If Posted On the Internet, Securitate Files Would Empower Us to Make Our Own Minds

Romania’s public scene was rocked in recent weeks in a whirlwind of disclosures regarding the collaboration with the communist time intelligence services of various public professions.

The political parties, the journalists associations, the universities - all want to know if people active within their ranks were informants of the former Securitate, to clean up their ranks.

All these entities, as well as individual politicians, pundits or journalists, they all seem to converge at the same time on the CNSAS, the body in charge with studying and making public the files of the former Securitate, to have their names cleared.

The 8-member strong council takes a vote to decide if one did or did not collaborate with the Securitate.

But this is the wrong approach, hampered by the material incapacity to screen every Romanian citizen which was an adult prior to the revolution of December 1989. The approach is also tainted by the fact that the CNSAS is an intermediate body - the members of which are all political appointees - which provides the public with its inevitably politically tainted judgment.

Hence, a much better option would be for the public to be trusted to make its own judgment on a person’s alleged or actual collaboration with the Securitate with making all the files available on the Internet.

Failure of that, people in position of leadership in Romania, particularly businesspersons, would move on untouched by the frenzy today, or by the real soul-searching which was expected of them.

Failure of that, no one would dare ask them how did they get to make their first million of euros; who were their relatives and connections; or who guided them into the intricacies of the market economy to master in such a short while the banking sector, the securities markets, or the trade in military and strategic equipment?

The business people are by no means less powerful for our public life than politicians, political commentators, journalists, or provosts are.

Therefore, knowing who was who, in relation to the Securitate, is a must in their case too. Or else we would have fallen short of morally reforming our society by way of telling only half the truth.