The pandemic generation and sanitary dictatorship
A project dear to the physics teacher who made president, for which he needed 6 years to extract from the abyss of his deeply drowsy intellect, remains educated Romania! In fact, it is the only project that Iohannis managed to articulate somehow. There would be the “Vasilică Cîțu” project, but that is so complex, that whoever gets near it goes crazy. And it is a project in development anyway, whereas educated Romania succumbed before rising.
Brought into the nation’s attention as an initiative that will escape the country from the morass of ignorance and the fog of illiteracy, for two mandates we had and we shall still have time talk about the cultural vision of the “German with six houses”. Meanwhile the sanitary dictatorship and the priorities of the fierce neoliberalism, promoted by “my Government”, are killing any chance for “the pandemic generation”.
A few years ago, the children that last week started high school, were receiving a new curriculum. In the 8 years before, when they were in middle school, the education ministers were from SDP for 4 years, and “independent” or from Iohanis’s NLP for another 4. There have been two complete electoral cycles during which, although they knew they needed a new high school curriculum, adapted and updated according to the changes that happened in middle school, none of the ministers were able to produce such a thing.
The permanent alert state produces restrictions only as far as rights and fundamental freedoms are concerned, but makes festivals or sport manifestations with 50-70.000 participants possible. All of them organized a few weeks before the school year starts. A summer in which no measures were taken to provide a learning environment all children will have free, unlimited access to and, especially, with physical presence in class. The school system is once again sacrificed a few weeks after we found out we will have an educated Romania.
History that changes
The Romanian grammar suffered changes that make us question our knowledge of our mother tongue. This happens to many of which we expect a reasonable education. The emergence of massive nouns and archigender or the disappearance of the reflexive and passive voices, are completed by the entirely reflexive verbs and the ternary relationship to the predicate noun. What are we supposed to expect of our politicians that “slaughter” the Romanian language with every public intervention? When will they find the time to update their knowledge? And what to update if they don’t have any?
Romania’s history and Romanianism tend to change every few years, depending on the minister’s political color or the interests of those who end up editing textbooks. Thus, we find that Horea, The Hen and Crișan are taken out of history textbooks and that on the other side of the Prut live only Russians. In a history textbook for fourth grade, approved by the Education Ministry for children that study in Hungarian, starting 2006 to 2014, the flag of the country they live in, Romania, appears to be the Szekler flag.
The president participates in the unveiling of Barron von Brukenthal’s statue with the solemnity with which he would water Horea’s sessile oak, but has not participated, in his 14 years as mayor of Sibiu, in any organized manifestation on Romania’s National Day. He has been lucky with Ciucă’s parades lately, otherwise he would not know why there is such celebration on December 1st, every year.
Prime minister Vasilică Cîțu had no reaction when Hungary’s president compared Crimea’s annexation with the Trianon Treaty. Nothing major to an individual that hardly graduated high school in Romania and about whom is still unclear what studies he managed to complete in America. Besides, in the pages of a history textbook, used by Romanian children, the Trianon Treaty is mentioned as “the Trianon Dictate”. Who needs educated Romania more? The reactions caused by the recent event in Sibiu couldn’t be more varied. From the firm and violent condemnation to the pathetic and desperate justification of the gesture. All opinions pledged allegiance to the current the authors support.
The reality is much simpler. Werner just wanted to pay an homage, throughout time, from governor to governor, to the first German ethnic from Sibiu that ruled Transylvania. Perhaps Brukenthal was not DIRECTLY guilty of the unthinkable way that Horea, The Hen and Crișan were executed, but Romanian peasants lived at the limit of poverty and of the 10 years with Samuel as governor. It’s the situation Romania finds itself in today, after almost 7 years with another German ethnic as “governor”. The poverty in which most Romanians succumb in will be, towards the end of this year, of apocalyptic proportions.
The speech of the “German with six houses”, at the event in Sibiu, reveals a great admiration for he who was “the great Transylvanian illuminist”, a “great personality of time” and is “a confirmation of the conviction that at the foundation of good leadership lie education and culture”. We thus find that the two German governors (of Transylvania over two centuries ago and of Romania today) have in common not only their love for culture and education, but also for “good leadership”. Now the passion Iohannis has for Cîțu makes sense, as do the recent events in (un)educated Romania.
The brotherly agreement
A few days ago, on September 16th, it has been 584 years since the Unio Trium Nationum was signed, agreement that excluded Transylvania’s political life, that of the Romanian population, who was the majority of the inhabitants. An agreement that had Romanians labeled as inferior people by the three nations, German, Hungarian and Szekler. In Brukenthal’s time the Unio Trium Nationum was effective and supported the three minorities that represented only 30% of Transylvania’s population. “The Great Illuminist” made thus an impressive fortune. Which, most of it, was claimed and made “patrimony” of the German Democratic Forum in Romania, in a time when Iohannis was president of this organization. “The German with six houses” who made, together with his wife, from the wages of two high school teachers, a fortune of a few million euro, that probably, as they have no children, will donate to GDFR. Because Romanians and Romania are not his problem.
On September 17th, one day later,
the UDMR Congress took place. The only formation that is not a party, but has been participating, for over 30 years, in the governing. A “festival” of the minorities that decide on the life of the majority, of the Romanians in Romania. If Iohannis took the liberty of opening a press conference, from the presidential tribune at the Cortoceni Palace, in Hungarian, why shouldn’t Cîțu salute his governing partners in the same language? Which is, however, not an official language in Romania, therefore shouldn’t be used, not even out of courtesy, in public events, with the participation of high officials!
“Dear Hunor, we will be governing for 4 years” was Cîțu’s threat to the Romanian people. At the same time, Ciolacu thought about stressing the contemporary Unio Trium Nationum and uttered: “the SDP resisted with the Swedish license plates, I don’t see a problem in bilingual license plates”. Ciolacu didn’t even understand that the “bilingual license plates” are not about the duality of the message or about lies that cover other lies.
This is Romania in a nutshell. A minority, that can’t put together a quarter of the Romanian people’s votes, NLP-UDMR-SDP, decides for a majority that is not capable of any reaction. A majority that has not learned anything from centuries of suffering and that watches indifferently how even its history is rewritten by minorities.
The UDMR Congress and the “resilience” of the Cîțu Government, ensured through rudely breaking Constitutional law, are proof of the way that the minority exerts its will over the majority. Voting and democracy are but abstract concepts used only during electoral campaigns. In fact, what the minority would truly want is for more and more to willingly give up their right to express their opinion through vote.
Many and… stupid
Why should an educated Romania exist at all? What would be the use? An educated people knows its rights, is hard to manipulate and is not easily lied to. The less educated the majority is the more can a Vasilică and a Werner lie and abuse the law to their heart’s content, with nobody reacting. Nobody wishes for the success of a project that makes an educated Romania!
How can 6% be allocated to Education and where are they supposed to get the money from? From NDLP or from the defense? It would pain the Americans so if we were to allocate another 2% to buy their products for the museum. Such sadness for the mayors and local barons if this NDLP did not offer them any more public contracts for the companies hidden under their relatives’ skirt!
Educated Romania is a project as full of substance as everything Iohannis has achieved since he has been president. Already delayed by “my Government”, educated Romania will go into hibernation until we forget or we are so stupid we won’t even know what it means!
(an article by Pan Themis)