WEBVTT 00:00:01.007 --> 00:00:04.494 In my previous life, I was an artist. 00:00:04.494 --> 00:00:06.967 I still paint. I love art. 00:00:06.967 --> 00:00:12.566 I love the joy that color can give to our lives 00:00:12.566 --> 00:00:15.214 and to our communities, 00:00:15.214 --> 00:00:20.493 and I try to bring something of the artist in me 00:00:20.493 --> 00:00:22.614 in my politics, 00:00:22.614 --> 00:00:26.542 and I see 00:00:26.542 --> 00:00:31.726 part of my job today, the reason for being here, 00:00:31.726 --> 00:00:36.653 not just to campaign for my party, 00:00:36.653 --> 00:00:41.358 but for politics, and the role it can play 00:00:41.358 --> 00:00:45.174 for the better in our lives. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:45.174 --> 00:00:51.046 For 11 years, I was mayor of Tirana, our capital. 00:00:51.046 --> 00:00:53.738 We faced many challenges. 00:00:53.738 --> 00:00:56.222 Art was part of the answer, 00:00:56.222 --> 00:00:58.840 and my name, in the very beginning, 00:00:58.840 --> 00:01:01.255 was linked with two things: 00:01:01.255 --> 00:01:05.348 demolition of illegal constructions 00:01:05.348 --> 00:01:09.428 in order to get public space back, 00:01:09.428 --> 00:01:13.106 and use of colors in order to revive the hope 00:01:13.106 --> 00:01:16.425 that had been lost in my city. 00:01:16.425 --> 00:01:22.286 But this use of colors was not just an artistic act. 00:01:22.286 --> 00:01:26.402 Rather, it was a form of political action 00:01:26.402 --> 00:01:31.504 in a context when the city budget I had available 00:01:31.504 --> 00:01:38.211 after being elected amounted to zero comma something. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:38.211 --> 00:01:41.202 When we painted the first building, 00:01:41.202 --> 00:01:45.754 by splashing a radiant orange on the somber gray 00:01:45.754 --> 00:01:48.018 of a facade, 00:01:48.018 --> 00:01:52.242 something unimaginable happened. 00:01:52.242 --> 00:01:54.312 There was a traffic jam 00:01:54.312 --> 00:01:57.317 and a crowd of people gathered 00:01:57.317 --> 00:02:02.235 as if it were the location of some spectacular accident, 00:02:02.235 --> 00:02:06.954 or the sudden sighting of a visiting pop star. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:06.954 --> 00:02:11.756 The French E.U. official in charge of the funding 00:02:11.756 --> 00:02:14.850 rushed to block the painting. 00:02:14.850 --> 00:02:19.596 He screeched that he would block the financing. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:19.596 --> 00:02:23.226 "But why?" I asked him. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:23.226 --> 00:02:26.018 "Because the colors you have ordered 00:02:26.018 --> 00:02:30.730 do not meet European standards," he replied. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:30.730 --> 00:02:33.659 "Well," I told him, 00:02:33.659 --> 00:02:36.847 "the surroundings do not meet European standards, 00:02:36.847 --> 00:02:42.142 even though this is not what we want, 00:02:42.142 --> 00:02:45.313 but we will choose the colors ourselves, 00:02:45.313 --> 00:02:48.983 because this is exactly what we want. 00:02:48.983 --> 00:02:52.866 And if you do not let us continue with our work, 00:02:52.866 --> 00:02:55.540 I will hold a press conference here, 00:02:55.540 --> 00:02:58.816 right now, right in this road, 00:02:58.816 --> 00:03:02.066 and we will tell people that you look to me 00:03:02.066 --> 00:03:07.940 just like the censors of the socialist realism era." NOTE Paragraph 00:03:07.940 --> 00:03:10.595 Then he was kind of troubled, 00:03:10.595 --> 00:03:13.187 and asked me for a compromise. 00:03:13.187 --> 00:03:15.507 But I told him no, I'm sorry, 00:03:15.507 --> 00:03:20.009 compromise in colors is gray, 00:03:20.009 --> 00:03:25.097 and we have enough gray to last us a lifetime. 00:03:25.097 --> 00:03:26.314 (Applause) 00:03:26.314 --> 00:03:31.433 So it's time for change. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:31.433 --> 00:03:33.603 The rehabilitation of public spaces 00:03:33.603 --> 00:03:36.337 revived the feeling of belonging 00:03:36.337 --> 00:03:41.206 to a city that people lost. 00:03:41.206 --> 00:03:47.646 The pride of people about their own place of living, 00:03:47.646 --> 00:03:51.065 and there were feelings that had been buried 00:03:51.065 --> 00:03:55.720 deep for years under the fury of the illegal, 00:03:55.720 --> 00:04:01.194 barbaric constructions that sprang up in the public space. 00:04:01.194 --> 00:04:04.238 And when colors came out everywhere, 00:04:04.238 --> 00:04:08.726 a mood of change started transforming the spirit of people. 00:04:08.726 --> 00:04:11.673 Big noise raised up: "What is this? What is happening? 00:04:11.673 --> 00:04:13.634 What are colors doing to us?" NOTE Paragraph 00:04:13.634 --> 00:04:14.689 And we made a poll, 00:04:14.689 --> 00:04:17.091 the most fascinating poll I've seen in my life. 00:04:17.091 --> 00:04:24.348 We asked people, "Do you want this action, 00:04:24.348 --> 00:04:28.838 and to have buildings painted like that?" 00:04:28.838 --> 00:04:31.209 And then the second question was, 00:04:31.209 --> 00:04:34.213 "Do you want it to stop or do you want it to continue?" 00:04:34.213 --> 00:04:35.897 To the first question, 00:04:35.897 --> 00:04:39.803 63 percent of people said yes, we like it. 00:04:39.803 --> 00:04:42.163 Thirty-seven said no, we don't like it. 00:04:42.163 --> 00:04:45.835 But to the second question, half of them that didn't like it, 00:04:45.835 --> 00:04:48.914 they wanted it to continue. (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:48.914 --> 00:04:52.041 So we noticed change. 00:04:52.041 --> 00:04:56.436 People started to drop less litter in the streets, for example, 00:04:56.436 --> 00:04:59.066 started to pay taxes, 00:04:59.066 --> 00:05:03.515 started to feel something they had forgotten, 00:05:03.515 --> 00:05:08.579 and beauty was acting as a guardsman 00:05:08.579 --> 00:05:15.121 where municipal police, or the state itself, were missing. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:15.121 --> 00:05:18.822 One day I remember walking along a street 00:05:18.822 --> 00:05:21.418 that had just been colored, 00:05:21.418 --> 00:05:25.197 and where we were in the process of planting trees, 00:05:25.197 --> 00:05:28.442 when I saw a shopkeeper and his wife 00:05:28.442 --> 00:05:32.409 putting a glass facade to their shop. 00:05:32.409 --> 00:05:34.706 They had thrown the old shutter 00:05:34.706 --> 00:05:37.698 in the garbage collection place. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:37.698 --> 00:05:41.258 "Why did you throw away the shutters?" I asked him. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:41.258 --> 00:05:46.490 "Well, because the street is safer now," they answered. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:46.490 --> 00:05:52.058 "Safer? Why? They have posted more policemen here?" NOTE Paragraph 00:05:52.058 --> 00:05:54.882 "Come on, man! What policemen? 00:05:54.882 --> 00:05:57.974 You can see it for yourself. There are colors, 00:05:57.974 --> 00:06:03.794 streetlights, new pavement with no potholes, 00:06:03.794 --> 00:06:08.586 trees. So it's beautiful; it's safe." NOTE Paragraph 00:06:08.586 --> 00:06:12.530 And indeed, it was beauty that was giving people 00:06:12.530 --> 00:06:16.957 this feeling of being protected. 00:06:16.957 --> 00:06:20.459 And this was not a misplaced feeling. 00:06:20.459 --> 00:06:25.216 Crime did fall. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:25.216 --> 00:06:28.562 The freedom that was won in 1990 00:06:28.562 --> 00:06:32.699 brought about a state of anarchy in the city, 00:06:32.699 --> 00:06:35.610 while the barbarism of the '90s 00:06:35.610 --> 00:06:39.092 brought about a loss of hope for the city. 00:06:39.092 --> 00:06:43.362 The paint on the walls did not feed children, 00:06:43.362 --> 00:06:47.426 nor did it tend the sick or educate the ignorant, 00:06:47.426 --> 00:06:50.867 but it gave hope and light, 00:06:50.867 --> 00:06:53.307 and helped to make people see 00:06:53.307 --> 00:06:56.410 there could be a different way of doing things, 00:06:56.410 --> 00:07:00.321 a different spirit, a different feel to our lives, 00:07:00.321 --> 00:07:06.540 and that if we brought the same energy and hope 00:07:06.540 --> 00:07:10.828 to our politics, we could build a better life 00:07:10.828 --> 00:07:16.023 for each other and for our country. 00:07:16.023 --> 00:07:22.873 We removed 123,000 tons of concrete 00:07:22.873 --> 00:07:25.480 only from the riverbanks. 00:07:25.480 --> 00:07:30.630 We demolished more than 5,000 illegal buildings 00:07:30.630 --> 00:07:33.612 all over the city, 00:07:33.612 --> 00:07:38.081 up to eight stories high, the tallest of them. 00:07:38.081 --> 00:07:44.610 We planted 55,000 trees and bushes in the streets. 00:07:44.610 --> 00:07:47.693 We established a green tax, 00:07:47.693 --> 00:07:51.723 and then everybody accepted it 00:07:51.723 --> 00:07:56.717 and all businessmen paid it regularly. 00:07:56.717 --> 00:07:59.104 By means of open competitions, 00:07:59.104 --> 00:08:02.097 we managed to recruit in our administration 00:08:02.097 --> 00:08:04.092 many young people, 00:08:04.092 --> 00:08:05.954 and we thus managed to build 00:08:05.954 --> 00:08:09.225 a de-politicized public institution 00:08:09.225 --> 00:08:13.745 where men and women were equally represented. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:13.745 --> 00:08:16.287 International organizations 00:08:16.287 --> 00:08:19.665 have invested a lot in Albania during these 20 years, 00:08:19.665 --> 00:08:22.897 not all of it well spent. 00:08:22.897 --> 00:08:26.025 When I told the World Bank directors 00:08:26.025 --> 00:08:30.938 that I wanted them to finance a project to build 00:08:30.938 --> 00:08:33.833 a model reception hall for citizens 00:08:33.833 --> 00:08:37.993 precisely in order to fight endemic daily corruption, 00:08:37.993 --> 00:08:40.243 they did not understand me. 00:08:40.243 --> 00:08:43.521 But people were waiting in long queues 00:08:43.521 --> 00:08:46.444 under sun and under rain 00:08:46.444 --> 00:08:50.669 in order to get a certificate or just a simple answer 00:08:50.669 --> 00:08:58.107 from two tiny windows of two metal kiosks. 00:08:58.107 --> 00:09:02.291 They were paying in order to skip the queue, 00:09:02.291 --> 00:09:04.647 the long queue. 00:09:04.647 --> 00:09:08.610 The reply to their requests was met 00:09:08.610 --> 00:09:13.311 by a voice coming from this dark hole, 00:09:13.311 --> 00:09:17.553 and, on the other hand, 00:09:17.553 --> 00:09:22.995 a mysterious hand coming out to take their documents 00:09:22.995 --> 00:09:28.803 while searching through old documents for the bribe. 00:09:28.803 --> 00:09:33.110 We could change the invisible clerks within the kiosks, 00:09:33.110 --> 00:09:38.749 every week, but we could not change this corrupt practice. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:38.749 --> 00:09:42.523 "I'm convinced," I told a German official 00:09:42.523 --> 00:09:45.299 with the World Bank, 00:09:45.299 --> 00:09:49.141 "that it would be impossible for them to be bribed 00:09:49.141 --> 00:09:51.595 if they worked in Germany, 00:09:51.595 --> 00:09:53.546 in a German administration, 00:09:53.546 --> 00:09:57.952 just as I am convinced that if you put German officials 00:09:57.952 --> 00:10:01.175 from the German administration in those holes, 00:10:01.175 --> 00:10:05.323 they would be bribed just the same." NOTE Paragraph 00:10:05.323 --> 00:10:12.027 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:10:12.027 --> 00:10:13.859 It's not about genes. 00:10:13.859 --> 00:10:19.593 It's not about some being with a high conscience 00:10:19.593 --> 00:10:22.035 and some others having not a conscience. 00:10:22.035 --> 00:10:24.807 It's about system, it's about organization. 00:10:24.807 --> 00:10:28.067 It's also about environment and respect. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:28.067 --> 00:10:30.950 We removed the kiosks. 00:10:30.950 --> 00:10:34.646 We built the bright new reception hall 00:10:34.646 --> 00:10:38.217 that made people, Tirana citizens, 00:10:38.217 --> 00:10:41.903 think they had traveled abroad when they entered 00:10:41.903 --> 00:10:44.327 to make their requests. 00:10:44.327 --> 00:10:47.771 We created an online system of control 00:10:47.771 --> 00:10:51.687 and so speeded up all the processes. 00:10:51.687 --> 00:10:56.343 We put the citizen first, and not the clerks. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:56.343 --> 00:11:00.547 The corruption in the state administration 00:11:00.547 --> 00:11:03.247 of countries like Albania -- 00:11:03.247 --> 00:11:07.423 it's not up to me to say also like Greece -- 00:11:07.423 --> 00:11:12.803 can be fought only by modernization. 00:11:12.803 --> 00:11:17.555 Reinventing the government by reinventing politics itself 00:11:17.555 --> 00:11:21.074 is the answer, and not reinventing people 00:11:21.074 --> 00:11:23.722 based on a ready-made formula 00:11:23.722 --> 00:11:27.978 that the developed world often tries in vain to impose 00:11:27.978 --> 00:11:30.084 to people like us. 00:11:30.084 --> 00:11:32.791 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:11:32.791 --> 00:11:34.775 Things have come to this point 00:11:34.775 --> 00:11:37.267 because politicians in general, 00:11:37.267 --> 00:11:40.163 but especially in our countries, let's face it, 00:11:40.163 --> 00:11:42.626 think people are stupid. 00:11:42.626 --> 00:11:46.170 They take it for granted that, come what may, 00:11:46.170 --> 00:11:48.382 people have to follow them, 00:11:48.382 --> 00:11:52.476 while politics, more and more, fails to offer answers 00:11:52.476 --> 00:11:56.499 for their public concerns 00:11:56.499 --> 00:12:01.170 or the exigencies of the common people. 00:12:01.170 --> 00:12:03.972 Politics has come to resemble 00:12:03.972 --> 00:12:07.458 a cynical team game played by politicians, 00:12:07.458 --> 00:12:11.387 while the public has been pushed aside 00:12:11.387 --> 00:12:15.274 as if sitting on the seats of a stadium 00:12:15.274 --> 00:12:17.124 in which passion for politics 00:12:17.124 --> 00:12:22.733 is gradually making room for blindness and desperation. 00:12:22.733 --> 00:12:27.627 Seen from those stairs, all politicians today 00:12:27.627 --> 00:12:29.590 seem the same, 00:12:29.590 --> 00:12:34.227 and politics has come to resemble 00:12:34.227 --> 00:12:38.828 a sport that inspires more aggressiveness 00:12:38.828 --> 00:12:42.140 and pessimism than social cohesion 00:12:42.140 --> 00:12:46.413 and the desire for civic protaganism. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:46.413 --> 00:12:48.439 Barack Obama won 00:12:48.439 --> 00:12:54.716 — (Applause) — 00:12:54.716 --> 00:12:58.279 because he mobilized people as never before 00:12:58.279 --> 00:13:00.812 through the use of social networks. 00:13:00.812 --> 00:13:03.925 He did not know each and every one of them, 00:13:03.925 --> 00:13:07.795 but with an admirable ingenuity, 00:13:07.795 --> 00:13:11.175 he managed to transform them into activists 00:13:11.175 --> 00:13:15.304 by giving them all the possibility to hold in their hands 00:13:15.304 --> 00:13:18.898 the arguments and the instruments that each would need 00:13:18.898 --> 00:13:23.691 to campaign in his name by making his own campaign. 00:13:23.691 --> 00:13:25.746 I tweet. I love it. 00:13:25.746 --> 00:13:31.115 I love it because it lets me get the message out, 00:13:31.115 --> 00:13:35.382 but it also lets people get their messages to me. 00:13:35.382 --> 00:13:38.374 This is politics, not from top down, 00:13:38.374 --> 00:13:41.598 but from the bottom up, and sideways, 00:13:41.598 --> 00:13:44.590 and allowing everybody's voice to be heard 00:13:44.590 --> 00:13:46.550 is exactly what we need. 00:13:46.550 --> 00:13:48.604 Politics is not just about leaders. 00:13:48.604 --> 00:13:51.365 It's not just about politicians and laws. 00:13:51.365 --> 00:13:53.333 It is about how people think, 00:13:53.333 --> 00:13:55.668 how they view the world around them, 00:13:55.668 --> 00:13:58.194 how they use their time and their energy. 00:13:58.194 --> 00:14:00.710 When people say all politicians are the same, 00:14:00.710 --> 00:14:03.990 ask yourself if Obama was the same as Bush, 00:14:03.990 --> 00:14:07.565 if François Hollande is the same as Sarkozy. 00:14:07.565 --> 00:14:12.269 They are not. They are human beings with different views 00:14:12.269 --> 00:14:14.851 and different visions for the world. 00:14:14.851 --> 00:14:17.749 When people say nothing can change, 00:14:17.749 --> 00:14:21.813 just stop and think what the world was like 00:14:21.813 --> 00:14:26.445 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago. 00:14:26.445 --> 00:14:29.561 Our world is defined by the pace of change. 00:14:29.561 --> 00:14:32.365 We can all change the world. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:32.365 --> 00:14:35.241 I gave you a very small example 00:14:35.241 --> 00:14:38.742 of how one thing, the use of color, 00:14:38.742 --> 00:14:41.253 can make change happen. 00:14:41.253 --> 00:14:42.616 I want to make more change 00:14:42.616 --> 00:14:45.404 as Prime Minister of my country, 00:14:45.404 --> 00:14:49.726 but every single one of you can make change happen 00:14:49.726 --> 00:14:51.319 if you want to. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:51.319 --> 00:14:54.444 President Roosevelt, he said, 00:14:54.444 --> 00:14:58.117 "Believe you can, and you are halfway there." NOTE Paragraph 00:14:58.117 --> 00:15:01.184 Efharisto and kalinihta. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:01.184 --> 00:15:20.887 (Applause)