Romania’s New Revolution
Common Sense Lights Up and Lifts Up A Whole Country
Tonight six hundred thousand people marched the streets of Romania. 50 cities. Many cities abroad — where Romanians live. Even neighbouring countries organised solidarity marches! Three hundred thousand in Bucharest only — creating a constellation in the square in front of the Government when they simoultaneously lit up the flashlights on their phones, singing the national anthem in thundering voices, carrying thousands of national flags, an explosion of color and creative slogans, some offering warm tea to their protesting peers, others food, yet others carrying garbage bags to clean up after the protests — just as they have done for the past 6 days.
What happens now in my small country in Eastern Europe is nothing short of a miracle.
This is a country which has carried, for the past 27 years, the heavy legacy of half a century of communism. Corrupt governments have succeeded one-another. Every time people voted for other political parties but the ruling left (the largest — social-democrat — political party that appeared right after the 1989 Revolution and was — still is — filled with people tied, if not directly, at least in mentality, to the communist regime), they were disappointed. The alternatives proved to be as rotten as what they were trying to escape by placing their votes elsewhere. Greedy politicians succeeded greedy politicians and the Romanian voter felt more and more resigned with every election cycle. As the years went by, voting numbers dropped. Older people kept going to the polls, prompted by inertia or the electoral promises for some 30 euros added to their petty pensions. Younger people, like me, got more and more disenchanted with exercising their citizen rights and their numbers at the polls kept dropping. We rationalized our absence by saying we had nobody to vote for — “they are all the same, corrupt. So, why bother?”. We built cosy bubbles, made possible by the career prospects multinational companies brought to Romania — where they saw the opportunity presented by its educated, cheap labour force. Young people started travelling, opened up their horizons, built careers, businesses and a decently comfortable life-style and became less and less interested in political life — which, all the while, took on a life of its own. The unspoken convention when it came to politicians became — “as long as they don’t bother us, they can steal whatever they want”. And they did.
All the while, democratic, often external forces, pushed Romania onto an European path. Sometimes despite ourselves, we hurdled along and became members of NATO and, in 2007, of the EU. We often thought of ourselves, as perhaps did the other European countries, as a sort of Cinderella of the European Union. The poorest country — always “competing” with Bulgaria for last place. We exported cheap labour into other countries and also a very bad name as, quite often, foreigners mistook honest, diligent Romanian workers for not so honest hustlers, pick-pockets and beggers that also took the streets of rich, civilized cities, in search of some easy money. Within Europe, “Romanian” often came to be assimilated with “Rroma” — a minority blamed for a lot of misdemeanours abroad — and we ourselves came to turn a critical, often sarcastical or even cynical eye on our co-nationals.
This opening up the borders and economic prosperity that came with EU integration only served to strengthen the “bubble” the educated middle class had built for itself and deepened its divide from the rest of society. We lived in our own Facebook powered little world, sharing cute pictures of our kids, happy vacation moments in some exotic place, self-development articles, job frustrations. Many of us left abroad, to work in highly paying jobs in civilized countries. Those of us who stayed, created our own little Romania, that our governing class had no clue about. They didn’t know we existed, except when we paid taxes to support the state pensions for the ever-growing number of elderly people, and we liked to pretend they didn’t exist either.
Meanwhile, politicians kept selling themselves to their voters every four years using the same dusty lies, the same electoral bribes, the same empty promises.
Then something happened. It started in November 2015, when a terrible fire started during a rock concert in a Bucharest club — “Colectiv”. Tens of people died on the spot, hundreds were injured. Bucharest hospitals couldn’t cope with the great number of severely burned victims, all of whom required special aseptic conditions that the hospitals simply didn’t have. Many contacted infections — the death toll rose abruptly. Few were saved by being sent abroad, where they could be treated properly. 64 died in the end. Many more left crippled for life.
The “Colectiv” tragedy shocked Romania. Almost everyone in the Facebook bubble had a friend or acquaintance that died there. The event sparked a wave of revolt against a corrupt system that made that tragedy possible. Negligent authorities that had failed to make sure the club was safe, a faulty management of the crisis, hospitals and a Ministry of Health that lied when asked if they could treat the wounded (all lies meant to hide the ugly truth of rampant corruption that left the hospitals without proper conditions for patients, while powerful people in the health system were getting rich) until it was too late and many of them started dying. All this led to protests — the middle class took to the streets by the tens of thousands. The social-democrat government resigned. A government of technocrats was appointed — meant to ensure governance for the remaining year up to new parliamentary elections.
What followed was, for many, a year of surprising, almost surreal normalcy. A non-political government that tried to lead the country by standards many of us thought possible only within a private company. Transparency. Hard work. Debureaucratisation. Increasing EU funds absorbtion. Unblocking infrastructure works. Transparent competitions for heads of institutions, instead of political nominations. Initiatives to involve civil society in the act of governance —tens of professional IT people were offered scholarships and hundreds more volunteered for the largest program of digitalisation of the administration the country had ever seen. Many people from the NGO or private sector left their jobs to become govenment employees and to lend a hand in this tremendous effort to push the country forward in record time.
All laudable effort. Sadly time was too short for what might have become a truly seismic change to register at the very bottom of society. The knots that had been build in the administration for 26 years were too intricate, the cliques too tight to be broken in a year, even with the best of intentions and the hardest of work.
Elections came. As usual, young people stayed home. Less than 40% of the population voted. The good old social democrat party won over 40% of those votes. So, with an overall percentage of 18% of the total voting population, they came back with a vengeance and with boasting promises to raise salaries, pensions, lower taxes and practically give people the moon in the sky.
The Facebook bubble was resigned. Many of them voted. Yet many, mostly the very young, had stayed home because they felt they had no alternatives or simply didn’t yet care enough to go to the polls. The new government was installed. And then all hell broke loose.
Less than a month after they came to power, right after, with great publicity, announced all promised income raises and tax cuts (not mentioning that there were not enough money in the budget to sustain them all), one Tuesday, at 10 pm, they passed, in secret, an ordinance effectively decriminalising power abuse under the sum of 45000 EUR. The ordinance was published in the official paper at 1:30 am. It was a ticket to freedom for thousands of current and former government officials and politicians, either convicted of theft from public money or in the process of being convicted. One of the main beneficiaries — the head of the social-democrat party. The ordinance also mentioned that no public servant passing a law that favoured criminals could be convincted. So not only was it a way to clear every corrupt politician of past offences, but a blank cheque — moreover, an invitation — to further abuse and legalised theft from public money.
What the government didn’t realise was that news travels fast in the Facebook bubble. By the time they finished their government meeting, 15000 people had spontaneously gathered in front of the Government building, asking them to drop the ordinance. That was six days ago.
What followed was a battle of wills — the voice of the street getting louder by the day. The government ignoring it. 50000, 100000, 200000, 300000. More and more cities joined. Suddenly Romania seemed to awaken from it’s 27 year slumber. There was a show of solidarity as the country had never seen since the 1989 Revolution that freed us from communism.
People started coming to Victory Sqare almost as a ritual. Every night, after they finished their jobs, tens and tens of thousands came to shout together in the freezing cold. On the second night there were incidents — the peaceful protest broken by 100 vandals who engaged the police. The peaceful protesters returned to the Square after the violences had stopped to clear up the garbage the vandals left behind.
As the days dragged on, the street got smarter, braver, kinder to one another and ever more committed to its goal to stop theft and corruption in this country once and for all. The protest became a case study in creativity, solidarity, peacefulness and civility.
A “march of the children” was organised one morning — 8000 families came. Every evening, people brought hot tea or food to offer others in the Square, coffee shops offered free drinks for protesters, pizza shops nearby offered free pizza, people started coming to the Square with whistles and flags to give away, they organised on Facebook to make the Square a vibrant, colorful, soulful place. Companies offered to help — somebody brought a huge projector which projected key messages on a nearby block of buildings. This made it possible for the masses to syncronise. They started singing the national anthem every night at 10 pm sharp, after 2 minutes of utter silence. If silence in a square with 150000 people doesn’t give you the chills, nothing will! If one didn’t know this was a protest, the most passionate the country had ever seen, one might think there was some sort of mammoth celebration happening each evening, with all the people smiling and groups of friends everywhere. Every night, after the protest, volunteers cleaned up the Square, leaving it spotless. One would never know 150000 people had been there only an hour before.
Yesterday, reluctantly, the Prime Minister announced that the government would withdraw the ordinance. All the while 160000 people chanted, whistled and shouted outside. He didn’t admit any mistake and made it seem a sort of a favour to the street and a proof of the governing party’s generosity and goodwill, of their heartfelt desire to not see “Romania divided” — as they put it. But to the tens of thousands in the Square Romania had never looked more united.
People lost their faith in the government. The protest was no longer about the ordinance, although its withdrawal was a victory for the street. It became about a way of being, a way of living in a country that deserves, after 27 years, to grow and flourish without the shadow of rampant corruption stunting its progress at every step.
The Facebook bubble burst and tonight 600000 people spilled on the streets in every major city. The biggest protest in the history of Romania, a country with less than 19 million inhabitants. In Bucharest 300000 came out — 10% of the city’s population. In other major cities more than 30% of the population came out in the streets — all shouting their discontent and desire for profound change.
People don’t want the ruling party taken down. They just want its corrupt and abusive members to step down, they want a new, clean government, whose members are professionals with no skeletons in their closets. They want fair laws. They want honesty and transparency from their leaders. They want to be governed, not robbed. And they will come out in the Square every evening, until that happens. They finally found their voice and already know the bubble is much bigger than they had ever thought. At a time in world and European history when values are challenged, the world is shaken to its core and in deep need to revisit its deepest beliefs about what humanity really is, our voice in this little corner of Europe might matter more than we ever dreamed possible.
Cinderella turned into a princess and she’s not looking back!
