In a short but poignant piece, Dalina Buzi analyzes two extremes of the same society: the “scum,” as the elites call the poor, and the elites, who consider themselves exempt from moral responsibility. Her writing highlights hypocrisy, indifference, and justification of deviations, from the bottom to the top of the social pyramid.
From the marriages of 12-year-old girls to adult men, to bed-sharing between wives and lovers, to the disguise of perversion as "spirituality" among the wealthy, Buzi asks the question: who is the real scum?
Without offering simple answers, it invites us to reflect: when one layer cannot hide sin, and the other philosophizes about it – who is really the scum?
Full text:
The Scum* and the Elite share the same (non)morality. The Scum has nothing to lose, so he is not afraid. The Elite is so isolated from money and power that he has lost touch with fear.
Perversion in Llumi is not discussed as an extreme desire or a dark fantasy. It just happens. 12-year-olds marrying 30-year-old men. Nieces being harassed by uncles. Men sharing a bed with their wives and mistresses.
Nobody worries about judgment. Because nobody judges them. Because nobody above that level has any real contact with them. Nobody needs the sludge. Not even governments. Their existence is worth less than that of street dogs.
In the Elite, perversion arises from excess. Normality does not seduce because it has a low price. The more it distances itself from reality, the smaller and more saleable people seem to it. The Elite has proven that everything can be bought. And if it is not bought, it is silent.
At the bottom of society, perversion is routine. At its peak, perversion is ceremony.
The elite seeks to give meaning to its own deviance. Call it “deserved.” Philosophize it as an “encounter with the dark side.” The more “elites” succumb to it, the more they spiritualize it, in an attempt to escape their conscience. Jeffrey Epstein had built a temple on his island.
Ghislaine Maxwell "hunted" girls in the poorest areas of Miami, where families lived in trailers. "They're nothing. They're trash," she is quoted in the documents as saying to a friend.
Llumi* does not discuss perversity. It does not justify it. Nor does it try to disguise it.
The elite disguises it with philosophy.
But who is the real scum?
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Note: The term "Llumi" is used here as a reference to the way the elite themselves label the poorest layers of society. "Llumi" is the closest synonym in Albanian for the term "trash" in English.
