It reads at first glance like a crazy, exclamation-point-abusing combination of the laments of downtrodden migrant workers the world over with something that might have appeared in a Soviet newspaper during the late Gorbachev period:
However, it gets to the heart of many of the issues that analysts are spilling a lot of pixels trying to explain today. The document states that it is the "first official declaration" of the protesters and reads, in part, as follows (my translation):
We are many, we are young, we are united! We will go to the very end[.]* Presumably this is intended to reassure Voronin that a Ceausescu-like fate is not envisioned for him.
You can't control us any longer!
We are sick and tired of tolerating a totalitarian regime, which relies on fear and terror!
Communism is responsible for the largest genocide in history!
We don't want to be ruled by those who killed or deported our parents or grandparents! [...]
We do not want extreme solutions* - we request the President be put on trial according to the Constitution!
We're not engaged in anyone else's politics and we are not paid by anyone!
We are not of any political color - we are pure and transparent!
Down with the communist magnates who send us to do menial work and steal our money even from Western Union!
The luxury furniture and parquet in the Presidential and Parliamentary buildings were bought with the commission fees from currency exchanges!
We don't want to go to Italy, Portugal or Spain!
We don't want to go to Canada or Moscow!
We want to work and be paid in our own country!
We want a country based on respect and trust, not on fear and shakedowns!
This is much more of an emotional appeal than the declaration released by the just-formed People's Anticommunist Coalition 2009, the full text of which is available in English at this post by Nicu Popescu, which is growing longer and longer with updates by the hour.
[Update April 9] Unimedia has published its own English translation of the document shown above, which translates the full document and is mostly intelligible except for one particularly humorous mistake: they have the protesters proclaiming, "Down with the communist magnets[!]"
Perhaps this is a Freudian slip, because - with no disrespect to the young people whose boiling-over frustration is so well expressed in the declaration above - if emotional declarations with limited policy proposals are the best the opposition can muster, they may again find the ruling Communists exerting a force of attraction among the population.
Note that - as I mentioned above - this is in fact not the best the opposition can do; there is another, more articulate declaration making the rounds. Read it midway down the page here.
3 comments:
Hi Lyndon. It's Kolya again. I know very little about Moldvova and Romania. I saw in Wikipedia that about 78 percent of the population are ethnic Moldovans. Do you have any sense of what proportion among them would like to eventually join Romania (perhaps as an autonomous zone)? Besides the strong cultural and linguistic ties, Romania is a larger country and belongs to the EU. Wouldn't that, in the long run, stabilize Moldova? Or is it that most ethnic Moldovans are strongly committed to independence? What are the main reasons for an ethnic Moldovan to argue against such a union? Patriotic? Pragmatic?
Not knowing anything about it, it seems that because of its ethnic composition and small size, Moldova would always be vulnerable to instability and pressures if it stays independent.
I'm aware that I'm asking too much, so feel free to ignore my questions if you feel too swamped in trying to keep up with events.
Kolya, there have been polls in recent years which show a very low level of public support (something like 10%) for unification with Romania. That support, to the extent it exists, is (I think) stronger in Chisinau and among people who have, for example, gone to university in Romania - although I've talked with at least one person who while in school found Romanians so condescending to Moldovans that it detracted from the experience of studying there.
The people with the "Greater Romania" T-shirts (and banners) always seem to come out for protests, so perhaps they also seem to be a greater force than they are because they are more politically active; the folks who do not support unification are what one might call the silent majority, but they are definitely a majority.
As with everywhere, once places are split up and people's identities diverge, it is hard to put things back together again. I think one of the reasons some of the young people may be more enthusiastic about unification is that they view entry into the EU as a panacea for Moldova's troubles and believe (probably correctly) that there's no way Moldova will be joining the EU as an independent country any time soon.
That is the real shame - the EU could absorb Moldova and its small population easily, and exert the stabilizing effect you mention, but because of the unresolved conflict over Transnistria and the EU's own enlargement fatigue - not to mention Turkey standing at the front of the line - that will not happen in the foreseeable future.
I personally do not support unification. In my opinion it would not stabilize Moldova so much as eliminate it as an independent and distinct country. Plus you should not discount the "pride of small nations," which in the case of Moldova includes elements of both what you describe as "patriotic" (a sense of distinct national identity and/or a dislike of the neighboring group) and "pragmatic" (among the masses, this takes the form of recalling - not inaccurately - that Moldovans were much better off than Romanians during the Cold War era; and a consciousness must exist among certain Moldovan elites that if they are subsumed into Romania then they will no longer be the leaders of a nation but merely the leaders of a Romanian region - and will suffer a concurrent loss of prestige, perks and rent-getting ability).
Finally, what would happen to the non-Romanian/Moldovan-speakers in a unification scenario? I don't think they would feel secure at all, and there would be the risk of a reprise of the early-'90s war, which was (on the mass level and excluding elite manipulation) to a large extent about the concern of the Russian-speaking population in Transnistria that unification was about to happen.
Sorry, that was a bit stream-of-consciousness and I'm afraid I don't have time to add sources or links, but hopefully that answers at least part of your question.
That was great, Lyndon! Thanks. Very informative and thoughtful. I am much too ignorant about Moldova, so your note was very helpful.
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