| "Romanian traffic" |
 |
||||
| Born in...Romania |
|
||||
|
In US you can always find a party.� In a communist country the Party can always find you. American joke Eleven years ago that joke was a fact.� Most of my life was a "joke" (I was 20 ears old when the Revolution started - the same age as most of the people in AIESEC today).� The majority of the Romanians lived a big "joke" instead of a real life.� And so did most of the Russians, the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Poles, the Slovaks, the Bulgarians or the Albanians.� So how comes there's such a big difference between the "Visegrad Group" (Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic - Slovakia is also part of the group but looks kind of "lost" there) and Romania?� Well, for some the answer might be "It's really a beautiful country - too bad it's populated".� It, of course, implies that if all the Romanians kill themselves or emigrate, some improvement might be then possible.� After all, "if you're not a part of the solution, then you are a part of the problem" :-) "To the last person leaving the country: please turn off the lights" Romanian joke For the non-Romanian readers: can you imagine 20 million Romanians settling in your country?� Well, your governments seem they can.� So the Romanians aren't allowed to travel almost anywhere without a visa.� Which it happens to be quite difficult to get.� Unless of course you are young, bright, well educated, preferably holding a degree in Computer Science or in Engineering.� The Western governments are ready to help Romania get rid of such individuals, dangerous for our country's progress.� We're of course grateful for their assistance in solving at least a part of the problem.� The rest of the problem shall be dealt with internally.� So what would it be, rope or bullet? He got 33% of the votes. Fact� So you see there are people who understand what this country needs.� More than that, one Romanian out of three is also willing to take action.� Confirming that all the critics of Romania were right, the other 66% of the voters decided to reject the solution.� For now. EU official Bodo Hombach quoting Bill Gates "The one thing that I hate most about Romanians is that they are so proud in their stupidity and poverty." Romanian girl (young woman, to be politically correct) writing to Damien Gates was probably speaking of Microsoft's Romanian janitors and cleaning ladies.� For we can read from a Romanian that our population is proud to be stupid.� Later in her e-mail the girl added "you probably won't make a difference, for the people here are just NOT INTERESTED IN GETTING AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE. I know this from my own experience".� And a French proverb says "Le mauvais ouvrier blame toujours ses outils" (The incompetent worker always blames his tools).� But this, of course, has nothing to do with the people who try to make a difference here, be they Romanian or foreigners.� After all, this is a French, not a Romanian proverb. Romanian proverb In the XVIII century a person educated in Constantinople (nowadays Istanbul) was au pair with those in Paris, London, Leipzig or Bologna.� One century later this was not the case anymore.� Since then the situation didn't change much.� The West took the lead and is still at the top.� Starting with 1821 the Romanian intellectuals began to study in the Western Europe in great numbers.� Then they came back and tried to implement the systems they found there in Romania.� Which, as the time, was some 100 years behind in terms of social and economic development.� The attempts failed miserably and it took 102 years to catch up with the first hundred of years and then with the next hundred (the one that went by from 1821, when the process had started, to 1923 when it ended).� A Romanian writer, Ioan Luca Caragiale, has a vivid description of how the Western political system transplanted in Romania was working at the end of the XIXth century.� In two words (for the non-Romanians that haven't red Caragiale): it sucked!� And speaking about catching up, the political system of today is better than the one from 1923 to 1938.� At the time "free elections" meant you were free to cast your vote and the Government thugs where free to beat the shit out of you so you cast it "right".� Occasionally the Opposition's thugs were tougher and then we had a "transition to power".� There were no electoral meetings but electoral beatings.� No surprise then that the system ended in dictatorship in 1938. Even well before 1821 educated individuals started to lament about the Romanian people.� A famous one, Dimitrie Cantemir, king of Moldova until 1711, seemed to be unhappy about his subjects.� At least that's what comes out of his book, "Descriptio Moldaviae" ("A Presentation of Moldova").� The Turks made him probably very happy by kicking him out of his throne.� Leading the same subjects, other Moldavian kings before him had successfully kept the Ottoman Empire at bay. The common traits of the people dissatisfied with Romania is that they are the educated ones, they have seen the world, they know what progress means, they are smart.� And they want the uneducated people, who have never seen anything but their home village, who did not follow a higher education and are probably not so smart to think, feel and act like them.� It is normal for foreigners to be shocked, disgusted or frustrated by what happens here.� I know of Americans who hate being in France or French who hate being in the US so why won't foreigners be less enthusiastic about being in Romania?� But I can hardly find any excuse for a similar behaviour of some Romanians.� When I hear there's a problem with this country's population I mainly think of those guys as being part of the problem.� My message to those people: "This is the current economic and political situation, this is the country, this is the Romanian people.� If you are as good as you claim to be, do something about it in this framework." Henry Ford about the Ford Model T car This describes very well the choice of the politicians we really have here.� "Romania Voted for the Past" was one of the headlines in the international press.� There was a joke about the times of Stalinist terror in Romania.� At the time (in the fifties) people where summoned to the Secret Police headquarters and asked about their links to the non-communist parties that had existed in Romania before 1947, when the communists took over.� A wrong answer meant you were going to face the firing squad (if you were lucky) or go to the labour camps for the rest of your [short but painful] life.� The joke goes like this: A bar singer is investigated by the Secret Police, but he is released after the interrogation.� Very surprised about this unusually happy ending, his wife asks him how did it go. "They've asked me who I had sang for in the bar.� I had to tell them that there used to came people from the Liberal Party, the National Peasant Party and even from the Iron Guard (= a Nazi-like party)" "My God!� Why did you tell them also about the Iron Guard members?" "Because THEY were the interrogators!" After the Revolution of '89 the former Communist Party high-ranked activists and Secret Police members or their close relatives joined all the political parties in Romania.� The former "democratic" president Emil Constantinescu was the Secretary of the Communist Party of the University of Bucharest before '89.� Nobody had forced him to become Secretary.� He even had to run for this position, made a presentation and was voted by the other Party members in the University.� Marian Munteanu, the leader of the students' anti-communist demonstrations against Ion Iliescu in 1990 (the ones quelled with the help of the coal miners) proved himself to be on the payroll of the Romanian Information Service (one of the current secret services).� The president of the National Liberal Party (one major party of the "Democratic" Opposition) was a snitch of the Securitatea Statului (the commie political police).� So the true choice to the Romanians after 1989 was: "You can vote for any party, as long as it's < Is there any way out?� Of course, but it takes time.� Not every member of the main political parties is a former "Red".� Many of the non-communist parties, who have lost the current elections, started to clean their houses.� We had 2 democratic transitions to power since 1989.� So if the current "Red" Government doesn't deliver it will be replaced.� Maybe sooner than in 4 years, for it has less then 50% of the seats in the Parliament.� The people "proud in their stupidity" sent their second message in 10 years to the politicians, that they better do something good this time.� Chinese proverb Some people are fascinated by facts.� Facts are objective - one cannot argue about facts.� There are however some problems with the facts: People have to think of what the facts really mean.� Unfortunately not everybody is able to think (disclosure: I am an arrogant bastard).� A true story: it was not Henri Becquerel who discovered the X rays in 1896 (he got a Nobel Prize for this).� There was another physicist who had noticed, before Becquerel, that photographic plates left near the radium salts crystals capture some bizarre images.� So he simply moved away the photographic plates every time he was working with radium salts! Facts create the illusion that the quantity is more important than the quality.� Let's look at this string of facts: by its nature IT is always dirty - IT defecates and urinates where IT sleeps.� IT puts anything in ITS mouth, no matter how disgusting the thing might be.� IT has a huge head, an enormous belly and short limbs so when IT moves, IT actually crawls, like a reptile.� These are the facts.� Ugly creature, right?� Wrong! For those that didn't figure it out, IT is...a baby.� When it comes to information, quality is by far more important than quantity.� For there can be tons of facts, spectacular facts, that actually are irrelevant. Facts "relieve" the reporter of her/his responsibility.� Nobody can blame you for stating facts.� Opinions, conclusions, statements are voluntary acts so they imply responsibility.� Facts are there independently of the reporter.� Only a few people know that there are always more facts than the ones presented.� And some of the untold ones are actually the most relevant. So let's add a few facts to the image of my country and of my people.� Because the way Romania and Romanians are currently presented on Romaniantraffic.com suggested me the above description of a baby.� And I will also add my conclusions in order to be fully responsible for the consequences. In communism, the main "means of production" (= industrial assets) were the property of the state; As everywhere in the world, in a communist society only a few people had managerial and leadership skills.� The majority of the people have little skills in running a business.� The people who had those skills were running the companies or were members of the administrative structures; The communist society meant that, to a certain degree, almost everybody had a similar standard of living.� The wealth was also approximately equally distributed (the lowest monthly salary was ~75$ while the highest was ~400$).� More surprisingly for a Westerner, some workers made more money than their managers.� Anyway, it was a fact that nobody in Romania had enough capital to buy any state owned company or to start any type of private business except perhaps "mom&pop"-style shops; The privatisation of the state-owned companies means transferring the property from the hands of the state (of the "whole people" -as the commie propaganda was saying) into the hands of a few.� Provided those few have the capital required to buy and operate those companies.� To this time only the foreign entities (companies, funds, banks or private investors) have this kind of money; Contrary to the situation in Hungary, Czechoslovakia or Poland, in Romania communism was destroyed by a plot of the high communist party officials, army generals and secret police generals.� The Revolution was only the tip of the iceberg, the heroic outburst of the population, something that look great on TV.� The Revolution was possible however only because the army and the secret police, after a brief resistance, joined the Romanian people.� There had been anti communist riots before (1977 - Lupeni, 1987 - Brasov).� They were no different in the beginning from what has happened in Timisoara on December 17th 1989.� Each time those riots were handled effectively by the same authorities that allowed the riot in Timisoara to turn into a countrywide Revolution in 1989.� The only difference was that in 1977 or 1987 all the other countries around Romania were communist and the Soviet Union was not favouring a change in the political system of any of its "sister countries"; Right after the Revolution there were all the people that made it possible (i.e. highly ranked party members and officers) who were about to see the foreigners economically benefit from the result of their plot.� Because, as I was pointing out before, the ploters had no capital. There is only one other country in the world - the Soviet Union, where the change was exclusively brought by the party and state apparatus.� The problem of the lack of capital was solved there by means of the sinister Soviet Mafia (later Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh and so on Mafias).� The Romanians decided not to use the same solution. 40% of the Romanians make less than 40$/month according to UN's statistics.� For those who know that the net average salary in Romania is ~ 80$ I will remind them that 47% of the population lives in the countryside.� They are not employed, do not receive salaries and live from the land they work. This are the facts.� My conclusions follow: The other way to gather the capital needed to buy the former state-owned companies was to slow down as much as possible the privatisation process while, in the same time, encouraging the creation of small and medium sized enterprises.� A former Securitatea Statului officer or high Party official would incorporate a small export company of his own.� He would need only an office, a fax, a computer and his connections both inside Romania and outside.� He would take all the merchandise of a Romanian factory and export it.� He would make most of the profit out of the operation.� He will pay very late (if ever) the factory, forcing it into financial problems and eventually into bankruptcy.� By doing that he would not only accumulate the capital but also he would decrease the price of his target for acquisition; A variant of the scenario is when the manager of the factory has also his/her own private company (or his wife/son/daughter/cousin/etc) through which all the business of the factory is done.� The "leech company" is both the main client and the main supplier for the factory.� By the end of 1994 a lot of capital was accumulated this way, so starting with 1995 all the legal incentives for setting up small and medium-sized companies disappeared.� It was too dangerous for the "leeches" to have to compete against the real Romanian entrepreneurs; While the capital is accumulated this way the foreign investors need to be discouraged to come to Romania.� They will of course be welcomed at a later stage, after almost anything of value was bought by Romanians and the time for international strategic alliances has come.� There are a few state-owned companies that cannot survive without foreign investment (like the automobile factories).� Here the foreign investors are welcomed and there are special laws to encourage such investments (over 500 million $ to be very specific).� The guys in power are "evil" but not stupid.� They know that they won't be able to raise the kind of capital needed to operate such companies even in 100 years.� But they will benefit from selling them to foreign investors because they are still owning all the other companies that supply those factories with parts.� And in order to make sure they will continue to be the suppliers they make sure that the privatisation contract with the foreign investor imposes that most of the parts are to be manufactured in Romania.� If the foreign investor (like Daewoo) tries to avoid the terms of the privatisation contract then strikes are organized and all the fiscal facilities are lifted by the government.� So the rebellious investor is quickly brought to his knees.� After all the whole Western economy is built around the strict abidance by the terms of the contract.� Some foreign investors, mislead by the petty corruption, made the mistake to think the terms of the contracts with the Romanian state were optional.� Well, they are not. For behind the Government there are the Romanian heavy-weight businessmen. The smaller foreign investors are discouraged by the bureaucracy.� But this is the same for the Romanian entrepreneurs.� It is simply not their time yet (disclosure: I am a Romanian entrepreneur).� Sometimes they are discouraged by strictly and suddenly applying the letter of the law (like in the case of "Sydney Bar & Grill"'s terrace - the story is on the Romaniantraffic website).� But hey, what society can function without respecting the laws? In order for all of this to work, the guys need to be in power till the end of the process.� So they've infiltrated absolutely all the political parties in Romania.� No matter who wins the elections, THEY are in power.� 50% of the Romanians were too disgusted by this fact that they refused to go to vote.� The other 50% voted only to select bad from worse. People who make 40$/month are not independent.� There are only two types of political systems that can come out of such an economic situation.� Either a dictatorship (left wing or right wing one) or a "democracy" like the ones of the USA or Europe of the XIXth century.� That means the true decision makers are not the citizens or even the members of the parliaments but the business tycoons and the bankers.� Citizens become the true decision makers only when there is a large middle class, when the majority of the people are quite well off and can think of something else than the next day's bread.� This is the meaning of "What can I do? I am powerless", the mentality Damien doesn't like.� I'm not sure he would have liked the mentality of a XIXth century average Australian either.� Till this large middle class is built people will try to influence the politicians by voting every 4 years against the government supported by the local tycoons.� According to some of the estimates, this will continue till around 2012.� I'll be 43 then.� Tough luck!� In the mean time I can emigrate, I can complain about my countrymen - "proud in their stupidity and poverty", I can do my best to be one of the members of the middle class and facilitate the access of the others to the same status or...I can become one of the tycoons :-)� I do have choices and so does have any other Romanian. Romaniantraffic is full of facts.� The overwhelming majority of them present Romania and the Romanian people in a negative light. I've downloaded the site on my hard disk and counted the negative and the positive facts presented.� There are 8 negative aspects for every positive one.� If one sees a caterpillar for the first time it is quite hard to guess the butterfly that will come out of it in a few of weeks.� It is pointless to say to the caterpillar "you are ugly - here's a mirror if you don't trust me - and you have to accept the truth" or "you have to start to change right now".� It also does little good to the caterpillar to post a story about it on the Internet.� It will still take 6 weeks for that caterpillar to become a butterfly.� But, of course, the caterpillar might feel offended by what it considers to be that person's superficial look at the facts and by what the caterpillar perceives as setting standards of and/or giving lectures on beauty. Fact : |
|
|||
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
� | � |
MIHAIL CAZACU is an AIESEC ALUMNI and is currently self-employed.� Any comments
regarding this article should be sent to MIHAIL CAZACU, [email protected]
- Regards, Damien.� |
|
|
|
� | Back |
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|