A few words about Romanian politics

There is one question I have on my mind today - and guys, I hope you will forgive me if I write again about Romania and about politics at the same time.

The question is this : is Romania similar to its political class ? Do Romanians deserve the politicians who represent them ?

The latest event leading me to this question is the recent bribery scandal in the EU Parliament. One Romanian member of the European parliament, the social-democrat Adrian Severin, was filmed while demanding a bribe to some British journalists. The bribe, of course, was not demanded as such by the deputy in question, it was demanded as "consultancy services", and an invoice of 12,000 euros was issued.

Many people in Romania discussed a lot about the fact that Adrian Severin is one of the most important members of the Social-Democrat Party and one of its main ideologues. That is not completely irrelevant, indeed, but the most relevant fact to me is that Adrian Severin, member of the European Parliament and leader of the Social-Democrat Party in Romania, former Foreign Affairs minister and a recent candidate for a post of European Commissar, started his public career as member of the Communist Party and professor at the Romanian Communist Party Academy, in the 80s. He was a member of the nomenklatura, but it is important to understand he was not a member of any nomenklatura, he was a member of the ideological nomenklatura, he was one of the persons responsible with the ideology.

This distinction is very important:  there were two millions of members of the Romanian Communist Party, but there were only a few thousands privileged guys of the -in Orwellian terms - Interior Party. And only a few dozens of them were teaching the rest the ideology.

Until recently, I did not consider this fact very important, but I discovered a few years ago that some professors at the faculty where I studied for my post-graduate studies had had something to do with the Party Academy and that most of them had been obviously involved with the Communist Intelligence Service. I also discovered they were clever - and I mean, really clever - and that they did not like to talk about the communist period and about their personal involvement with the ideology of the regime. My recent surprise was to discover that there is an extended ideological literature produced by these persons during the '70s and the '80s. And the conclusion: most of the members of the Communist ideological nomenklatura did very well after the fall of official Communism - and Adrian Severin is but one of them. The others are still there. Many of them had to do with the politics and one of them was exposed in Bruxelles during the last week. Were this to happen in Romania, it would have been forgotten as soon as possible.

So, you see, de-Communization as a organized system of sanity of mind never existed in Romania after 1989 and portions of evil still exist now. Which makes de-Communization still necessary today, just as it ever was.

I was tempted to say until recently Romanians deserve their political class. And perhaps I said it; perhaps sometime I'll say it again, when I'll be really angry and concerned.

But to say this thing would only excuse the members of the Interior Party, recycled, disguised into democrat politicians, business-men or intellectuals. This would only make their game - which consist of transforming the entire Romanian society into their accomplice and, at the same time, into their victim.

Thus I cannot do that. I am not their accomplice, and I don't want to become their victim either. No, Romania is not similar to its political class. No, Romanians do not deserve this kind of politicians. I confess: I could not keep my mouth shut this time anymore.

These are just my two cents.

Kindle your mind.

PS: This upside down picture was taken in Bucharest, in January. It is related to the subject: Romanian politics are oriented upside-down as well ...