Waging Nonviolence · 4 hours ago

How Creativity — and Children — Have Kept Albania’s Revolution Alive | Waging Nonviolence

When trucks and bulldozers rolled into a protected Albanian coastline to clear the way for a Jared Kushner luxury resort, something unexpected held the ensuing revolution together: children drawing flamingos on long sheets of paper. Artist Ilir Kaso first understood what was needed the night his frightened seven-year-old pulled him toward a cluster of pink banners at the edge of a tense crowd - and he immediately began typing a message to fellow activists, proposing "somewhere stationary, a shelter where we flamingos can stay all together and bring in the children, to protect them but also to expand the good vibes." What grew from that instinct is now called the Children's Corner, a nightly gathering where over a hundred children sing, draw, and play while their parents protest beside them - a presence that has made the crowd harder to brutalize and easier to sustain. After more than 60 days of continuous demonstration and many hundreds of thousands of participants, the violence has remained remarkably contained. "Most of the time we connect revolution to war and destruction," Kaso reflects, "but this is a big lesson for us about how we can think about a revolution. And the children are the most important part to teach us this."