2004.06.30: June 30, 2004: Headlines: COS - Romania: COS - Zimbabwe: Politics: Communism: Speaking Out: Intellectual Conservative: An RPCV writes on the Legacy of Communism in Romania
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2004.06.30: June 30, 2004: Headlines: COS - Romania: COS - Zimbabwe: Politics: Communism: Speaking Out: Intellectual Conservative: An RPCV writes on the Legacy of Communism in Romania
An RPCV writes on the Legacy of Communism in Romania
Understandably, the overwhelming majority of young people I met wanted to find a way out of this post-communist time warp, with its economy in shambles after decades of mismanagement by an iron-fisted elite. My friend’s brother, a university student, was adored by the women there, likely because he was a bright and handsome guy but also, no doubt, because he was a Belgian citizen. Some of the young women who fawned over him could have easily been models in any Western country and had their pick of men. But having been geographically short-changed at birth, they were left to compete for the attention of the now Westernized Romanian, clinging to the slim chance that maybe he would be their ticket out of there.
An RPCV writes on the Legacy of Communism in Romania
The Legacy of Communism
by a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Zimbabwe
30 June 2004
If Romania had not been hijacked by communists for so many years, there is no reason to think it would have turned out much different from any Western European nation, instead of its current state of inching toward economic reform at a snail’s pace.
The words evil empire will perhaps live on as some of the most powerful a president has ever uttered. In these few syllables are embodied the firm belief in humankind’s right to self-determination. As President Ronald Reagan entered the pages of history in recent weeks, I was reminded of the time I witnessed for myself the poverty and destitution caused by the system he ultimately defeated.
In the summer of 1998 I visited Romania. Just a day’s drive from the developed world, Romania could have been a different universe. This broken shell of a nation was in a state of utter decay. Its streets were riddled with potholes, its buildings were crumbling. With the exception of a few elite areas, the cities were just one anonymous slum after another.
After a two-day ride from Germany on a sweltering bus full of Romanian laborers bringing back cash and gifts for their families, I finally arrived. At the border, traffic into Romania was backed up for hours. After a while, the bus driver came around to the passengers with a trash bag, and everyone threw in a few bills. The driver gave the bag to the border guards. Within a few minutes, they waved us right through.
One of my most vivid memories of Romania is of entering the border city of Arrad and seeing the endless blocks of dreary, homogenous, soviet-era high rises. Under the setting sun, their bleakness seemed to mirror Romania’s national consciousness.
My hosts were a Romanian friend I had met in Germany, now a Belgian citizen, and her family, most of whom still lived in Romania. Her uncle was a former government official who had gone into hiding in Greece after the collapse of communism and had returned a few years later. He was now in the clothing business.
During a late night conversation in their Bucharest apartment, his wife told me that the IMF wanted to “control” Romania, referring to a recent shutdown of several unproductive companies. In a country that had been kept in the dark for years by state-controlled media, even former government officials still didn’t quite grasp what was going on in their own country.
Such suspicion of the West resurfaced later when I was taken to see Ceausescu’s grave. We had to bribe a guard to take a picture because officially, photographing the site was not allowed. When I asked why, I was told that Western journalists would have a field day with the fact that Nicolae Ceausescu, the once powerful and flamboyant dictator, was lying in a poor man’s grave. Even several years after the fall of communism, my hosts were still under the misguided impression that Western journalists would consider this, in and of itself, newsworthy.
Understandably, the overwhelming majority of young people I met wanted to find a way out of this post-communist time warp, with its economy in shambles after decades of mismanagement by an iron-fisted elite. My friend’s brother, a university student, was adored by the women there, likely because he was a bright and handsome guy but also, no doubt, because he was a Belgian citizen. Some of the young women who fawned over him could have easily been models in any Western country and had their pick of men. But having been geographically short-changed at birth, they were left to compete for the attention of the now Westernized Romanian, clinging to the slim chance that maybe he would be their ticket out of there.
Discontent, it seemed, reached every generation. In one of many such telling statements, a doctor in the city of Sibiu told me she made about $500 per month. In another encounter, an old woman I met at a family party told me in German, hier ist das leben schwer, or life is difficult here. In fact, almost everyone I met there wanted to tell me about how bad things were.
And they were. One day I saw a filthy-faced little girl of about seven begging on a busy Bucharest street under the hot sun. Traffic was heavy and moving fast. Standing between two opposing lanes, she could have easily been hit by a car. My host pulled over and gave her a piece of fruit. This same scenario replayed itself when we were having a picnic in a field and a gypsy boy of about twelve wandered up to us looking for something to eat.
If Romania had not been hijacked by communists for so many years, there is no reason to think it would have turned out much different from any Western European nation, instead of its current state of inching toward economic reform at a snail’s pace. Reagan understood this. He understood that millions of lives had been ruined by a pernicious system that could only be maintained through force. It was a system that created a few elites and forced every one else -- the good people, the hospitable, welcoming and generous people of Romania -- to grovel for scraps.
When this story was posted in August 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Intellectual Conservative
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Romania; COS - Zimbabwe; Politics; Communism; Speaking Out
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