Dilema veche 311, 28 January 2010

Andrei Plesu
Again and again about Romania's image
The love for one's country is not the same as the love for the image of one's country. We all remember the great scandal the pink pony exhibited by the Romanian Cultural Institute that was accused of having mocked Romania's image. Now the claims made by the Geoana family, that Mircea Geoana was defeated in the Presidential elections because of occult forces, have invaded the international media. Nevertheless, the public reaction in Romania on this subject was much milder than the one provoked by the RCI: there have been only a few jokes, and Ion Iliescu, the former Romanian president, has had the opportunity to condemn, once again, obscurantism...

Gabriel Giurgiu
Flags
Gabriel Giurgiu speaks about the strange habit of flying the European Union flag everywhere in Romania: in kindergartens, food stores, churches, town halls, council houses. The phenomenon can be seen as the same type of Euro-enthusiasm that didn't manifest itself at the European Parliament, where the Romanian presence wasn't great.

Andrei Manolescu
Again about religion in schools
In a dialogue with his son, a primary school pupil, Andrei Manolescu reveals the weak points of Romanian religious learning: the classes are only for pupils belonging to the Orthodox religion. Those belonging to different religions are just present, not required to learn but not offered an alternative...

Vintila Mihailescu
The violet evil eye
Vintila Mihailescu discusses the occult explanations Mihaela Geoana gave for his defeat (he shouted "Help, people, my man has been given the evil eye!") from and anthropological stance: he thinks the "explanation" was so popular because we are a "culture of the evil eye" – which is part of our shared peasant background. For a woman to say something like that is normal, according to peasant traditional practices. The reactions of the men are interesting: the defeated (Mircea Geoana) denied his responsibility for his defeat, as it was a spell... and the defenders acted like Star Wars heroes: the Force was with us, and that was that!

Madalina Schiopu
Gospel in Giulesti
Madalina Schiopu writes a story about the Baptist Spiritual Revival Church, situated in Giulesti on the outskirts of Bucharest. It is a rather unusual community made up of Africans who came here from Congo, but also of Romanians, Gypsies, Serbs... Their close-knit community was founded by Peter Rong, a Sudanese minister who graduated from the school of Baptist theology in Romania, married a Romanian woman, and worked, for a while, at the Refugee centre in Bucharest. The service is conducted in Romanian, English, French, and Lingala, one of the official languages of Congo.

Weekly dossier
Why not leave Romania

Stela Giurgeanu
What are we still doing in our Romania?
A survey conducted last year by the Ministry of Youth showed that two million young people wish to emigrate. The question that Stela Giurgeanu raises is why do the other 20 million remain in Romania?

Dan C Mihailescu
Home... "in dürftiger Zeit"
Dan C Mihailescu is one of the Romanian intellectuals that decided to stay. Why? Because he was educated in a nationalistic way: you are a Romanian, your duty is to become better in order be able to give more, to be an example for the others. If you are to leave, you do it only for a while, in order to learn something and bring it back here. Now, when seeing that lots of well-educated people are returning to Romania but are ill received, Mihailescu's opinion has started to change.

Bogdan Voicu
Why should(n't) we leave the country?
Lately, lots of people have left the country, because information about work abroad is more accessible and because migration networks have appeared. Those who decide to leave are, generally, the ones more open to change and risk. The ones staying are said to be confronted with three possible scenarios: everybody will leave; the population deficit will be replenished with experts from the West and the Romanians will be left with the worse jobs; and the most optimistic scenario that says that both foreigners will come and Romanians will benefit from good jobs, wages and schools.

Sorin Costreie
To say no in a most natural way...
Sorin Costreie, lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, and also a Canadian citizen, says that he has chosen to stay because he can leave anytime. The possibility to live in Romania is given by the refusal of your environment, by the power to refuse some things ( not good for us, but customary) in a most natural way...

Dilema veche 312, 4 February 2010

Sever Voinescu
On victims
Sever Voinescu writes about the victimization concept, starting with the young lawyer Benjamin Mendelsohn, famous for a lawsuit winning method consisting of emphasizing the victim's role in the crime committed by the aggressor. Back in the 1970's, Cohen, Felson and Luckenbill improved the theory, but only with the feminist movement and the science of "victimization" came the chance to really apply it. Voinescu concludes that in politics you can never tell who the victim is, apart from the electorate.

Andrei Manolescu
A long way till far
Andrei Manolescu writes about tourism as a real option for rebuilding the economy. Greece is an example of a poor country which reaps benefits from tourism. Blue and white Greek houses have become a value brand in the industry. This is why places like Santorini has become one of the most flourishing and desirable holiday destinations. Turkey has learned the lesson and become an alternative to Greece. Manolescu notices that Romania is still a country struggling to find its way to success.

"Oral history is an antidote for any powerful nation" – interview with Alessandro Portelli, professor at "La Sapienza" University in Rome
Alessandro Portelli is one of the founding fathers of oral history as an academic subject. He talks about the importance of oral history and its resemblances with journalism. He has written several scientific articles on the subject and studies such as The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories (State University of New York Press, 1991) and L'ordine è stato eseguito (Donzelli, 1999).

Weekly dossier
The state of jazz

Catalin Toader
A short treaty of Romanian jazzography
Catalin Toader underlines the vitality of the musical genre despite a non-supporting social and financial context. He writes that the simple joy of playing jazz is the engine that sets the musicians and their audience in motion.

Marius Chivu
We listen to the jazz we deserve
Marius Chivu asked some famous jazz players, jazz critics and jazz festival managers to answer three basic questions: does Romanian jazz actually exist? Why doesn't this music genre have a greater impact in Romania? Is a jazz festival worth it, financially speaking?

Marius Giura, the manager of The International Jazz Festival from Garîna, says that we can definitely talk about Romanian jazz, but the lack of support and promotion gives it almost no visibility.

Florian Lungu, a music critic and producer, thinks that the lack of visibility also comes from the fact that some important institutions support classic music (opera, operetta) rather than jazz, pop or other commercial music genres.

Bogdan Enache, the manager of Bucharest Masters of Jazz Festival, replies that with no help from sponsors and journalists, there is little chance to make a jazz festival financially viable.

Dilema Veche 313, 11 February 2010

Radu Cosasu
Piata Romana, 10 February 1995, at 10.28
A dream comes true: Friday 10 February 1995, at 10.28, one can buy Le Monde diplomatique only a day later than the Parisian issue; in the centre of Bucharest from a kiosk at the same time as in New York, Salzburg or Jerusalem. It is an example for "the big change" although seen by aunts in Caracas and cousins in Oberhausen as a "big baby" dream. Fifteen years later, nobody goes crazy bats an eyelid about Le Monde in Bucharest. Communist censorship used to stop the distribution of western media on the grounds of articles or news that were "mean" about Romania. It was either full interdiction or merely delaying distribution by a week or even a month. Today you have it on your doorstep...

Cristian Ghinea
Tea drinkers and Kant – the historical significance
Mancur Olson stated a principle in public policies saying that small groups with strong interests, such as farmers, are more efficient at accepting government money. How come the modern state does not collapse over the big payouts?

The Tea Party movement in the US is a protest against a big, fat government, against public debt, and against a public health system. It started with Ron Paul, before Obama and the current economic crisis. But it took after the American bail out, helped by Rick Santelli a Chicago TV anchor who was angry with Obama's plans. All over the US, initiative groups were set up. The Tea Party movement is a diverse group, and it is likely that its big victory will be that the Democrats take a back seat. However, the Tea Party movement seems irrational because the individual gains of its activists are very small. But they are not looking for money. It is like Kant on economics: the awareness that somebody will one day pay all the debts. Healthy countries are saved by the restraint from below. Call it "Reaganism" or "Thatcherism" or the Tea Party movement; it is unimportant. The idea remains.

Weekly dossier
The coat makes the man

Adina Nanu
The man makes the coat
"The coat makes the man" – an ingenious word inversion from the simple sentence "the man makes the coat". You can miss the entire art class or never set foot in a museum but you are obliged to dress every single day. There were times when the coat signalled your place in society. Nowadays you can't differentiate between a director or a simple employee, you see a couple but you can barely tell the man from the woman, and you can't pinpoint their nationality. Ben Schasfoort proposed that visual education should be taught in school as a second language. Clothes are replaced not only by generations but by mentality, and they express new principles of beauty. Art history should start by exposing each part of the coat that makes the man and to continue with the things people surround themselves with – building, statues, or paintings.

Cristina Hermeziu
Fashion show on the Paris streets
In Paris, as elsewhere, the outfit is a code for a club, social class and ethnic group. It is a label of aesthetics, origin, sexual orientation, and religious conviction. But they all coexists, therefore "the coat makes the man... free". He finds his identity, hides it, plays with it or ignores it. It is a private and public issue at the same time. For a year, French politicians have been debating whether or not to forbid the wearing of the burqa in public. A stigmatizing law according to some, exemplary to others. The fashion show on the Paris streets has stopped being innocent.

Alin Fumurescu
Tocqueville code
American universities do not have a dress code. There are unwritten laws however: you don't wear a suit because you want the students to feel close to you, at the same time you don't wear shorts because it would be frivolous. Conferences and interviews require a formal dress code. The unwritten laws in America are even more tyrannical than the written ones. The students all wear the same outfits: jeans or pyjama bottoms. This does not mean that fashion is absent: last year all had to wear Crocs, now Uggs are en vogue, and nearly 90 per cent of the girls wear them. You rarely see skirts or dresses. It is less about the outfits and more about the gadgets.

Dilema veche 314, 18 February 2010

Andrei Plesu
Reform parties
Andrei Plesu has noted a lot of talk about reform in almost all the parties in Romania. He fears that these discussions may not have any substantive result. In his opinion, Romanian parties are today faced with issues of doctrine, style and human resources.

Radu Dragan
Again on the minarets, but not only
Radu Dragan discovers how for centuries, in some localities in Romania, a dichotomy between people who are considered indigenous and those who came there later has been preserved. He writes that in essence it is a social dualism inherited from the time of traditional societies, a phenomenon studied by Levi Strauss among the Indians in the Amazon region. Social systems operate as binary systems are set in motion by symbolic opposition between antagonistic groups. Dragan notes the increasing occurrence in the midst of communities in the West of events that appear to be based on this ancient mechanism.

Denis Cenusa
Why is "pro-Russian" Yanukovych accepted by Europeans?
Denis Cenusa explains why European leaders recognized the election victory by Viktor Yanukovych despite his pro-Russian label, while his opponents were considered pro-Western. Cenusa believes it was a result of pragmatic calculation rather than an interest in supporting democratic values and principles.

Andrei Ciurcanu
Survivors of the sky
Andrei Ciurcanu tells a striking story of two pilots, one Romanian, the other American, who fought in the air, in a battle during World War II. Although both went down, they survived and met 65 years later to become friends.

Carmen Gavrila
The Ayatollah who changed the world
At 31 years of Islamic revolution in Iran, Carmen Gavrila, correspondent for Radio Romania in the Middle East, describes the political legacy left by Ayatollah Khomeini. She reports that Khomeini's grandchildren are involved in politics, but, paradoxically, they are supporters of Western-style democracy.

Weekley dossier
Romanian language status

Cristian Moroianu
"Maybe it goes like this." But...
The author writes that the Romanian language has expanded since 1990. Language has been freed from the uniformity and formal expression of the communist era. In the meantime, attention to correct language is on the decrease and an increasing number of language errors are transmitted through the media. The message may be transmitted, but proper, appropriate and stylish expression can define a man.

Florin Dumitrescu
Can you speak advertising language?
Razvan Dumitrescu notes how advertising language has changed over the years. The jargon of those engaged in advertising tends to invade the adverts themselves, even when addressed to large groups of people.

Interview with Adriana Saftoiu, member of the Chamber of Deputies
"It is harder to finish high school than college"
Adriana Saftoiu recently presented, to the Romanian Parliament, a document which advocates change to the way in which Romanian language grammar and literature in primary education is taught. She believes that at present, the way the curriculum is put together does not attract children to literature or to learning a language properly.

Published 2010-03-09

Original in Romanian
Contributed by Dilema veche
© Dilema veche
© Eurozine