The Ordinary Citizen

Serban Pretor has been beaten up by the two officers of the Guard and Protection Service (GPS) not as a member of the National Council for the Audio-Video (NCAV), but as an ordinary citizen. An ordinary citizen, which dared to drive his Trabant on the roads of the country. In their turn, the two GPS officers beat Serban Pretor in the same manner in which they would’ve beat any other citizen to disturb them, to cut their way and to drive a Trabant or a Dacia. If Serban Pretor was driving a Mercedes, for example, the two GPS officers would’ve taken a better look at him first, and only after that they would’ve beaten him up.

Like he was any other ordinary citizen that dared to benefit from his ordinary citizen state. And all these happen because in Romania the ordinary citizen is treated like a bad egg. The laws in our country have managed to turn the actions that should be made for the citizen into actions made against him. There’s no one to serve the citizen, no one starting from the clerk that treats him like a horse thief to the judge that lets him die even if being right!

I believe that the greatest punishment for our politicians would be to become an ordinary citizen for one day or two, or even for one week. To feel themselves the indifference, the uncertainty, the mean, the mock coming from the ones that should be serving him. To be clear: in Romania, there’s no one, absolutely no one, serving the citizen. I think this is the worst fact of the Romanian democracy. The ordinary citizen will carry his cross for a long, long time if the world, the society, will only have GPS officers.

The Pretor case is a "lucky" one. This is because he managed to make this incident available for the public, since he is a NCAV member. Just think about all the ordinary citizens that took the "benefit" of their status in similar conditions without anyone ever knowing about that!