I'm having format problems with the blog and had to take down a previous post - here it is again
They say a picture is worth a thousand words – and documentaries can have an even more profound effect. I’ve just come across this documentary marking 30 years of democracy in Romania – made apparently 3 years ago. It’s a great introduction – with Romanians explaining the key events from 1988 with subtitles. My best friend (who is Romanian) tells me that it did, however, fail to deal with the continuing power of the security services over the political system.
I lived in Bulgaria and Romania between 2007 and 2017 – since then exclusively in Romania. For a decade I enjoyed crossing the Danube, with the last 100 km stretch of the drive on the highway through the Balkans and the sight of the Vitosha mountain which dominates Sofia always bringing a particular thrill. I wintered in Sofia and summered in my summer house in the Carpathian mountains – a picture of which heads this post In the 1990s there was an interesting body of literature known as “transitology” which was
effectively a retraining scheme for those in redundant Soviet and Eastern European studies University Departments as they tried to adjust to the new reality of “liberal democracy” and “free-market capitalism”. The integration of many of these countries into the European Union seemed to leave the others
in a state of suspended animation – still “transiting”. Except that the “integration” had not
gone as planned – some countries (such as Hungary and Poland) had clearly reneged on their commitments and were challenging the “rule of law” canons; and others (such as Bulgaria and Romania) had been unable to satisfy the monitors that they had even got to the required judicial standards. Indeed Philippe Schmitter, one of the doyens of the field, went so far in 2012 as to talk of “ambidextrous democratisation” Bulgaria's world-renowned political scientist Ivan Krastev has (with US Stephen Holmes)
written one of the surprisingly few books which attempt to assess the fortunes since 1989 of the eastern countries – although its primary concern seems more that of “the crisis of modern liberalism”. It’s entitled "The Light that Failed – a Reckoning”. The book starts with
a chapter on the psychological effects on central European countries of the “imitation game” they were forced to play and the demographic shock as millions left the country for a better future elsewhere; followed by one on how Putin’s Russia moved on in 2007 from imitation to “mirroring” Western hypocrisy; a chapter on Trump’s America; and a final one which takes in China.The authors argue that part of the nationalist reaction in Hungary and Poland was the shock
of realising that the European "normality" they had hoped for had been transformed into an agenda which included homosexuality, gay weddings and rights for Romas. But their emphasis on the “psychology of imitation” totally ignores the brazen way west European countries and companies exploited the opening which the collapse of communism gave them to extend their markets in both goods and people - with the consequences brilliantly dissected by Alexander
Clapp in a 2017 New Left Review article “Romania Redivivus”.
Talk of “transitology” disappeared more than a decade ago and was absorbed into the Anti-Corruption (or governance integrity) field which grew into a "name and shame" industry
- complete with league tables and Manuals. But the world seems to have perhaps grown weary
even of its talk… Alina Mungiu-Pippid is a Romanian social psychologist - appointed, in 2007, as Professor of
Democracy studies of the prestigious Hertie School of Governance in Berlin - with a unique understanding and knowledge of the issue. This was her blunt assessment in 2009 of the situation
in RomaniaUnfortunately, corruption in Romania is not only related to parties and businesses, but cutsacross the most important institutions of society. Romanian media has gradually been captured,
after having been largely free and fair at the end of the 1990s. After 2006,
concentration in media ownership continued to increase in Romania. Three owners
enjoy more than two-thirds of the TV political news market. As long as Romania was a
supplicant for entry to the EU, it had to jump through the hoops of “conditionality” to
satisfy Brussels it was behaving itself. When Poland, Hungary et al were let in in 2004,
the pressures started to relax – but The European Union’s Cooperation and Verification Mechanism
(CVM) replaced that conditionality in 2007 and Bulgaria and Romania are still subject of an
annual check of their legal and judicial health. Mungi-Pippidi therefore concluded her 2009
assessment with a simple observation -
At the end of day, “democracy promotion” succeeds by helping the domestic drivers of change,not by doing their job for them. Only Romanians themselves can do this.
Her latest book "Europe's Burden - promoting good governance across. Borders" (2020) is a must-read for anyone who wants to know why a quarter of a century of trying to build systems of government that people can trust has had so little effect in ex-communist countries. It starts with a sketch of Switzerland’s political development which reminds us that Napoleon was the catalyst for a 50-year period during which the Swiss embedded the basic structures we associate with that country. It is, however, Denmark to which most countries (according to Fukuyama) aspire to – although a study of its history suggests that, contrary to Dahrendorf’s optimism, that was more like a 100 year journey. Her description of her own country, Romania, is quite damning –
From 2010-17 there were 600 convictions for corruption EACH YEAR – including 18
Ministers and one Prime Minister, Generals, half of the Presidents of County Councils and the Presidents of all the parliamentary partiesThe Prosecution system became thoroughly politicised through its connection with
the powerful intelligence system – the infamous Securitate which was never disbandedThe level of wiretapping used is 16 times the level of that used by the FBIRomania heads the league table of cases brought to the European Court of Human Rights
dismissed for breaching the right to a fair trial – with a half of its cases so failingThe annual CVM reports on the country are always positive and make no mention of
any of this – on the basis that “questions about the intelligence services are outside our remit”!!TV stations run by those convicted of corruption have provided damning evidence
of the prosecution service threatening judges and fixing evidence
One of Romania's most famous political analysts gave an extensive interview in 2018 which was important enough for me to summarise as follows –
the so-called “revolution” of 1989 was nothing of the sort – just a takeover by the
old-guard masquerading in the costumes of the market economy and democracywhich, after 30 years, has incubated a new anomie – with the “social” media dominating people’s minds“European integration” has destroyed Romanian agriculture and industry - and
drained the country of 4 million talented young RomaniansAfter 30 years, there is not a single part of the system – economic, political, religious, cultural, voluntary – which offers any real prospect of positive changeEven Brussels seems to have written the country offThe country is locked into a paralysis of suspicion, distrust, consumerism, apathy, anomieNo one is calling for a new start – let alone demonstrating the potential for realistic alliances
Dorel Sandor has clearly given up on the politicians and confessed to a hopelessness for the prospect of any sort of change in his country “The stark reality is now that we do not have political parties any more. The Romanian political
environment is in fact an ensemble of ordinary gangs that try to survive the process and jail and eventually save their wealth in the country or abroad. That's all! Romania has no rulers. It has mobsters in buildings with signs that say "The Ministry of Fish that Blooms". One of the reasons why the EU is not too concerned about us is that it is that they reckon that you can only reform a driver with a car that works. We are a two-wheeled wagon and two horses, a chaotic space, broken into pieces. What's to reform? So it's a big difference.” But he was least convincing when he tried to offer a way forward
I have a list of what to do – starting with the need for an exploration of what sort of Romaniawe should be aiming for in the next few decades. Such a process would be moderated by professionals using proper diagnostics, scenario thinking and milestones. It would be managed by a group with a vision emancipated from the toxic present.
I have a lot of sympathy for such approaches – embodied, for example, in the "Future Search"
method. But effective social change rarely comes from such an elitist approach; any such effort would have to demonstrate exactly how it would propose to deal with the astonishing level of distrust of others in the country. In 2014, only 7% of the Romanian population could say that “most people can be trusted”
(compared with about 20% in Italy and 40% in Germany). The revelation of the collusion between the infamous Securitate and the Anti-Corruption
Agency (DNA) has understandably fanned the flames of paranoia for which the Romanians can be forgiven - given the scale of the surveillance of the population the Securitate enjoyedunder Ceausescu. Little wonder half of the population are Covid sceptics Conclusion In the 1980s it was Solidarity in Poland; Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia; and reformers in Hungary who were challenging the power structure – I remember taking the opportunity of being in the country to visit the Party’s “White House” in Budapest in 1987 to talk with a spokesman for the latter. Bulgaria and Romania, on the other hand, were monolithic and frozen societies – with
the only sign of discord being the odd Romanian poet – and on the Danube where protestors
against a chemical plant included a few establishment figures such as Svetlin Rusev. But the street has become much more active in the past decade – even if it is the more
educated and “entitled” who are prominent there. And it is “the Crowd” that the power
elite has always feared – particularly in the last century eg the infamous “Revolt of the Masses”
(1930). And who can ever forget the moment when the massed crowd turned against Ceausescu
in December 1989 – within minutes, he had been hoisted from his balcony by helicopter and, within days, summarily tried and shot. It’s noticeable that the figures whose words I’ve quoted – Dahrendorf, Canetti, Krastev,
Mungiu-Pippidi and Sandor – all represent the intelligentsia. I was brought up to take their words seriously - but they are not activists! The sadly-missed David Graeber was one of the very few such people prepared to get his
hands dirty… to work across the barriers that normally divide people and to try to forge new coalitions…The Crowd needs people like Graeber who understand how to bridge such
barriers…………..particularly between the “downtrodden masses” and the “entitled” Where is Bulgaria’s Graeber? There are, actually, several eg Vanya Grigorova – the
economic adviser of the labour union “Podkrepa” (Support) and leading left-wing public figure – who has been travelling the country to present her latest book on labour rights and how to claim them. A year ago she gave this interview to Jacobin, which positioned
her on the side of social change in Bulgaria and the region.
Both Covid19 and the greater concern about global warming – as embodied, for example in the recent Extinction Rebellion – suggest that the “normality” being sought by the entitled is a will o’ the wisp. The Sofia protestors would therefore be well advised to widen the scope of their agenda.
After all, smaller countries generally seem better able to “do” change viz Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Singapore, Estonia, Slovenia – particularly when they have women at their helm who have a combination of trustworthiness and strategic vision!! Especially for them I updated my list of essential reading for activists – adding my own
“opportunistic” theory of change which emphasises the element of individual responsibility as well as the dynamic of the crowd viz “Most of the time our systems seem impervious to change – but always (and suddenly) an opportunity
arises. Those who care about the future of their society, prepare for these “windows of opportunity – through proper analysis, mobilisation and integrity. It involves–
speaking out about the need for changelearning the lessons of previous change effortscreating and running networks of changewhich mobilise social forcesunderstanding crowd dynamicsreaching out to forge coalitionsbuilding credibility
I grant you that the time for preparation is over in Sofia; and appreciate that some of this may come across as rather elitist but the process it describes is still a crucial one – prepare, analyse, network, speak out, build coalitions, mobilise, no hidden games…..It’s a tough combination……
