Modernist Rain

Bombs drop, watch them go: a ballet of blossoming fire flower dots
From Xtate with Love?
The scorched earth will stun the terrorists, communists, oppositionals
Of any kind. Call them what your time demands.
The guerrilla fighters cannot be seen from up here
What are these particular ones demanding?
Separation? Rights? End of oppression?
Insert your favourite political project please.
Planes spray defoliant to reveal, displace, disable, cripple
Those civilians below for generations; Agents Oh?
Radiating smiles would be the other irony.
If not this rain, choose the new pollution
Acid carried by the clouds over mountains, state borders and
Across the sea to reach you via airmail.
Your lungs already pussed with other garbage.
Sometimes the rain may be torrential, celebrities are air-lifted out
Presidents descended by helicopters, not staying long enough
To really get an idea of the stench and the rough.
Beam me up pilot! For I need to return to my office
To govern this or another country and my freedom-loving citizenry
More likely I will pay a visit to my oil, gold, freedom machines
That make me so different from my filthy subjects and others not worthy.
Thank God as pecunia non olet forever.

‘Sie verstehen nichts von Realpolitik, die Armen.’

Allow me to copy-paste the following brilliant Kurt Tucholsky text about power, compromise and leaving ideals behind ‘naturally’ while being heaved up the ladder of privilege, politics and… filth. This was written around 1920, and you need only change a few terms and you get a pretty good contemporary picture. Des weiteren would I like to encourage reading the rest of Tucholsky’s oeuvre, because a lot of it is very funny in a very dark way. Besser driwwer ze laachen wi ze kräischen? Satire darf, wie bekannt, alles. I want to add to this that satire keeps its quality only if people are not disgusted in their country/politics/economics. If, like in Romania, where desperation has crept up on even the last idealist-cum-activist, satire becomes bad. Simultaneously, all news becomes satire, and hope becomes frail. It is not a pretty sight. Merry Christmas, for crying out loud...
I write this in the light of the most recent outrage surrounding the Minister of Transport, Ludovic Orban (PNL), who ran over a teenage girl on the zebra crossing with his large car, who tried to hush the story down with bribe-silence money paid to the family of the girl (3000 euro first instalment). The police omitted from their report that there had been a girl run over. Orban lied in public, to the press, about there having been only one victim, himself, that he had just touched a car that was parked, and who insisted the press should stop the ‘mediatic lynching’. In the emergency call made by a bystanding citizen, police (giving precisions about the location) encumbered the ambulance services by telling the operator that ‘Nothing happened. He only got her on the hood!’ Orban also made, under the influence of alcohol, a threatening phone call to one journalist named Robert Turcescu (who I admire greatly for his analytical clarity, and, his integrity) who had made a few reports on Realitatea TV about the case. The same journalist received a further threat call full of insinuations from someone who identified himself as the ‘godfather’ (nasul) of Orban. Minciuna continua!
This is a country where it is really hard to try to move things, and true political opposition is suffocated right from its conception. It makes me go nuts. I would prefer this environment to be less educational, and with more possibilities for change. As Mircea Badea puts it: ‘Traim in Romania si asta ne ocupa tot timpul’ (we live in Romania and this keeps us occupied all the time).

DIE VERRÄTER

Na, Verräter eigentlich nicht. Ein Verräter, das ist doch ein Mann, der hingeht und seine Freunde dem Gegner ausliefert, sei es, indem er dort Geheimnisse ausplaudert, Verstecke aufzeigt, Losungsworte preisgibt... und das alles bewußt... nein, Verräter sind diese da nicht. Die Wirkung aber ist so, als seien sie welche, doch sind sie anders, ganz anders.

Da wird man vom Vertrauen der Parteigenossen ausgesandt, mit dem bösen Feind zu unterhandeln, sozusagen die Arbeiter zu vertreten, die ja inzwischen weiterarbeiten müssen. Und die erste Zeit geht das auch ganz gut. Geld... ach, Geld... wenn die Welt so einfach wäre. Geld ist zunächst gar nicht zu holen. Der Arbeiterführer bleibt Arbeiterführer; leicht gemieden von den Arbeitgebern, merkwürdiges Wort, übrigens. Nein, nein, man bleibt ein aufrechter Mann. Aber im Laufe der Jahre, nicht wahr, da sind so die langen Stunden der gemeinschaftlichen Verhandlungen an den langen Tischen: man kennt einander, die Gemeinsamkeit des Klatsches eint, und es wird ja überall so viel geklatscht. Nun, und da stellt sich so eine Art vertraulicher Feindschaft heraus.
Kitt ist eine Sache, die bindet nicht nur; sie hält auch die Steine auseinander. Zehn Jahre Gewerkschaftsführer; zehn Jahre Reichstagsabgeordneter; zehn Jahre Betriebsratsvorsitzender - das wird dann fast ein Beruf. Man bewirkt etwas. Man erreicht dies und jenes. Man bildet sich ein, noch mehr zu verhüten. Und mann kommt mit den Herren Feinden ganz gut aus, und eines Tages sind es eigentlich gar keine Feinde mehr. Nein. Ganz leise geht das, unmerklich. Bis jener Satz fällt, der ganze Reihen voller Arbeiterführer dahingemäht hat, dieser infame, kleine Satz: „Ich wende mich an Sie, lieber Brennecke, weil Sie der einzige sind, mit dem man zusammenarbeiten kann. Wir stehen in verschiedenen Lagern - aber Sie sind und bleiben ein objektiver Mann..." Da steckt die kleine gelbe Blume des Verrats ihr Köpfchen aus dem Gras - hier, an dieser Stelle und in dieser Stunde. Da beginnt es.

Der kleine Finger ist schon drüben; der Rest läßt nicht mehr lange auf sich warten. „Genossen", sagt der Geschmeichelte, „man muß die Lage von zwei Seiten ansehn..." Aber die Genossen verstehen nicht recht und murren: sie sehn die Lage nur von einer Seite an, nämlich von der Hungerseite. Und was alles Geld der Welt nicht bewirkt hätte, das bewirkt jene perfide, kleine Spekulation auf die Eitelkeit des Menschen: er kann doch die vertrauensvollen Erwartungen des Feindes nicht enttäuschen. Wie? Plötzlich hingehn und sagen: Ja, die Kollegen billigen das nicht, Krieg muß zwischen uns sein, Krieg und Kampf der Klassen, weil wir uns ausgebeutet fühlen...? Unmöglich. Man kann das unmöglich sagen. Es ist zu spät.

Und dann geht es ganz schnell bergab. Dann können es Einladungen sein oder Posten, aber sie müssen es nicht sein - die schlimmsten Verräterein auf dieser Welt werden gratis begangen. Dann wird man Oberpräsident, Minister, Vizekönig oder Polizeipräfekt - das geht dann ganz schnell. Und nun ist man auch den grollenden Zurückgebliebenen, die man einmal vertreten hat und nun bloß noch tritt, so entfremdet - sie verstehen nichts von Realpolitik, die Armen. Nun sitzt er oben, gehört beinah ganz zu jenen, und nur dieses kleine Restchen, daß sie ihn eben doch nicht so ganz zu den Ihren zählen wollen, das schmerzt ihn. Aber sonst ist er gesund und munter, danke der Nachfrage.
Und ist höchst erstaunt, wenn man ihn einen Verräter schilt. Verräter? Er hat doch nichts verraten! Nichts - nur sich selbst und eine Klasse, die zähneknirschend dieselben Erfahrungen mit einem neuen beginnt. –

Photo: Melbourne, Australia, January 2006

Disciplined–Trapped versus Disciplined–Enabled

I also came across the following in reading about corruption, and it really got stuck in my mind, because it rings so true. I read here that it is about disciplinary constraints, thematic hierarchies, and current trends that influence how research is done and what constitutes its object.
‘However much we may prize our intellectual freedom, our professional academic minds are as constrained as the bureaucrat’s.’ (Robertson 2006: 9)
What are the criteria for good research? What do we want to achieve with research? Who does it speak to? How do we break the limits that we work with if we are bound to the medium of writing? And: are we able to untangle ourselves from this very medium while remaining acceptable and intelligible to the mainstream?

Reference
Robertson, A.F. (2006) ‘Misunderstanding Corruption’ Anthropology Today 22 (2): 8-11.

(Fara) Spaga

While in Romania corruption may be more visible, I want to stress the point that corruption is not just happening ‘elsewhere’, as have shown big-time recent fraud scandals in Western countries, in both the political and commercial spheres. When I was at a Ministry a few weeks back, I noticed some posters saying something along the lines of information is a right, not a privilege, and that public servants have the obligation to do their job. It is probably not for the first time that campaigns like this are started in the media and government institutions. As AF Robertson (complete source available on request) has recently noted, there is little doubt that the ultimate purpose of ‘anti-corruptionism’ as a global movement is to make the citadels of commerce safer for international capital, rather than to make life fairer for the world’s poor.
I think that the DNA (National Anti-Corruption Agency) is doing a lot of work, and maybe, if you persevere in taking people out of office, you may end up with some person with integrity there. At the top, however, the issue of corruption is deeply entangled with political power struggles. Legislation is permissive and constantly changing, and in front of the law, some animals are definitely more equal than others here. Accusations that will eventually make the corrupt ones go away, or no smoke without a fire? Probably both. I just know this manoeuvring at the top (we are at present without a Minister of Justice again, in Agriculture the Minister got changed 4 times during my fieldwork, see youtube for the famous video from the last Minister’s public bribe reception) from the media, who are clearly swept along with the strong desire to become European, to denounce the stealing politicians, to speak about what happens in this country, and to mark progress towards their own posited ‘Europeanness’. Press information is a good thing, although within the ranks of the press many have enriched themselves through shady businesses (example: Chireac, an editorialist I quoted once mainly for his vileness a few weeks later left the paper because it turns out he had business in his back that no one in the paper presumably had known about…believable?).
One of the problems is the lack of information. People do not know about their rights, and get no information. One the one hand, (political) institutions are not good at sharing information, and making it reach more people. People also just want to get on with their lives and make a living, which is here quite more difficult than in Western Europe – we elect them to govern for us, right? – and have a difficult heritage of ‘the state will take care of it’ of socialist times, and ‘the state doesn’t give a damn’ of postsocialism, so this often gives rise to a ‘bloody politicians, they are thieves, only themselves is who they know’ and ‘what are we to do?’ resignation. Some people would call this ‘lack of civil society’, but I am reticent to put it like that for a number of reasons. There is a definite fracture between the governors and the governed, but in some ways, because of this fracture, corruption persists. Also corruption is not perceived, by your average person, as something very different from stealing, and is usually grouped into this larger category.
Put in the situation of your child/spouse/parent/cousin getting seriously ill, you go to the hospital and you take a bribe for the doctor (if you are unfortunate enough not to have a powerful name or access to private care) if you want him to have a good look. People die because they are not examined, because they did not bribe appropriately, especially if they have the misfortune to get ill on the weekend. Say you are living in a village, and the policeman stops you, you have some money already tucked into your documents that you hand over. You say you want to stay out of trouble, and he might just see that, actually your tyres are crap and there’s something wrong with your lights. He will find something. You want your child to get a job in your own country, you do not want them to leave like all their siblings, so you pay to get him or her into the army, the police, anything where the boss is open to bribing. You do not take the breeching of a property border to court, because you know your opponent is a powerful man, and justice will not be quite as blind as it should be. I am reminded of a friend who gets enraged about how people drive (aggressively, unpredictably – only last weekend 18 people died in traffic accidents, including 2 people from my village, while 46 more got seriously injured), because they get their driving licences without practice (with money), the police is not efficient, the roads are crap, and people are reckless, and, as we drove through this town on the main road, about 20 metres in front of us, a pickup sped out of a side road on the right without caring about priority, and then veered to the left realising they could not stop in this rain, so that we had to manoeuvre around him and it was lucky that no one came from the other side). He started cursing like a pirate, and said then: ‘no wonder people start making the law themselves, and beating people up. Romania is the jungle. You try to conform to the law, and you’re apparently an idiot.’ A similar thing happens to people who have a medium-size company and try to do everything white. They are bound to fail, because they compete with a black system that runs a lot better, because fiscal evasion is easy, and also here bribing is possible, if you run into some trouble.
I am entirely in agreement that while it is easy to love the sinner (in a lot of cases), the game remains condemnable for many reasons.
Corruption reinforces inequalities. ‘They’ build their villas with your money, while you pay double at least.
Corruption does not produce incentives for people to work for a ‘public good’, and does not help to work towards a meritocracy, where the best people are also the most skilled and not just those within networks of nepotism (did you know that the term makes reference to illegitimate sons of popes who were privileged ‘nephews’? aber das nur am Rande). Corruption hinders reform of encumbered bureaucracies, even though it is not the opposite of bureaucracy, as far as I can think today.
One battle does not win the war, but gives a ray of hope: the European Commission has been nagging Romania to get rid of the excessively high matriculation tax that the government introduced at the beginning of 2007 (EU accession, remember), while it had just got rid of the import and internal acquisition taxes. This new tax of course had nothing to do with several people in government being involved in car sale business at the time. Be that as it may, the law violated the acquis communautaire, and if Romania does not change it within two months after having been warned, it will be taken to the European Court of Justice. One citizen from Arad, Ilie Iluna has taken the state to court and won his individual case. The head of the Timisoara finance department is considering to ask for the tax back himself. But now the government has decided to rename the tax (environment), and efforts to contest may be vain. The story goes on!
I know in this post I conceptually mix corruption (the abuse of public office for private gains according to one definition) and differential application of legislation, but I think you cannot, for the Romanian context, consider them separately.

What about Tolerance? or: All The S**** They Print

I should stop reading the papers. Emotional contents outweigh informational value. I came across an interview with a Romanian band. Let me give you some of the statements these guys make about one piece on their new album called ‘Message for Europe’, and the journalist point out to them that due to their vile attack against gypsies [word used in the text, see also my post on Giovanna Reggiani for more on vocabulary] and gays, a lot of people think that they are racist and homophobic.
My comments to their entire answer are in [square brackets] and I reproduce the entire bit of text, the rhetoric jumps are not my addition:

[?] = I can’t believe they printed this
[sic] = hard to believe hm?
[repetition] = absolute lack of logical reasonableness

”Why are we not allowed to say what we believe? Why do we need to protect the ideas of a minority as much as we do? Why, if you say a thing that annoys you, are you catalogued as racist? We do not have a problem with the colour of their skin. For us, everything is reduced to culture and attitude [culture here in line with the civilisation thinking so widespread in this part of the world I would guess]. Racism is a new thing, invented 50 years ago [sic]. And now those who open their mouths and say something that should not be said are considered right-down racist and xenophobe. It is a global rule [sic] for the moment. Why are we not allowed to say something against gypsies without being labelled racist [repetition]? We refer strictly to what is happening in Europe, where [sic] Romanians are looked upon as gypsies. We don’t like this. Does this transform me into a racist [repetition]? It disturbs me that Romanians who speak three languages receive offers to carry the garbage in Amsterdam [?]. We have entered Europe on our knees and now we need to suck their ****s to be their brothers [?]. So they want to integrate gypsies[?]. We have reached age 30 and we respect ourselves. We are honest [?]. Would I need to get down to their level and live in a tent and go stealing in Europe that I would not be considered racist? I can also put the problem in this way. And I am not ashamed, this is my favourite piece on the album.”
About homosexuals, and believe me, this is a very widespread opinion here, going right across the board:
“I do not want to raise my children among men who kiss in their presence. It is my right to say that…We have a problem with homosexuals who go onto the street and shout out what they do [?]. What they do at home is their business.”
And:
“We are not stupid [I beg to differ obviously]. It is very simple: why do I need to see two transvestites [sic] who ostentatiously kiss on the street? And this really happens. For me, as part of the sexual [-orientation] majority, it is not obligatory to accept this. From my point of view I am under attack. My rights as part of the majority are no longer respected from the moment in which it is imposed upon me to respect the wishes of a sexual [-orientation] or any other minority.”

Maybe I should just ignore stupid opinions of people that show, by every further word they utter, how low their rhetoric, how little their understanding, how common their arguments. But I cannot. They get to me. I think they are indicative of some of the problems here (but not only here, I’d venture to add), including an overemphasis on personal rights, and convenient forgetting of various truths (e.g. since when was racism invented 50 years ago?), the true meaning of tolerance ignored, and essentially, bigotry all the way down. Yes, Romanians have an image problem, but you certainly do not help to improve it. No, you cannot say anything you want just because you want to. Yes, politeness is part of the message. I thought those two last points had been made to all of us by the time we reached age nine…
Yours furiously, rage-shell, and, though fuming, hopefully a moderate voice…

Giovanna Reggiani

On TV, the funeral of Giovanna, the story around an Italian woman (47) murdered by a Romanian rrom/gypsy (24) has dominated news reports of the last few days. Images: the grief-stricken husband is held by two friends while the coffin is moved into the church. Lots of politicians and notabilities attend the funeral service. In Bucharest, Realitatea TV has made a panel for Prayers for Giovanna, where people leave flowers, candles, and write messages on a whiteboard. Romanian officials react. Italian people make comments. The Romanian Foreign Ministry gives statements. On the outskirts of Rome bulldozers flatten the quasi-shantytowns built by Romanian rromi/gypsies. The rromi/gypsies in Italy are in distress because they may be expelled, and their dwellings destroyed. The Romanian premier accuses the Mayor of Rome of exploiting the events for his own purposes.
Populist, racist and moderate voices all shout at each other. As usual, the media does not just make the news, but is an arena for more engrained views, giving a (very specific) perspective. I think there are plenty of reasons, all not very flattering to ‘Europeans’, for which this story broke.

In Romania, discrimination against rromi/gypsies is a daily encounter. The word used in everyday speech is ‘tigan’. Never have I heard anyone use, in a non-parodyings way, any other word. Mass media (opportunistic and relatively emotional and populistic) uses a mixture. It is admitted that there are also ‘tigani cuminti’ (nice, well-behaved rromi/gypsies) who do not display any criminal behaviour, but they’re exceptions to the rule. Romanian Romanians who break laws are not criminals (except if they’re politicians), but they merely are resourceful (se descurca) or they are clever (destepti). Please note the hypocrisy inherent in this view denouncing a high degree of nationalist-exclusive sentiment-conviction.
I am routinely confronted with statements combining the following: dirty gypsies/they cannot do any work properly, they are bad craftsmen/they steal/they have made our nation a gypsy nation in Europe/they are not civilised/they refuse to work/they refuse to send their children to school/we know what it is really like to live with gypsies, not like those people in the EU who accuse us of discrimination/if we are not careful, we are going to be a minority in our own country, because the gypsies are still making children, even though they are too poor to raise them/go and have a look in X (insert village with majority of gypsies here), I was shocked, I thought this cannot be Romania, this must be Zimbabwe/………/
This type of attitude goes right across gender, age, class, and level of education.
The rrom/gypsy is, as others have pointed out too, the incarnation of a very hierarchical viewing of society, and it is pretty much equivalent with foreigner of the worst kind. You cannot get much more alien than being a gypsy.
I keep forgetting how much racism there is in large parts of any population.

The Gândul of Friday 2nd November contains an editorial by Bogdan Chirieac that renders the Romanian angle very well. This newspaper is not a tabloid. I read this, I understand all the words, and yet, I think, this is weird. Back to the rhetoric that I still strive to understand. The article in question is entitled ‘The punishment of Romania for Rrominia?’
I’ll translate it entirely.
“A raping criminal, of Romanian citizenship, of rrom ethnicity, has horrified Italy again. To the horrible crime against a woman of 47 years of age, committed by this man, can be added other frightening crimes committed in the last months of other Romanian citizens of rrom ethnicity. Rome’s government, assembled in an emergency meeting, as happens only in the case of war or natural disaster, has taken the firm decision to expel foreigners. The word ‘Romanian’ is not pronounced in the decree. But three quarters of arrests in Rome this year – 2700 persons – are Romanian citizens. All the Romanians commit 37 percent of thefts of Italy and over 15 percent of the murders [rendered as: asasinate]. The Italians, and, along with them, the French, Spanish, British, German, have every right to be angry. In their home, citizens of an Eastern state admitted at the limit into the European community affect their way of life in a concerning way: they steal from them, they plunder them, they kill them.
The Europeans have every right to be angry, but not the right of making the mistake of condemning the Romanian people [popor= people] in its entirety, for the mode of life of rrom minorities. The preservation of the rights of minorities, the encouragement of their respective languages and cultures are European values. Romania was judged harshly during the entire process of EU integration, for the fact that it discriminates against the rromi, that it does not respect their laws and traditions. Today, Europe is confronted with the problems of the rromi that were, until now, hidden from view. In the name of political correctness, Europe hesitates to describe things as they are. The gypsies (tiganii) are nomadic populations throughout Europe, not only in Romania. The way of life of some of them severely affects the European model. Stealing is learnt at the same time as walking, the children are not let to go to school, the little girls are married and even give birth when they are 10-11 years old. The gypsies live in tents, horse carriages, and, more modern, in caravans. There is a parallel justice system with an immediate carrying out of the sentence. The social integration is, as such, refused under all aspects in relation to education, family planning, medical assistance, professional development. These are the traditions of some gypsy populations of Europe. Does the EU want to preserve this way of life? If yes, then the public opinion needs to be prepared and informed in this direction. If not, the solution is not, under no circumstances, neither the condemnation of the Romanian people, nor the deportation or isolation of gypsies at the margins of the cities, as has been proposed by Mister Gigi Becali [Party of the New Generation and owner of Steaua Bucharest, a shepherd who got fantastically rich after 1990, known for his populist ‘policies’ consisting largely in money donations to deprived people to catch votes and for his lack of a programme] in Romania. The solution can only be found in the passing from an NGO policy priority to a European strategy, similar to the process of integration of the other minorities of the EU. The results will not be, however, spectacular or fast. In France, the integration of Maghreb minorities is a half-failure. The brother of the French Justice minister, Mrs Rachida Dati, of Moroccan origin, are or have been in prison. In the last years, the ‘garbage’, as Sarkozy has called them, of the peripheries of Paris have lit up, in a revolt, over 10000 cars. In strong and rigorous Germany, the integration of the Turks has not happened even after 40 years. The Turkish quartier of modern and cosmopolitan Berlin looks like an ill-famed suburb of Istanbul, and a lot of its inhabitants do not speak German, even if they were born and raised here.
The simple truths known by any police officer of Europe are not told by the politicians except by whispering and in the absence of TV cameras. President Basescu, for whom gypsies are ‘stinking’, does not have the courage to tell Europe that in the nomad tribes having a bath is not a normal tradition, and that people smear tallow over their bodies for protection from illnesses and charms. The Romanian people can be called thieving, raping and criminal, but this will not bring peace and security to the streets of Rome, Paris or Madrid. This is only possible by the recognition of the problems of the gypsies and their solving through a European way [pe cale europeana].”

A lot could be said about this piece. I do not question that integration is a delicate and difficult topic, but I am personally concerned with the increasingly restricting legislation as far as migrants are concerned. I think as far as internal migration within the EU is concerned, it is wrong to impose restrictions. I see it as a consequence of an increase of xenophobia, in an increasingly unstable economic environment, and, let me put it this way, I might be left-wing, but not entirely opposed to necessary reforms as far as work is concerned, as long as certain conditions are fulfilled. But this is an entire discussion for which there exist better arenas than this post.
Let me keep the comments brief, all in the line of ‘deux poids, deux measures’ really…

- Note the exhortation not to confuse Romanians and gypsies, juxtaposed with the conflation of Europe and the EU
- Note the conflation of EU accession and integration in the case of Romanians, and the rhetorically empty use of ‘integration’ meaning assimilation
- Note the value-laden, and spatially differentiating descriptions of the progressive West and the backward, unmodern East (epitomised by the Turks). Note, in the same vein, the juxtaposition of the EU as a torchlight of progressiveness, and that will solve Romania’s national problems as well as every other country’s
- ‘The solution can only be found in the passing from an NGO policy priority to a European strategy, similar to the process of integration of the other minorities of the EU’ – what on earth does he want to say? As far as I
- Note how the Europeans are, collectively, angry at the rromi
- There is a lurking feeling that it is the gypsies’/Turkish immigrants/Maghrebians fault that they are at least poorer than average (note that this does not enter the discussion), and that it is because of inherent deficiencies (e.g. weird, unprogressive traditions)
- As usual, I have a high level of mistrust in the way in which the Romanian press uses statistics, and gives sometimes distorted information that results from lack of rigour and/or overgeneralisation, e.g. the bit where gypsies are universally characterised as living in horse carriages, marrying off their children early, etc.
- The non-integration of gypsies is viewed as a refusal, but the engrained, interiorised views on gypsies (at least in Romania) do not help ‘integration’ in the best possible way because even key people like teachers or priests have these kinds of views…
- It does raise questions about certain aspects of political correctness that may, at first, be used to gloss something that might be unchanged in practice, but that might change over time, just by giving it a new frame and vocabulary, attitudes to follow shortly. In other words, Wilde’s phrase that the truth is rarely pure and never simple holds true, and I believe that even while there may be proportionally more gypsy criminals in Italy, I do not think that someone has done the statistics how many of the Romanians citizens arrested by Italian police were, actually, ‘of rrom ethnicity’. I have a hard time imagining Italian carabinieri asking the suspect, ‘please fill in this ethnicity questionnaire, thank you very much, Sir’. And I find it funny how police officers are transformed, suddenly, in a country where the police force is known for their lingering corruption and violence, in the keepers of the truth
- Hopefully the discussion will mature a little…

My apologies for exceeding normative post word count.

Forthcoming...

Here, the news about the forthcoming World Development Report that - almost surprisingly - acknowledges the damages made to agriculture and other sectors by deregulation policies and laissez-faire to the point of abandonment. You may have heard it all before, but it needs to be remembered and made present more often. Still a third of humanity lives in absolute poverty, still the gap between rich and poor rises, with rural areas in the "third world" at the bottom of the bottom rungs. Quote from Le Monde: "Bien que l'agriculture ne soit pas le seul instrument capable de les sortir de la pauvreté, c'est une source hautement efficace de croissance pour y parvenir." An important sentence after all these years during which agriculture has been devalued, underpaid and the consequences remained little considered.
I wonder what impact the following strategy will have on the world and how exactly the World Bank will re-orient its policies for what Le Monde says may be 20 years...
"L'accélération du changement climatique, l'imminence d'une crise de l'eau, la lente adoption des nouvelles biotechnologies, et le bourgeonnement de la demande de biocarburants et d'aliments pour le bétail créent de nouvelles incertitudes sur les conditions dans lesquelles la nourriture sera disponibles dans l'économie mondiale".

The Ending of Regimes

I finally dared asking the question about the ending of regimes. When did it first occur to you that communism might not be forever? To me, it is a hard question. It was answered to me in the following way by someone I appreciate a lot:
‘Summer of 1989. My father was saying that Ceausescu’s regime was not going to last past the year. I didn’t know. I realised that things were happening in Berlin. Then we had a meeting of the UTC (Union of Young Communists) at work. It was a regular thing, an ideology meeting, a kind of advanced course. One guy was speaking and I was sleeping with my eyes open. I must have been one of the older people there, I was around thirty. Something he said woke me up, and I reacted to it. He said that only with Communism, History had come, before Communism there had been no History. I said f*%& that, what on earth do you mean? I was astonished that no one else reacted, but they were either not listening, like me, or they were a lot younger. What happened then was even stranger. He made his excuses and left in the middle of the course. I was expecting to get into trouble by the security, but I did not. I started to believe my father was right.’
1989 was a long time ago. I was nine years old. I remember the Berlin pictures on TV, the classrooms I was in that year, and I remember my communion. It was so stressful the day ended with a headache (possibly brought on by the impossibly tight weave the hairdresser had created on the top of my head), the ice-cream lamb was crying, and it was cold and beautifully bright outside. Last weekend someone (male, around 35, married, one child, wealthy) was visiting who wore a communist emblem T-Shirt under his white jumper. You know the kind, red background, white hammer and sickle. Strange choice despite the period that has passed…

Poverty and Precariousness

Someone pointed out to me that poor people on the countryside fare better than people in the city. The comment precipitated a lot of thought on the matter, because part of me at first rejected it entirely (always fascinating to see how we react to certain engrained assumptions qualified). Then I conceded that I had been wrong about certain things in this regard.
Not only two or three people here get twenty-five (25) euro pension per month. Some households are constituted of three generations, sharing one salary, and one of the said pensions. I have been wondering about the difference between the poverty here, and the poverty in Western Europe. It may be not just a question of difference in degree, but also a question of difference in kind. I take into account that a difference exists between the kind of poverty found in cities and the one found (here) on the countryside. People here get credit at the local food shop to buy bread (one bread costs 0.7 RON = 0.2 EURO – the shopkeeper explained to me that they had to have a sign saying ‘no credit here’, but that it was not possible to stick to this in practice). The people that have a pension, no matter how minuscule, do not get social benefits, apart from one-off money for fire wood (only heating source around here with very few exceptions). From what I hear from the Lux context, people do get enough money to cover their basic needs. And, speaking about basic needs, I do not think there is anyone in Britain or Lux who does not have access to running water, a bathroom, and electricity. There are a lot of people here who do not have number one and two, and a few who do not have number three. The reason elderly people hold as many animals as they can work is because they cut food bills and enrich staple diets. You can also (at the moment of writing: still) somehow sell the cheese you make, the eggs your chickens lay, and the meat of the spring lamb that your ewe has had. This helps, to some degree. Of course, the facts that communism collapsed and left a whole generation on terribly small pensions (who is to blame that they did not pay contributions to a fund then?), and that incomes are up to ten times lower than in some Western European countries needs to be taken into account in any characterisation of the kind of poverty here.
On the other hand, the kind of misery in Western Europe I mean may resemble the urban kind. It can mean a combination of the following: high debts, forms of social exclusion that include lack of access to education, to secure and fairly-paid jobs, to a secure, healthy living environment, and so forth.
I think one of the most important differences is that in the countryside here, people live without major debts, but in the cities, people have debts because they have commodities, too. In the cities, people may make more plans for the future to face uncertainty, but here, uncertainty is levelled out by minimising the risk in the present, because they do not have the resources to act otherwise. I am not sure how it is with risk deferment: people commit to take out mortgages and pay in health and pension cover, but what kind of percentage can still commit to this kind of responsibility in societies rapidly increasing in inequality, say, in ten or fifteen years’ time? Furthermore, there may be more of temporary poverty because the job situation can change quickly. The welfare state being under siege from various internal and external forces, I am not sure anymore in how far we can and should still speak about it. So these are my embryonic thoughts on the matter, and I am sure a lot has been written about it. I just need to find time to read all that.

tonight

Tonight my life doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I am on my own in a country that I often fail to understand, with people who do not share my way of being, my way of feeling, and my aims and aspirations. The politics here are crazy, we are moving from one political crisis to the next. The spin of the moment is whether the European elections will be postponed. The spin of tomorrow is yet another deal with personal interests and business interests uncannily close and extremely dangerous. Becali, the richissime owner of Steaua Bucharest, leads the Party of the New Generation, without a programme, but the slogan that ‘politics is his salvation’ and a weird compulsion to talk about idealism, honesty, thieves (all other parties) and that he wants to build a right-wing oriental Christian democratic kind of politics. My true worry is that he might become Romania’s next president. People in the village take it stoically. They know regimes come and go and they are all bad, in one way or another. People are involved in very hierarchical relationships of dependence and services and yet, I am not sure whether community is the right word to use. All this and more makes me tired, prone to colds and, sometimes, grumpy and extremely vulnerable to whatever comes (or doesn’t come) my way. I miss my friends and I miss having a life that is filled with things I love doing: exercising in the gym, playing badminton, going to the library, having a regulated, tightly scheduled life, going to the cinema, going to the pub with people I share more than just location with. I am eaten by fleas and spiders and the people I want to spend time with for fun are the same who I hurt in their manly pride by telling them that I am not in the least attracted to them. The selection is not vast I must say, and those that do not consider me worth ignoring regard me as a child. I am not taken seriously, because people work in different ways here and do not hold appointments and delay, delay, delay, and then do not have any time left. It makes me feel like I am not achieving a lot. The child-woman lacks everything at times to defend herself in a manner that will not be considered impolite or reckless or un-womanly. I try to be a good anthropologist, but I do not know if even come close. I exhaust myself on one day, manically wandering through the village and being filled up with other people’s lives, and feel so elated I could eat the world, then follow three days of rain, of rejection, of ‘I have no idea what to tell you’, and of ‘this week I really don’t have time for this, maybe in the autumn’ (my hosts’ response to this was, ‘yes, but they didn’t say which autumn’), of broken promises and a ruptured tire to round it off. I do wonder at the methods we anthropologists use, and at all the time wasted to get just a bit of information, all these hours spent hanging about in pubs (unwomanly), in gardens with busy women, on the street just to get a bit of ‘data’. I suppose most research is like this, and how naïve I have been to write all the things about activist research, and similar patronising things.

tonight

Tonight my life doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I am on my own in a country that I often fail to understand, with people who do not share my way of being, my way of feeling, and my aims and aspirations. The politics here are crazy, we are moving from one political crisis to the next. The spin of the moment is whether the European elections will be postponed. The spin of tomorrow is yet another deal with personal interests and business interests uncannily close and extremely dangerous. Becali, the richissime owner of Steaua Bucharest, leads the Party of the New Generation, without a programme, but the slogan that ‘politics is his salvation’ and a weird compulsion to talk about idealism, honesty, thieves (all other parties) and that he wants to build a right-wing oriental Christian democratic kind of politics. My true worry is that he might become Romania’s next president. People in the village take it stoically. They know regimes come and go and they are all bad, in one way or another. People are involved in very hierarchical relationships of dependence and services and yet, I am not sure whether community is the right word to use. All this and more makes me tired, prone to colds and, sometimes, grumpy and extremely vulnerable to whatever comes (or doesn’t come) my way. I miss my friends and I miss having a life that is filled with things I love doing: exercising in the gym, playing badminton, going to the library, having a regulated, tightly scheduled life, going to the cinema, going to the pub with people I share more than just location with. I am eaten by fleas and spiders and the people I want to spend time with for fun are the same who I hurt in their manly pride by telling them that I am not in the least attracted to them. The selection is not vast I must say, and those that do not consider me worth ignoring regard me as a child. I am not taken seriously, because people work in different ways here and do not hold appointments and delay, delay, delay, and then do not have any time left. It makes me feel like I am not achieving a lot. The child-woman lacks everything at times to defend herself in a manner that will not be considered impolite or reckless or un-womanly. I try to be a good anthropologist, but I do not know if even come close. I exhaust myself on one day, manically wandering through the village and being filled up with other people’s lives, and feel so elated I could eat the world, then follow three days of rain, of rejection, of ‘I have no idea what to tell you’, and of ‘this week I really don’t have time for this, maybe in the autumn’ (my hosts’ response to this was, ‘yes, but they didn’t say which autumn’), of broken promises and a ruptured tire to round it off. I do wonder at the methods we anthropologists use, and at all the time wasted to get just a bit of information, all these hours spent hanging about in pubs (unwomanly), in gardens with busy women, on the street just to get a bit of ‘data’. I suppose most research is like this, and how naïve I have been to write all the things about activist research, and similar patronising things.

OGM GMO - food and industry

please take some time to watch this (in french) it was not authorised to be screened by CANAL+. at the moment i am working with an NGO dealing with these sorts of issues in romania, and it is alarming how much complicity there exists of the authorities with the private sector.

in the museum: troglodytes, civilisation and the balkan

As I waited for my friend to finish his meeting yesterday, I hid from the wind and snow in the Palace of Culture in Târgu Mures, and had a look at the History Museum there. History here is reduced to an archaeological collection of ceramics and iron-made ‘tools’ that more often than not are very silent about possible uses in daily life. I got very frustrated by the glass boxes as I attempted to reconstruct some kind of social life around these objects in my imagination. The collection is concentrated mainly on the glorious distant past, and the places of discovery are indicated on light-faded maps. This is definitely something Umberto Eco should have included among his brilliant excursions on ‘How to organise a public library’ and the like. I did a bit of collecting myself and present to you here the most interesting ‘explanatory comments’, presented on laminated beige posters in a very poetic English voice, as you will discover. How to make a museum as dusty as possible:

The Starcevo-Cris culture is representative for the beginning of the Neolithic. This culture is characteristic through the painted ceramics tools made by cut and polish rocks. The smalls settlements is formed by cottage.
(…)
The funerary habit was represented by incineration in plane or tumular graves.
(…)
The economy was mixted.
(…)
The tibula was used as a dress decoration. For the first time appeared in the Bronze Age and it was used until the Great Migrations (7^th Century)
(…)
The 2^nd Iron Age.
The ferrous metallurgy would reach its climax in La Tène due to the Celts and progressively generalise, to a large extent beginning with the 2^nd Century B.C. The Dacian iron civilisation is undoubtedly one of the most remarkably civilisations of the ‘barbarian’ Europe.
(…)
The Roman epoch (106-271 A.D.) signified the moment of outmost interaction with the universal history, as the history of the Roman province of Dacia is part of the history of the Roman Empire. Accomplishing the role of a strategic bastion positioned in the barbaric world, Dacia had the statute of imperial province.
(…)
I especially like the Polish rocks, and I want a plane grave too, please! Also amazed at the (very ambivalent) emphasis on how proto-Romania was already more European / civilised than its barbaric neighbours, something reproduced in the nationalist discourse of the nineteenth century, and in the Romanisation efforts of the language at that time. This is most likely largely an issue of historiography, and of the timing at which these posters were put up. I suspect just after the revolution… but maybe someone has a more definite idea on this? Very revealing also considering the large Hungarian population of this town, and the bloody confrontations in 1990 on the Piata Trandafirilor between Hungarian students and peasants sent in from the countryside by Romanian group Vatra. Finally, what on earth are laypersons like me supposed to think about the generalised climax of ferrous metallurgy? Sound and fury… signifying and teaching nothing.

'Es ist die Kultur, ihr Trottel!'

On the topic why natural sciences alone may not suffice to understand humans, the German quality daily Zeit wonders today about the image and purposes of Geisteswissenschaften in the real world here, and also has a site dedicated to the (German) Year of the Human Sciences, and questions related to this. Only in German, I'm afraid!

the announcement kindly asks us...

to leave the metro carriages and wait for the next one. everyone gets out quietly. piata victoriei. on the platform across the rails, a voice. the person it belongs to is hidden behind the yellow pillars, and he does not look anything like his voice. with a pronounced vibrato, he performs a mellow, plaintive type of folk song. let us see beyond the balkan soul stereotypes.
it moved me, and it may have moved others too. one young police officer was not moved and mocked the singer to his friends, who listened nevertheless.
also encountered some roma kids on calea victoriei carrying around their sheep and wishing every bypasser health and luck and also wishing for a return of some kind.
the following article is a particularly apt portrayal of the romania beyond the stereotypes of contrast, of alterity and proximity:
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2006/09/IONESCU/13967 - septembre 2006
and also this, for the contrastive effect...
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006600595,00.html