A Philosophical Amble?

Photo: Camino Filosofico by Lorenzo Maddalena
@ http://goo.gl/hxKAD

My departure from the U.S. to Romania has left me slightly out of kilter.  As a student of history, I recognize the importance to understand the events of the past as well as the players in those events.  But myself and others in the U.S. still are confused about what happened and how life was during the communist period of Nicolae Ceaușescu.

I should begin with why I was confused.  I thought Romania a Slavic state and a former Soviet satellite; a buffer for the protection of Mother Russia.  With these assumptions, it seemed natural that Russian would have been an imposed second language and that Russification would be imposed, too.  Further, these assumptions conjured up forced repression with horrible periods lacking necessities; periods of no toilet paper, no bread, no basic items of survival; a run-down, poor state with little life left in it, prior to the revolution.  These false impressions existed because of my own experiences in former Soviet states, but also because of the lack of information that is conveyed between different states of the former Soviet buffer zone.  In essence, Romania was lumped into the Warsaw Pact states in my mind and no teacher ever pointed out the total falsity of such absurdities.  It was always understood Yugoslavia resisted Stalin, but Romania seems continuously the object of misinformation.  Even telling people today I live in Bucharest, a look of fear appears on their faces.  “Isn’t it dangerous?”  “Don’t they lack basic amenities for living?”  “Why there?”  “What do they have to offer?”

Befriending and working with Romanians who are open and honest about their experiences has shown me how grossly misinformed I was.  Now it is clear to me that Romania is not a Slavic state and it seems fair to say one of the good things Ceaușescu did was ensure the departure of Soviet troops from its soil.  I discovered Romania, to a degree, was open to the idea of Western influences and not shackled to the Comintern.  With my basic assumptions completely blown out of the water, why would I think other thoughts held any validity?  Questions led to realizations: Ceaușescu worked to foster ties with both the U.S. and Soviet Russia, recognized both Israel and the PLO, befriended China (whose only other ally was Albania), condemned the Soviet squashing of the Prague Spring, stopped participation in the Warsaw Pact, and borrowed billions of dollars from Western partners to create infrastructure to develop the nation.  Cheery and cheeky or purposely devilish to take advantage of Western hopes and fears?: Ceaușescu played a game that dangled hope for the West and provided grave suffering and tears for his people.

However, the picture does not stay rosy, as you well know.  The famines that came in the 1980s and violent revolution that overthrew a dictator, who had robbed a country of its light and joy, these were the final events of a dying regime.  I have read a book, The Land of Green Plums, by Herta Müller; a quasi-autobiographical account of life under a dictator.  One particular line stood out, “Our heads may have left home, but our feet are standing in a different village.   No cities can grow in a dictatorship, because everything stays small when it’s being watched.”1 How true this statement seems; Romania was deprived of infrastructure and locked into a medieval style of life that perpetuates into the 21st Century.  This essence of standing still still rings true today in the world, however Romania is free and no longer watched!  The fear and anguish that must have existed at that time is unimaginable to outsiders.  Trust no one, for Captain Pjele watches.2  The use of a single hair to ensure a letter undisturbed does not survive the scrutiny of an all-watching state.3  The dream of returning home no longer matters because no one is left waiting there anyway.4  Constant supervision drains the life and joys from people.  An unchanging government will slowly sink into eternal paranoia and back-track on all plausibly good intentions it may once have had.  And such a corrupt system will alter the acceptability of ethical rights, producing horrid atrocities to survive, to constant petty theft to fit in.5 Corruption from the top creates an illness in the society that takes decades to remove.  Can the corrupted lead in a new system?  Or do they continue the plague?

But today, as twenty years ago, I see hope, hope to challenge these dictatorial regimes and bring change forward.  The problem with change is as much as it is desired its outcome is never assured.  How many people here look back on the Ceaușescu days and wish for their return?  “When we don’t speak…we become unbearable, and when we do, we make fools of ourselves.”6  Change is similar.  The promise of something better is hard-pressed to live up to expectations in a quick and timely fashion.  Moving forward is difficult and challenging, but not moving at all is paddling in place.  My assumptions of Romania have all been proven wrong and I am happy to know more of the truth.  I imagine Romanians, those that lived the change, must see the revolutions occurring in the Middle East and think back to the days of their own -- the hope and the promise, maybe a realization that change has come, and though not as quickly as hoped, or as planned, that it came from the people, and it shall be continued by the people.  Let your experiences and history stand as an example of how to move forward and seek a better life; a better working life, a better living life, a better political life.