Romania’s Gentle Revolution
The more they silence us, the louder we speak.
Sunday, 15th of September, over twenty thousand people marched on the streets of Bucharest, five thousand more than one week ago. Cyclists in front, followed by mothers pushing their babies’ strollers and then by an amazingly colourful crowd, one kilometre long, chanting what has become the hymn of this protest: “United, we save Roșia Montană”. They also chanted “Come out of your houses, if you care” inviting curious bystanders to join the march.
Over twenty thousand people on Medium read the story of this new generation who has, for the past two weeks, come out in the streets every single night for an idea — that nature should be worth more than money. I received messages of support from people on the other side of the world who perhaps have hardly heard about Romania before, but who felt touched by the depth and authenticity of what is now happening in my country. A generation has come of age and every Sunday seems to be another rite of passage.
These young revolutionaries are heavily armed with drums, whistles and rattles improvised from thousands of plastic bottles filled with pebbles. Sunday Bucharest was alive with the roar of their voices. The old city vibrated in the rythm of their drums and chants. Suddenly the grey metropolis seemed a bit more colourful, a bit more youthful, filled with an energy it hasn’t seen in over two decades, every since the parents of these young people came out in the streets for another cause. Twenty three years ago they risked their lives, many sacrificed them, to end a regime of terror which had lasted for fourty years and whose scars are still visible now, as their children have come of age.
Now the sons and daughters of those people who were brave enough to say NO to Communism are saying NO again. They are saying NO to corrupt politicians who are being bought off by a foreign corporation on a quest for Romania’s gold. They are saying NO to mainstream media who, in exchange for millions of dollars in advertising money from that same corporation, are boycotting protests, relating false information about the size of the manifestations and manipulating public opinion in the most callous way imaginable.
Despite all setbacks, protesters have organized themselves on Facebook and have ingeniously used all Internet channels to spread the message. That’s how twenty thousand people in Bucharest, the thousand in Cluj and thousands more in other cities and abroad were able to come out in the streets perfectly coordinated, with coherent messages and demands.
Romania’s Prime Minister hasn’t found the time to speak to protesters in Bucharest. He did find the time to go to Roșia Montană and appease twenty two (yes, 22) discontent miners employed by the very corporation twenty thousand people were marching against. He was shown on TV going in the mine dressed in the uniform of the Corporation.
Now mainstream media is trying to boycott the protests through the very channels it has originated from — Internet. Tonight one of the major TV channels has withdrawn from Youtube a video where one of its leading “journalists” is unmasked as a fraud — expressing contradictory opinions around similar topics, depending on whose political interests he was serving at the time. The video had become viral in the past days. It was reposted several times and several times withdrawn for “copyright claims”.
What these so called media moguls don’t yet really understand is that the force and creativity born from the natural synergy of thousands of people cannot be matched by strategies devised by some PR person in their glass cubicle. Ad-hoc journalists acting from belief will never be surpassed by “professional” ones acting out of financial interests. Free articles will always be more juicy than paid ones.
The respective video is just an example — it’s now available on Facebook — and it will be reposted many times more if they manage to take it down again. The video is in Romanian, but that should be of no concern for our English speaking supporters — it’s contents are unimportant. The message on censorship is what matters.
Censorship has this awkward quality of acting like a boomerang — always coming back against those who use it. By censoring a banal video which, after a few days of popularity on Facebook, would have been replaced by other news, this TV station has managed to give protesters a new motive to become even more creative, even better organized, even more relentless in their drive to spread their message far and wide within and beyond Romania.
