Political analysts for several days have been examining the result of the November 26 elections. They set forth dozens of hypotheses in an attempt to explain the new balance of political forces in Romania.
The ones who won their "piece of freedom" back in '89 are ready to give it up for the economic and social security pledged by PRM (Great Romania Party). A feeling of anxiety has spread around the country. Youths between 18-29 years have chosen "a new type of freedom."
Growing violence on the outskirts but also in schools, demonstrations against reform of social security, strikes, poor public services, students' discontentment, accelerated erosion of governments, PRM's durable establishment in the political landscape, are multiple symptoms, of very different nature, which are proving it. But how to go beyond the status of mere observer?
A simple enumeration of general statements concerning the accentuated lack of civic spirit and the collapse of moral values, the non-governability of Romanian society or the economic crisis, will not make the diagnosis advance. Evaluating the situation, understanding it or finding potential solutions does not help either.
Obviously, the new anxiety of Romanians is not connected only with the result of elections. First of all, it is connected with the mass unemployment (around 10%), whose persistence fosters the double feeling of a loss of identity and of an accentuated incertitude as concerns the future. And I doubt that those youths between 18-29 years have not thought about the future.
At the same time, we feel that the phenomenon is more profound and complex. The social structure itself, as well as the collective representations, are being destroyed in secret.
Romanians no longer know who they are, to which group they belong, what ties them to each other. They no longer know where they are heading to and they fear they will live worse tomorrow than they do today.
The vote cast on November 26 achieved the nature of a protest. This can be explained both through the individual transgression of the civic and social contract, as well as through the generalised mistrust as to political, economic or opinion leaders, through the febrile or joyful outbursts of nationalism or xenophobia.
I have heard several analysts reproving those who went to polls: "They have not thought about the future of their children." In fact, their elder "brothers" (between 18 and 29 years) have started to believe in "a new freedom."
Unable to grasp the real sources of this anxiety, they tend to understand the future only under the double face of renunciation and blind denial.
Two visions of the world, equally negative, have simultaneously started to show up in Romania: on one hand, a sort of fatality supported by a fake optimism as concerns the inevitable nature of economic reforms. On the other hand, the forceful resurrection of past regrets anchored in neo-communism and nationalism.
The anxiety of contemporary Romania is triggered mainly by two sufferings. The most visible is the one arising from economic disorders. But there is also the one that, more hidden, refers to the devastating effects of individualism, accentuated in the period of transition. The crisis undergone by Romanians is at the same time a crisis of civilisation and of the individual.
"The enriched people of transition" have sharpened the sensibility to differences. In fact, the Romanian society is now faced with two types of inequalities (pointed out in different terms).
Persistent inequalities mainly are pointed out by statistics concerning the distribution of incomes, houses, access to public utilities etc. The figures currently set forth by ICCV for the "daily basket" of subsistence confirm that the process of impoverishment is speeding up.
But they started to be accompanied by new forms, which are so much more intensely felt by individuals as they are less advertised in the media.
Our fellow countrymen perceive very well these subterraneous mutations, not always understood by our politicians from the height of the protected comfort in which they live. These new inequalities as well as these new forms of suffering are not actually taken into account in the political discourse.
Many Romanians find out that political discourses and actions are less and less connected to the problems they are facing every day, as if politics and society walk on two different roads.
The result was a great deception and a deep feeling of injustice that fueled the political discourse (filled with a perverted populism) of PRM leader. I find myself forced to enounce the unbearable truth that we are facing the danger to take the same path followed by Romania after '30 and by Austria after '90.
It is true, the danger is not imminent, and the current situation is not the same as before WWII. And yet, even though the road may be long, it is one that makes more difficult the return as you move along it.
If in the long term we are the builders of our own destiny, in the short term we are the prisoners of our own ideas. Therefore, only if we see the danger in time we can hope to avoid it.
Doctrinaires studying the movement of ideas from Romania point out the directions taken by them: national-socialism. Analysing the situation with lucidity, we notice that exactly the people of good faith, people that used to be admired and given as example in their country, have opened the path, or they have actually given birth to national-socialist forces, which are standing now for everything they despise.
The so-called democratic parties, and first of all PDSR (Party of Social-Democracy), stand only one chance to avoid sharing the same fate as Milosevic's Serbia: face the danger and be ready to revise even the most cherished hopes and ambitions if they prove to be a source for danger. For the time being, there are few signs that they have the intellectual courage to admit they have been wrong.
Few are willing to admit that the rise of nationalism and neo-socialism was not a reaction against Christian-Democratic tendencies over the period 1996-2000, but a result of those tendencies.
Even though the nationalist-socialist movement got to be widely acknowledged, most Romanians are not ready to admit this truth.
The result is that most people who think they are much above nationalist aberrations and are frankly despising its manifestations (anti-Magyarism, anti-Semitism etc.) are at the same time serving ideals that, if put into practice, would lead directly to the "government based on rifle."
The above-mentioned movement of ideas could be prevented if people realise in due time where their efforts might lead to. However, so far there has been only a weak hope that any attempt to make them see the danger could be successful.
Not only that the existence of the problem is widely acknowledged, but there are also special reasons which, in the given situation, are forcing a direct approach.
Some may say that this is not the right time to raise a problem that stirs fierce conflicts of opinions. Nonetheless, nationalism (that can degenerate into extremism) is not an option of PRM alone, and the problems we are tackling have too little to do with the actual matters of dispute between political parties.
The problem raised by us does not change if some parties or groups want less nationalism than others, if some of them want nationalism especially for the interest of a certain group, and others for the interest of another group.
The important aspect that should be considered here is that people whose opinions influence the way the situation develops in Romania have, more or less, "a certain dose of nationalism."
The necessity to head towards nationalism is accepted as a sure thing, and most people are only trying to use this movement for the interest of a segment or group. We are heading this way because many Romanians want it.
The essential question is where the nationalist movement will lead us. Is it possible for those people whose convictions currently stimulate this movement to start seeing what worries only a few people for the time being, and back off in horror, thus abandoning the quest that used to animate so many people of good faith?
The direction towards which these common beliefs of our generation will lead us is not the problem of only one party, but of the entire nation.
In our attempt to build our future according to certain elevated ideals, can we imagine a bigger tragedy than that of creating a reality totally opposed to the one we used to dream of?
At present, there is an even more serious reason to make efforts in order to identify the forces that created national-socialism: the need to understand who we are fighting with and the stake of this confrontation.
Nobody can deny that the positive ideals for which we are struggling are not clear enough yet. We know that Romanians want to be free and organise their lives according to their own ideas. Becoming aware of this aspect of our ideals is very important, but that is not enough.
When the evolution of civilisation and democracy in Romania is broken, when the progress we hoped for is unexpectedly replaced by troubled times, the first reaction is to blame somebody else, not ourselves.
After all, our efforts were guided by the idea of European integration, and the brightest minds were put at work in order to turn Romania into a better country.
All our efforts were aimed at enhanced freedom, justice and prosperity. As long as the result of these efforts is so different from our goals, as long as we are threatened by slavery and poverty instead of enjoying freedom and prosperity, isn't it clear enough that certain sinister forces compromised our plans?
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