What’s There to Say?

What’s there to say when a national investigation says the most important Romanian of all times is a medieval bigot rapist despot bathed in blood who used to kill Romanians called Stefan cel Mare? Couldn’t our history provide another man? Wasn’t there any modern value for us to identify ourselves with? Didn’t Carol I or Ferdinand or the members of the Revolution in 1848 do enough good for Romania? Isn’t the language we speak today the result of the works of Heliade, Eminescu, Titu Maiorescu or Arghezi? Aren’t there enough Romanian scientists? What about George Emil Palade, the only Romanian winner of a Nobel Prize, Henri Coanda or Ana Aslan? Didn’t we fly up into the skies with the help from Traian Vuia or Aurel Vlaicu? Shouldn’t we think at all about Carol Davila , the organizer of the national public health system? Don’t we have Iorga, Brancusi (the most known Romanian abroad), Enescu, Mircea Eliade, Creanga, Sadoveanu, Tzara, Eugen Ionescu? We must remember them. The national psychology is deep in the past, and this bloody mud is what takes us into the European Union.

What’s there to say when one of the brightest contemporaneous intellectuals, Sorin Antohi, confesses he had collaborated with the Security and that he had illegally recorded a PhD which he had never prepared? Antohi is not an anonymous professor at some small University, but he had led for years one of the greatest European academic institutions, CEU. He coordinated PhDs without having the right to do it. He was in several positions in which he couldn’t have been without a PhD. This is an international scandal, which lowers the credibility of the Romanian intelligentsia. This is also a hit for our civil society. But, beyond all this, the deal is as absurd as a nightmare.

What’s there to say when Varujan Vosganian, our official candidate for the European Commissary position, is humiliated and sent back home on the ear as we all deserve? I don’t know this person, I don’t know whether he had collaborated with the Security or with Ovidiu Vantu. The problem is different: who sent him there, why did he do it and who advised him to do it? This position has a crucial strategic meaning for Romania. It doesn’t regard a party or a group. The candidate has to be the image of Romania, a country that should at least look as if it were ready for joining the European concert. He should have real admitted qualities, he should have done something for the integration. Moreover, it is intolerable for him to be suspected in any way of acts of corruption, of having collaborated with the former communist regime or of extremist tendencies. The truth is that the naming of Vosganian was made irresponsibly by a small group as a result of a political barter and the Parliament and the other parties haven’t been consulted. For me, it is beyond doubt that PM Tariceanu and President Traian Basescu are the ones guilty for this situation. The first one should resign, the other should admit he had been wrong. The liberals will also have to come up to the rack of their political strategy.
What’s there to say when we all hide our heads?