25 Years Later: Communist Romania and the Romanian Revolution... through the Eyes of a Child (Part 3)

        

    
   After Part 1 and Part 2, when I tried to give you an everyday life picture of Romania during the communist regime, here we are with the last post. Objectively speaking, communism did have its good points, and some of these values still have an imprint in the mentality and behaviour of many Romanians, especially if they are past a certain age. But the bad outweighted the good, especially during the last phase, and things couldn't go on, especially with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and because all the Warsaw Pact countries in Central and Eastern Europe had already abolished their own communist regime. We didn't know much about it at that time - you can imagine that the Romanian media were not saying much, or at maximum they were downplaying what was going on. 

          In Romania, the Revolution started in the western city of Timisoara, on the 16th of December 1989, but Ceausescu attempted again to conceal the facts to the population. Did the "grown-ups" (a.k.a. my parents, grandparents, neighbours, and other relatives) know anything? Well, you can imagine that nobody was telling ME anything. And, later on, I actually found out that they only heard things "from the grapevine", so not as official information. 

          I only realized what was going on when Ceausescu escaped. Not a second earlier. And it was precisely today, 22nd of December, 25 years ago. I was at home, playing in the living room, when a group of revolutionaries, which included some famous people, appeared on TV. At first, I didn't pay attention, but their final words struck, and I will remember that scene for the rest of my life: "The dictator has escaped! (...) We won!" Cue for general euphoria. What dictator (the first time I heard this word, as you can imagine nobody would have dared to call Ceausescu like this)? Who won? My mother started to cry, and I understood that something really sad, drammatic, or life-transforming had happened. Then, I was quickly filled in: during the past few days there was some sort of war in our country, and many people died. We left the apartment, on the hallways: general euphoria among the neighbours in our appartment building as well. "He escaped! He escaped!" Who the frick escaped?? Later, we saw on TV the images of demonstrators in the center of Bucharest, shouting the words: "Jos Ceausescu!" ("Down with Ceausescu!") and "Ole-ole-ole, Ceausescu nu mai e!" ("Ole-ole-ole, Ceausescu is not here anymore!"), as well as ripping or burning the portraits of Ceausescu and his wife. The "communist" coat of arms had been removed from our national flag, so now it was red, yellow and blue with a hole in the middle.              
       At that time we used to live quite far from the city center, so in our neighbourhood nothing was really going on. The big manifestations and episodes of street violence were happening in the center of Bucharest, around University Square (Piata Universitatii), around the Central Committee headquarters, where Ceausescu escaped from (now called Piata Revolutiei - Revolution Square), and around the most circulated areas of the city. Sometimes, even in our neigbourhood we could hear rifles and cannons. We had to lie down, on the floor or on the bed, so in case a bullet penetrated a window, we wouldn't be hit. It was scary and exciting at the same time, and sometimes even funny, as we have, for example, stories of some of our neigbours tripping over each other on the floor, in the dark, in a desperate attempt to lie down. At some other point, there was the allarm that water was poisoned. Cue for all friends and family members calling and warning each other in the middle of the night. But with further verification, it was proved that it was a false allarm. 

          Was I scared? Only after I started seeing images of dead bodies on TV (yes, they were showing them, filming from the morgue). More than a thousand lives were lost, but we hardly know why and how. Children, youngsters, army officers and civilians, men and women of all ages. People didn't know who was who, and whose side the other person was on. Random shooting in the street, in public buildings, or in other public places. There was talk of "terrorists", but nobody knew who they were. Rumour had it that they were not Romanian, and they were completely dressed in black.  Yeah, whatever, find them if you can! Children were on holiday and were advised not to leave the house, but adults were not, and they still had to go to work, and even do special shifts. Sometimes, they could hear shootings from unclear directions, and all they could do was keep walking or run and hide. At home, people were crying while cooking sarmale and sausages for Christmas, and at the same time watching funeral procession pass towards the cemetery. Actually, a children's park was turned into a cemetery and it became the Cemetery of the Revolution Heroes. 

     When Ceausescu was executed, I was home alone with my friend and neighbour, who is just a few years older than me. And our playing with dolls session was disrupted by the trial on TV. And we saw it. It was spooky, but somehow I felt that the Romanian nation was happy, and that "justice was done". I had understood, during the past few days, that Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were "bad people", so they deserved to die. Do I think the same now? No. But, given what had already happened in all former communist countries, it would have been historically and geopolitically impossible for us to remain a communist country. And, unlike other political leaders, I wouldn't have imagined Ceausescu resigning peacefully and voluntarily. But I wouldn't have killed them. I think recovering them in a sanatory for mental illness would have been a better option, as the harshest, yet humaine decision.
        We celebrated Christmas and New Year with our neighbours, we were still nice and elegant, with our traditional food and season's entertainment. But something felt different. We had gotten rid of the bad guy, and from now on we were a free country and everything in Romania will be perfect. Or at least, so we thought. But let us dream free for now! ;)  
        After Ceausescu's death things around the country started to calm down, but not straight away. I remember that I only left the house for a walk in our neighbourhood after the 1990 New Years Eve, on the occasion of a much-welcome visit from my grandparents. And I was scared to go out. "Grandpa, what about terrorists?" And I was told that... they are not here anymore, and they're hiding in the mountains. Ok, then! Deal done! ;)

     And the rest is history. Do we miss Ceausescu? Definitely not! Although some people (especially the elderly) regret those days in which everybody had a job and social inequalities were unperceivable, I'm sure that nobody would REALLY want him back. 
       Now we have democracy, what will we do with it? The first years after the Revolution also saw various phases, as a transition from communism to capitalism, but we will talk about them in later posts. But what I really want is for us (Romanian people, myself included) to honor all those people who lost their lives, more or less randomly, and certianly unfairly, by making the most of our country and our lives, even if our attempts in these 25 years may not have been the most successful. All hope is not lost, and all we can do is look forward!

25 Years Later: Communist Romania and the Romanian Revolution... through the Eyes of a Child (Part 2)

   

 And here we are, back in the house, with more stories and anecdotes about Romanian life during the communist regime. For those of you who missed Part 1, we have been talking about the so-called "adoration" for Nicolae Ceausescu and the restrictions that Romanians had to face in everyday life, as well as the alternative solutions they made recourse to in order to avoid hardship. 

     How about school and work? Well, one thing I can tell you is that there was a certain sense of discipline and commitment, which today has disappeared almost completely. When the Revolution arrived, I was barely in the second grade of primary school, but it was enough for myself and my generation to have those values related to school and study inoculated. In brief, school was serious business. Children and teenagers HAD to study, and have good grades, and have a general knowledge, and take part in all the activities which took place outside school hours, such as trips or voluntary work. We wore uniforms, and they were of several types. In kindergarten, we were Soimii Patriei (Falcons of the Country), with orange shirts, and blue skirts/trousers and hats. Later, in primary school, we became Pionieri (Pioneers), everything being marked by a special ceremony, in which we had to take an oath. To us, it was a big deal, and we were happy about it. Our uniforms consisted of white shirts and black skirts/trousers, white beret, and red tie (photo). Plus, children with the best grades were chosen as commanders, which also had various grades, to each of them corresponding a ribbon of a different colour. Everything at school was somehow "ceremonious", much more formal than these days, but in a way it made you proud and it made you want to take things seriously. Were there any incentives? Just honour and moral recognition. But that was more than enough for us. 

      As far as work was concerned, I have already told you in the last post that everyone had a job. Moreover, one of the things that communism did, ideologically speaking, was to promote and place added value on the working class and country life. Nowadays, everyone aspires to go to university, to live in the city, and to have a high-brow job or business. But at that time, all the professions mattered and were respected. And that was reflected even in children's literature of that time, or school books - I actually remember that many (adult) characters of those text were builders, coal miners, factory workers, and so forth. Even if you went to university, after graduation you were assigned a workplace, which might have been in a city (often different from your city of birth), or in the country-side. As far as I know, this distribution of professionals varied according to university grades and according to workplaces which became available following the retirement of predecessors. How many teachers and doctors were sent to the country-side, becoming even subject of comedy movies! :)
     All work and no play? Definitely not! However, fun was conceived on a micro-universe, rather than macro. What do I mean? It was less likely for us to go to a bar, or to a disco, or to the restaurant. Instead, the best fun consisted of house parties or visits among friends and family members. Music, dancing, lots of home-made food (which is always better than the one at the restaurant), everything combined with the privacy of our own homes, avoiding to mix with unwanted crowd. The only impediment was the level of tollerance of your own neighbours, which might have been high or low. :) We have to mention that this practice lasted well into the 1990s, and we still like it, if we are given the chance. 
     Television did not play an important part in our everyday methods of entertainment, as we only had two hours of TV programme each day, apart from Sunday, which at that time it was the only free day of the week. Many people, in absence of television, turned to books and radio, and sometimes, a "clandestine" consumption of foreign movies and TV shows on videotapes, mostly offered by people who were lucky enough to travel abroad, then passed on from person to person and recorded. 
        What about holidays? Travelling abroad for pleasure was not really an option, apart from the other communist countries. Luckily enough, Romania is a very self-contained country in terms of holiday destinations, so we still had a wide variety of places to go to on holiday: seaside, mountains, Danube Delta, and so much more. The rare cases of travelling to the capitalist western world needed to have a serious reason behind it - you would go through formal invitation, or being sent there for work purposes. Romanian professionals were travelling in groups, and they were under surveillance from the Information Service (Securitate), in order not to do anything dangerous or detrimental to the communist regime, or not to attempt escaping. In general, there was a person within the group who was in charge of providing information to authorities, if anything was suspect. Contacts with foreigners also had to be limited to the minimum necessary, such as workplace interaction. But friendship with foreigners did not have to be cultivated outside work. People who had the chance to travel to the capitalist countries, for whatever duration or purpose, had a tough shock to bear. The abbundance on the foreign market, the shops full of everything you could possibly wish for, the elegant and fashionable people with fancy cars (as opposed to our good-old Dacia), in contrast with the scarcity that Romania was facing, represented yet another proverbial "nail in the coffin" for Ceausescu and his regime. 
      In the meantime, at home everything was getting tougher and increasingly absurd. Warm water, electricity and heat in the house were rationalized, and often entire neighbourhoods were left in the dark, or people had to go to bed all wrapped up like for an expedition to the North Pole. Not to mention the demolishing of houses and villas, in order to restructure the cities. Apartment blocks were being built, and the people whose houses were demolished were being given an apartment instead (this one actually happened to my grandparents, and many other people I know). 
       So, as you can see, it is not like we were being tortured, or starving, or living an overall traumatizing life. Some things were good and we regret them (especially older generations), such as the approach to school and work, but some things made our world very limited, and, I would add, unnecessarily limited. Some things were scary, some of them were sad, and some things we just laugh them off today, but at that time they were really annoying. And we endured, and endured, but at some point, it all needed to crash. 

(photo: www.muzeulcotroceni.ro) 
         
     

      

25 Years Later: Communist Romania and the Romanian Revolution... through the Eyes of a Child (Part 1)

    

      In these days Romania is going through a period of remebrance: 25 years have passed since the Romanian Revolution against communism. We could say that we celebrate 25 years of freedom, but also that we commemorate 25 years since thousands of innocent lives were lost during the fight for a democratic Romania. 

   Many of my foreign friends have asked me a lot of questions about what was life during communism really like, or how did I experience the Revolution. I will not explain you what happened from the historical point of view, as that information is available everywhere. What I will do instead is tell you how I used to see things at that time, as a kid who still does not understand every "heavyweight" detail, but at the same time, is old enough to have some quirky and sometimes-too-direct opinions about things. And then, I will add my current opinions as an adult. 

     In the first two parts, we will talk about the communist Romania that I witnessed, the Romania of the 1980s - the good, the bad, and the just plain ridiculous. Then, part three will be about those couple of weeks of Revolution in December 1989, which I remember with a mix of fear, rage, sorrow, but also happiness. 

     My generation colleagues and myself grew up being taught to worship Nicolae Ceausescu. His picture on the walls of every institution, his picture on the first page of every school book, of course culminating with kindergarten and school festivities full of poems and songs dedicated to our beloved "tovaras". Back then, I admit I did not understand why all this adoration... because I didn't feel all that love in my little heart. Really! I mean, I hadn't even met the guy once - it's not that he came over to our place to play with me, or have dinner with us, or take me to the park, did he? He was not my grandad, or my uncle, or my friend. Why, oh, why was I supposed to love him so much? Plus, any uncomfortable questions I may have asked my parents used to be met with "reconciliatory" remarks. For example, once I asked what is going to happen after he dies, and the answer was something along the lines of: "Come on, he's about the same age as your grandparents! You don't want him to die soon, do you?" Whatever... Or that time when I dared to say that his wife, Elena, was ugly. And she was, let's not kid ourselves! But I was categorically contradicted. Later I actually found out that you had to be extra-careful what you were gossiping about them, because you never knew who could hear you, and the fact that microphones were installed in the walls of buildings is something we all believe. 

           

        However, it seemed that grown-ups secretly hated him too. After all, he was a shoe-maker turned president, who wanted to be the center of the universe, but whose general knowledge and grammar skills left a lot to be desired. The result? Numerous jokes about his low intelligence and embarrassing manners, especially in relation to other political leaders. Needless to say that these jokes were being told in a very subtle way, in order not to be easily understood from "outside". 

       Were Romanians poor? No, but we were very limited from the material point of view. Everyone had a job. The hardest part was to be accepted at university, as places within faculties were centralized and limited according to the country's needs for certain types of professionals at that particular point in time. But once you graduated, you could be sure that you had a job assured. Job promotions and salary growth were happening automatically, after a certain number of years. Some salaries were bigger than others, but everything was far from the drammatic discrepancies between the rich and the poor which we have in today's society. Each family was allowed to have only one house and one car. And everyone could afford pretty much the same things.

       However, we might have had enough money, but there was not much choice of things to buy. If you entered, let's say, a food shop, you'd be surprised to see only a couple of types of meat, or cheese, or three packs of butter placed far away from one another, in order to make the window seem full. And once in a blue moon, when something different from the usual supply was arriving, people were queuing. And they were numerous. And everything had to be enough for everyone, so products were rationalized. Therefore, the queue had also become a place where people socialized. :) Clothes stores were selling the same style of clothes everywhere - not "uniforms", but neither the wide variety of things that nowadays divide us into fashion icons and fashion disasters. And the price for a specific product was the same accross the country.
   However, as far as food is concerned, the fridge of the average Romanian family was hardly ever empty. Why? Because, as the creative nation that we are, in times of difficulty we make recourse to alternative solutions. Such as, for example, becoming friends with the shop assistant, who would always save some stuff for you whenever the shop was supplied. Or, if someone worked at a factory which produced consumer goods, it was impossible for them not to get hold of some of these goods for themselves, but also for their family and friends. Or, if you were lucky enough to have a family member travelling abroad (rare and interesting cases, but we'll talk about it later), they would also come home full of goodies for the entire family - even better than Santa Claus!  

      Why? I mean, even after all these years, I don't find too much logic in that. Ok, you wanted to pay the country's public debt, and you wanted a modern infrastructure for this country. Fair enough! But was all this "circus" of forced limitation necessary? Romania was exporting a lot of consumer goods and industrial products, but, at the same time, its citizens were struggling, by using the most "twisted" techniques in order to ensure themselves a decent lifestyle. Yes, they were succeeding, but it was not normal. Especially given the fact that in other communist countries such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary or Bulgaria things used to be far better than for us. So, no wonder Romanians had become increasingly angry with Ceausescu and his regime!

      In Part 2 we will be talking about leisure time activities, attitude towards school and work, and travelling abroad. Stay tuned! :) 

(photo: www.cutezatorii.ro; caricature: www.elenaciric.ro) 

    

Sinterklaas, Zwarte Piet and Racist Controversies

           

    With the holiday season starting, I decided to dedicate this month mainly to season's traditions from around the world. What happens for Christmas, New Year and other similar holidays, in various countries? 

          However, I am going to begin with a holidays' controversy, generated by the celebration of Sinterklaas, one of the most important winter celebrations in the Netherlands. The celebration is taking place on the night of St. Nicholas, 5th to 6th of December, and also has analogue celebrations in other countries. The elderly religious figure of Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas), whose mission is to bring presents to the children, is accompanied by his helper and travel companion, Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). And things have been this way for generations. Some say Piet is a slave from a former colony, some say he is a Moor who came from Spain, and some say his face is just dirty of soot as he came down the chimney. 

         As you might have already heard or imagined, many debates, protests and controversies have been going on during the recent years, around the symbol and identity of Zwarte Piet. Complaints have been focusing on the idea that this character encourages racism, or racist stereotypes portraying black people as slaves, and therefore this tradition is not "politically correct". However, are such concerns really motivated? In my opinion, children, as they are the main target for this celebration, would look at all this with innocent eyes, without creating polemics or over-analysing the meaning behind everything. They simply enjoy the celebration and all the friendly faces associated with it. 

         But perhaps I don't know much, as I am just an "outsider". Therefore, I asked some Dutch friends about it. I found out that the vast majority of Dutch people, regardless of skin colour, celebrate and enjoy Sinterklaas without problems, as everything is just a symbol and a tradition. As Piet is not a negative character, it does not encourage hatred or social exclusion towards black people. However, some black people living in the Netherlands might feel offended by the association with slavery. And the biggest possible danger would be if racist behaviour would arise around, or on the basis of this celebration. 

           Unfortunately, not everything happening or appearing in this world is "politically correct". Besides, compared to some stereotyping on various social categories reflected in the media, the celebration of Sinterklaas and the figure of Zwarte Piet is quite mild.  This is just an ancient tradition, and it would be a pity to be given up on. Should it be modified? How? Is there a way to keep everyone happy? Or should people just enjoy the celebration, take it for what it is, and without detracting negative meaning and creating controversies? 

(photo: Wikipedia)