Detouring the Twitter Revolution

The current situation in Moldova, the failed Twitter Revolution, still keeps the local front pages. While I was watching angrily and astonished the daily events on different news channels, I couldn’t miss the Romanian detouring of the twitter revolution in two similar directions:

1. An increased wave of right wing and nationalist discourses in connection to the events, evident also in president Basescu’s discourse in front of the parliament yesterday, used in this particular case, for gathering a few votes from old school Romanian nationalists. The reactivation of right wing arguments on Romanianness and territorial expansion based on the Moldavians’ revolt is just sick and disrespectful.
2. Another invalidation of any Marxist or leftist discourse in the region by connecting it to the communist oppressive regime in Moldova. Principles of Prague declaration are seen now as a common sense reaction to the horrible violence in communist Moldova. With these events any type of leftist critique becomes outrageous and should be erased from our talk only if we actually do not agree with the state oppression in Moldova, of course. I was reading on some Romanian blogs, the simple support for any Marxist argument or leftist syndicate is seen as inappropriate in the new conditions created by the Moldavian events.

I am still surprised about the cynicism of all these local conservatives, how they cancel any type of oppression or sufferings of real people, in their offensive struggle to validate their own discourse. I really get the feeling that these characters do not care about people, or they care in a melodramatic way as long as they can be used for personal petty political purposes. And while hundreds of Moldavians are in arrest, beaten and killed by police, they continue their old fashioned rhetoric.

Romanian writers in Romania: out

via aglomerarispontane

Alexandru Vakulovski is one of the most successful and daring contemporary writers from Romania. Even if he is writing and publishing mainly in Romanian, he studied, worked and lived there for more than 10 years, he is kicked out of the country for not being a citizen. He was waiting for his papers for last 4 years: the answer came, he had to leave the country and get back to Moldova in 2 weeks. Now he is already there and he is forbidden to enter Romania for the next 2 and a half years.

At the same time, some football player born in Germany with no connection to Romania except for the fact that his parents have Romanian origin receives his citizenship papers in 2 days. but the national football team needs him.

Sandu Vakulovski is my friend and I worked with him for two performances in Cluj. I know how hard it was for him to live in Romania as a Moldavian, being constantly harassed by authorities, being restricted to get out of the country because he was not sure that he can ever return. I feel guilty and ashamed that he had to go through all this and no one did anything to actually help him. I didn't do anyhting. Now we are all shocked and in a few days we will forget about it.

Sandu taking me a photo, he is already on the other side of the mirror

It really makes me angry and unproud of having a Romanian passport. Have to find a way to get rid of my citizenship: if I can't give it to Sandu, it doesn't worth shit for me now.

Kicking ass history-textbook style

The fetish for one's national history can take many forms. One such bizarre twist of nationalism is the Moldavian national ‘fight’ called Voievod. Invented in 2002 by a former Taekwondo champion, this particular style ‘functions based on human biomechanics and on an efficient association of more fighting styles that lead to the perfection of the Moldavian technique’, according to the official website. Hm. And because despite their unquestionable authentic Moldavianness (documented by many, uh, obscure literary sources) the Voievod moves look more like Karate Kid practice, the fighters occasionally sport traditional Moldavian clothing items, such as the cusma (sheepskin hat) and the bunda (sheepskin jacket). Convinced now? I’m no sports expert, but to me this screams of attempting to reconstruct a very romanticized and macho fantasy of national history...

a disturbing case from Moldova

The tabloid never sleeps. In Moldova, Boris Ungureanu was shot by his father, the mayor from Hancesti. With a shotgun. One shot. Deadly. The father protects himself by saying that there was a weird connection between son and mother. She was giving him a lot of cash for dirty purposes. He couldn't take it anymore. What looks like a simple boring everyday situation hides much more... This case, presented by Chisinau Journal, is quite interesting for raising some important questions: How does a father reacts in a case of reversed Oedipal Complex, like this one? How does hysterical symptoms, especially those connected to strong sibling relations that I identify here between mother and father, affect children? And I am talking about children of hysterics. Can we launch the hypothesis that they take at some point the role of parents, due to age difference, that can work in a reversed way? And that is highly disturbing for a parent with authority: to become his own child’s child. But the way out exists. This guy found the most unfortunate version of it.