Romanian revolutions
Feb 4, 2017 23:12:14 GMT
Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2017 23:12:14 GMT
I have had a special affinity for Romania since the revolution began at the end of the 1980's. It was sort of difficult to decide what to think about the regime due to the unpredictable Ceaușescus. After all, it was the only Eastern bloc country to participate in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, which made it wildly popular in the West. But when the Soviet bloc began to disintegrate in 1989, Nicolae Ceaușescu was the most adamant dictator demanding to remain in power. I remember that when the first waves of demonstrations began, many Romanians turned to France for help (a rather strange idea, I'll admit) because Bucharest had long been called the Paris of the East (probably another strange idea, but I am no expert on the subject), and the French language was the most popular in the country with Russian studies having never managed to overcome that detail. The French media basked in the frenzy (who doesn't like to think they are wonderful?) and one of the main newspapers published a link on the Minitel system (since the internet was just a midget in France at the time) of all of the names and addresses in the Bucharest white pages with a plea to "send a postcard to Romania to tell them we are thinking of them." I know that I sent at least 5 postcards, and all of my friends did as well. There were also associations collecting French books to take to Romania, and if there had been a call for volunteers to drive trucks to deliver them, my friends and I would have been at the head of the line.
We were completely intoxicated with the idea of helping Romania. I'm still not sure why the idea touched us so deeply.
Next chapter, the revolution finally began in December 1989. Romania was the last Soviet inspired regime to fall, which made it all that more important. My parents had come to visit me that month, and I took them to Morocco and Tunisia. My father got the flu in Marrakech and was miserable, and then I had caught it by the time we were in Tunis, and then when we flew back to Paris my mother caught it at well, so it was not a jolly time. The problem was that we were supposed to spend the Christmas holidays with my grandmother in my apartment. I was living in a rather large studio apartment at the time and could arrange bedding for everybody. As a very close family, there was no problem for all four of us sleeping in the same room (we kind of enjoyed it), but there was sort of a problem that 3 of us were not feeling all that great. There was no nausea or anything, but there was not much of an appetite even though we went through the motions of festive meals for my grandmother's sake because it was really important for her.
But we had the television on most of the time, and on the television there was the Romanian revolution, which was reaching its paroxysm. The Ceaușescus were arrested on December 22 and were displayed on the news constantly and then they were executed in front of the world on December 25. We must have seen the execution scene at least 20 times on Christmas day, and my grandmother couldn't stand it anymore. But there were not many TV channels back then, so no matter which channel you selected, there they were again being shot in that courtyard. I have always called that period of 1989 "Christmas with Nicolae and Elena." Oh, Elena was such a bitch and I was even happier to see her go than her husband.
Since that time, Romania has been on the back burner most of the time. We very much liked the brief reign of Petre Roman, but he didn't last long and things slowly went back to normal. Instead of communist normal, it was just corrupt normal. And the years have gone by. It's pretty hard to worry about countries other than your own for very long, and there are always so many things happening everywhere in the world.
However, in the last couple of weeks, Romania woke up again. It was having the biggest demonstrations since 1989, due to the new government having decided to cancel the law voted by the previous government. Just like Donald Trump, the new government that just took power decided that certain laws needed to be cancelled immediately. In this case it was the anti corruption law. The new government wanted to exempt elected officials and party heads from any risk of prosecution. They were also going to release thousands of people from prison who had been convicted of corruption. Basically, any corruption of less than 44,000 euros didn't really exist anymore.
Even though it has been almost 30 years since the last big demonstrations, the Romanians took to the streets again. The government said that it would not budge, but the people returned to demonstrate again and again every day, and today the government finally decided to abandon its decree. I hope that people in certain other countries will learn from this.
We were completely intoxicated with the idea of helping Romania. I'm still not sure why the idea touched us so deeply.
Next chapter, the revolution finally began in December 1989. Romania was the last Soviet inspired regime to fall, which made it all that more important. My parents had come to visit me that month, and I took them to Morocco and Tunisia. My father got the flu in Marrakech and was miserable, and then I had caught it by the time we were in Tunis, and then when we flew back to Paris my mother caught it at well, so it was not a jolly time. The problem was that we were supposed to spend the Christmas holidays with my grandmother in my apartment. I was living in a rather large studio apartment at the time and could arrange bedding for everybody. As a very close family, there was no problem for all four of us sleeping in the same room (we kind of enjoyed it), but there was sort of a problem that 3 of us were not feeling all that great. There was no nausea or anything, but there was not much of an appetite even though we went through the motions of festive meals for my grandmother's sake because it was really important for her.
But we had the television on most of the time, and on the television there was the Romanian revolution, which was reaching its paroxysm. The Ceaușescus were arrested on December 22 and were displayed on the news constantly and then they were executed in front of the world on December 25. We must have seen the execution scene at least 20 times on Christmas day, and my grandmother couldn't stand it anymore. But there were not many TV channels back then, so no matter which channel you selected, there they were again being shot in that courtyard. I have always called that period of 1989 "Christmas with Nicolae and Elena." Oh, Elena was such a bitch and I was even happier to see her go than her husband.
Since that time, Romania has been on the back burner most of the time. We very much liked the brief reign of Petre Roman, but he didn't last long and things slowly went back to normal. Instead of communist normal, it was just corrupt normal. And the years have gone by. It's pretty hard to worry about countries other than your own for very long, and there are always so many things happening everywhere in the world.
However, in the last couple of weeks, Romania woke up again. It was having the biggest demonstrations since 1989, due to the new government having decided to cancel the law voted by the previous government. Just like Donald Trump, the new government that just took power decided that certain laws needed to be cancelled immediately. In this case it was the anti corruption law. The new government wanted to exempt elected officials and party heads from any risk of prosecution. They were also going to release thousands of people from prison who had been convicted of corruption. Basically, any corruption of less than 44,000 euros didn't really exist anymore.
Even though it has been almost 30 years since the last big demonstrations, the Romanians took to the streets again. The government said that it would not budge, but the people returned to demonstrate again and again every day, and today the government finally decided to abandon its decree. I hope that people in certain other countries will learn from this.
