In late February 1997, students at my high school in the Albanian capital, Tirana, boycotted classes and gathered in the schoolyard. We started shouting slogans in solidarity with university students in the coastal city of Vlorë, around fifty of whom had gone on hunger strike the previous week demanding the government’s resignation. Many of us held this administration responsible for the bankruptcy of the pyramid schemes that had recently robbed many Albanians of their life savings, sparking widespread anger and desperation.

Soon, someone proposed that we take to the streets and meet up with students from other schools to form a larger protest. After marching 200 or 300 meters, a group of plainclothes police officers approached us and began physically attacking us. Terrified, we scattered.

Fast-forward a week. Near my neighborhood, I saw a large crowd marching toward the city center. Someone pointed at a civilian, exposing him as a plainclothes police officer. A group of men tried to catch him and beat him up, but the armed policeman started firing into the air. A few minutes later, skirmishes between protesters and riot police were breaking out in every corner of my neighborhood.