogućnost da se svaki glas čuje je upravo ono što nam je potrebno. Politika nije vezana samo za vođe. Ne radi se samo o političarima i zakonima. Radi se o tome kako ljudi razmišljaju, kako vide svijet oko sebe, kako koriste svoje vrijeme i energiju. Kad ljudi kažu da su svi političari isti, zapitajte se je li Obama isti kao i Bush, je li Francois Hollande isti kao i Sarkozy. Nisu isti. Oni su ljudska bića sa različitim pogledima i različitim vizijama za svijet. Kada ljudi kažu da se ništa ne može promijeniti, samo stanite i razmislite kako je svijet izgledao prije 10, 20, 50, 100 godina. Naš svijet je definiran tempom promjene. Svi mi možemo promijeniti svijet.
I gave you a very small example of how one thing, the use of color, can make change happen. I want to make more change as Prime Minister of my country, but every single one of you can make change happen if you want to.
Dao sam vam samo jedan mali primjer kako jedna stvar, upotreba boja može pokrenuti promjenu. Želim donijeti još više promjena kao premijer svoje zemlje, ali bilo tko od vas može donijeti promjene ako to želi.
President Roosevelt, he said, "Believe you can, and you are halfway there."
Predsjednik Roosevelt je rekao: "Vjeruj kako možeš,i prošao si već pola puta."
Efharisto and kalinihta.
Efharisto i kalininhta.(Hvala i laku noć).
(Applause)
(Pljesak)