| "Romanian traffic" |
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Radio Free Europe |
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Blurred red dots, When I close my eyes. Alex Loyd. I ask everyone about Ceausescu.� People generally welcome the conversation and many have amazing stories to tell.� My peers were too young to remember the revolution in any great detail.� They tell me stories the way that their parents told them.� As one friend put it, �There is no text book description of what happened, it was only ten years ago.� It is not history yet.�� But if history is written at least ten years after it occurs, who is to say it is accurate? Always question the validity of what you read. It appears that the pivotal point in Romanian history was the Yalta Conference immediately following the Second World War.� At this point Romania was declared to fall directly under the USSR�s sphere of influence, and so began 45 years of Soviet dictatorship.� Coincidentally, at this point in time Australia also had a change of direction, abandoning British influence for that of the United States. Ceausescu became president in 1965 and for the first few years he was genuinely popular, putting food on tables, and goods in shops.� His independent foreign policy granted Romania the reputation of being a �Maverick� state amongst the Eastern Bloc.� Defying the soviet boycott and sending a team to the LA Olympics in 1984.� Ceausescu�s economic failure became obvious in the 1980�s.� He stuck heavily to the Stalinist belief in heavy industry and became obsessed with the need to repay foreign loans.� Living standards plummeted and the population was expected to work harder for less.� Amazingly all foreign debt was repaid by 1989 although there was no prospect for improvements in living standards. Ceausescu was convinced that the key to industrial growth lay in building a larger workforce.� Abortions and contraceptives were banned and people without children were penalised by higher taxes.� Romanians were not allowed to leave the country, censored television programs were broadcast for 2 hours per day, and a �typewriter law� requiring that every machine be registered with the police made it difficult for the population to gain information from the rest of the world.� The constant repression of the secret police produced an atmosphere of fear and distrust even among family members.� One in 4 of the population was rumoured to be an informer and virtually every home was supposed to be bugged. It all sounds very much like an Orwell novel that I read in high school, �1984�. Key posts were allocated to relatives of Ceausescu and all other senior figures were rotated between jobs and provinces to prevent anybody building up an independent powerbase.� By 1989 the people of Romania were aware of the events that had swept over the whole of Eastern Europe thanks to the BBC and Radio Free Europe.� On December 21st 100,000 people were brought from their workplaces to Piata Repubilicii (now Piata Rovolutiei) to hear him speak.� The crowd turned on Ceausescu, the police turned on the crowd, and the army turned on them. Around a 1000 people died during the revolution and the terrorist phase that followed. Most were students. Ceausescu and his wife were trialled and executed on Xmas Day.� An event justified as necessary in order to cease the fighting.� The new government was supposedly formed after the revolution, but clearly many of them were already in contact.� Up and coming communist party members who had been sidelined by Ceausescu took control of the new government.� With the communists still in power, intellectuals soon took to referring to December 1989 as the �So-called Revolution�.� Not much had changed in the political life of the country. There have been no trials for offences committed during the revolution and there has still been no explanation of events. The 1996 election was the first democratic transfer of power in Romania�s history.� A slow process of reform has since followed. Christina Grigoras. You can spend your time alone redigesting past regrets, or You can come to terms with it and realise you�re the only one who can�t forgive yourself, Makes much more sense to live in the present tense. Pearl Jam. |
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