As anyone who visits these pages regularly or follows us on Twitter will know, we are not big fans of Romanian President Traian Basescu.
We think his failed attempt to Putinize Romania has embedded a political climate in which real debate is substituted with petty personal squabbles. He runs the country by press conference, and his promotion of the two Elenas is beyond satire. His increasingly nasty, anti-Hungarian rhetoric of late reeks of petty nationalism. If we had a vote in November’s presidential election, we would not be casting it for Traian.
Yet this morning we find ourselves leaping to his defence. Here’s why…
Yesterday, Basescu put his administration’s nihi obstat on a report that was broadly favourable towards the legalisation of prostitution and the decriminalising of the consumption of drugs. Much the same kind of thing as that renowned hotbed of smut, filth and decadence The Economist has been advocating for some time.
Watching Antena 3 and Realitatea last night, you would be forgiven for thinking that Basescu had spent yesterday handing out heroin in the country’s schools while simultaneously recruiting young girls to work in a brothel.
This morning’s Romanian newspapers are far more objective.
Unfortunately, so rabidly anti-Basescu these days are both Realitatea and – especially – Antena 3 that they find it difficult to be objective about anything.
And they wonder why people are switching off.
Putting these subjects forward for debate is a postive step and should be welcomed by anyone who sees battles of ideas as the way to move society forward. We do not like Basescu but when he gets it right we should all put our hands up and say so.
As for drugs and prostitution, we broadly favour some kind of tolerance for both. There would be a visible increase in visitor numbers to Bucharest which – we have to admit – would be terrific for business.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Legal hookers and drugs? I am on the next flight !!
Basescu should listen to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDT6FT3xWuo
Frickin sweet!!!
@Cristina: you know, I’d give 1/4 of my English for some Russian
But people were speaking English back then too, the education system was quite developed for those ages and it was producing good specialists. Of course, you had to study Russian, the socialist economic system and some other ideological hours but English was English, Mathematics was Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry not to mention Medicine etc…
We had a Central Bank, we had diplomacy, we had state institutions back then too, we weren’t in the jungle you know…
Of course, it was forbidden to listen to Radio Europa Libera. But people knew that, I don’t see where’s the problem. When you cross the law you take risks nowadays too. But you see – the Securitate could have put him in jail because that was the law back then, however they decided only to warn him that he’s doing a bad thing and left him alone.
It’s like I said a few weeks ago – the oppresory system is just a legend, on the street things were very flexible.
@Parmalat: even the church allows the human to “take the best decision”. we all have freedom , it’s all about what he do.
However, I ‘m totally against communism and i really hope no one has to endure that regimen ever again!
Would you have been able to speak English if Ceausescu’s regimen didn’t fall in 1989? No , you wouldn’t! Only Russian and maybe French.
Do you know that ppl went to jail for LISTENING to Radio Free Europe (Radio Europa Libera)? No? Then I can tell you my dad was asked by the Secret Police to stop listening or he’d be thrown into jail.
Ref drugs, I never tried any and never have been tempted; yet, i think it’s not a slippery slope to make “recreational drugs” available. yes, it’s a fact that they are used; it’s a fact that prostitution exists; but how abt trying to get the medical system in a normal state (like one when you’d rather go to the state hospital than to pay in a private one!) before decided what to do wt other issues? how abt trying to figure out why the government doesn’t have money to pay the pensions? and so on.
Parmalat:
Porno is all I can say. So these guys are getting paid hundreds of thousands of Euros and any fitze women they want?! I went to a top US college and can drive a BMW Turbo any day. I don’t buy it. These guys are getting a ride. How interesting it is how some people lead lives completely at the top while others, equally as bright, are normal citizens. Here in Bucharest it seems very pronounced. I mean if you have the 100,000+ Euros for a Mercedes AMG car, you are God. I saw this young 20 something girl this morning in a white Audi A5 and I thought, shoot!, you’d be hard pressed to find a girl,her age in America driving such a car.
@Cristina: I’m a communist with ecologist and fundamentalist views, if I ever get to power that’s the kind of regime I’m gonna impose
)
And I don’t really care about going to church every Sunday or so or having children (everyone is free to do whatever he likes), however I care about the concept of respect towards basic social rules.
And I believe the Church should be a power in the state because it has the ability to bring and maintain respect towards basic social rules. That’s what the word of God is about – becoming a human being, not an animal.
If we are so blinded by money nowadays, there has to be an authority that has the ability to put some sense into us. The Church can do that.
Actually – about the drugs – youngsters want to have fun forever and they don’t care about consequences or social responsability as a matter of fact. So my opinion is that the decision stands between “let them be” (and God knows where we’re gonna get) or “put some sense into them” (and try to keep the society on the right path).
@Davin: my father is a SRI General and he couldn’t get me into the agency. There, I said it.
. To make a comparison – in 25 years I never knew one damn thing about my father’s work, not even his salary.
The agents that protect the president and all other dignitaries together with foreign delegations belong to the SPP – Serviciul de Paza si Protectie.
The selection criteria in order to enter this agency, as well as every other intelligence agency of Romania are very strict.
There are 2 eliminatory stages – the sports exam and the psychological test. If you pass these ones you get to enter in the evaluation process where there are some other tests to be given.
However, the sports exam and the psychological test are no jokes. Personally I failed the sports exam but I don’t think I would have taken the psychological test either because I speak too much and I’m not disciplined
The system of selection is draconic, only the best people enter these agencies. I could say it’s even harder to enter these agencies now than it was in the times of Ceausescu.
And for a good reason – they run this country, they know everything and they are involved in everything. You can’t just put anyone in such positions.
“If it weren’t for the gentlemen, the fools would kill each other”.
The salaries as well as the pensions of secret service workers are kept secret, people from outside the system don’t know anything about this subject.
@Parmalat: youngsters tend to do exactly what they are NOT allowed to; that’s probably one of the things the commission knows. so if you go by that logic statement, if prostitution and drugs were legal, would the temptation by just as high? or wouldn’t it be?
Ps: no, i’m not for legalizing drugs and i cannot care less if they legalize prostitution either
Guess the side comments too over the basic topic, huh?
@Parmalat: oh brother. i’m only 3 yrs older than you are (and married) but my views are totally different ; maybe b/c i’ve got a different background. while i cannot care less what they comment on tv, i think the church is not a “power” in the state ; and i had to study religion in school (another thing i cannot understand!) [if you wonder, i'm Christian Orthodox; but haven't set foot in the church since my wedding]. Let’s continue with blaming women who want to have a career b4 they pop kids then!
About Basescu’s daughter…you know how it’s said that regardless if the parents are intelligent (or not), the kids don’t need to be the same way. I have mixed feelings abt Basescu’s level of intelligence but I consider EBA sort of stupid.
What i do believe is that considering how many wrong things happen in the country now , the last thing we need is to argue abt prostitution and drugs (and that goes for the politicians as well).
“may the wind blow him off the deck”
))) Well said Parmalat!
Question: Who are the secret service guys?! I mean how would you get to this position here in Romania and how well do you think it is paid? They all looked like pretty handsome guys in suits in their 30s. I mean are they sons of former Securitate? Would it be possible to become part of the elite group protecting Basescu if you did not have a legacy of connections? I am just wondering how connected everything is here?
@Davin: lol
) maybe Basescu is smarter than Ceausescu was but there’s a big difference between the 2: while Ceausescu was a builder, a man of vision, a man who could energize the masses towards achieving a goal, Basescu is a destroyer, a man of controversy, a man who desolates and splits the masses.
People who love him are stupid and they don’t understand what’s going on around them, people who hate him would give a day of their lives only to get rid of him.
No wonder the youth votes for Basescu and he takes away their parents’ salaries and pensions…
No, first we nail Basescu and then we can discuss everything we want. But first we nail Basescu for everything he says because elections are up in 2 months time.
@Cristina: the Church must have a stronger word on the social stage. If I were in charge, I would have preists as advisors and I would listen to them. And they would be dressed in black and they would appear everywhere I go so people remember that God sees them. We must follow God’s word and do what He says at least in general lines because the devil’s word can be found in details everywhere you go. And I would make religion a compulsory field of study for 4 hours every week beginning with primary school until the 12th grade.
@Davin: Basescu don’t give a sh** about art, he’s a fu***** sailor may the wind blow him off the deck.
Adrian Nastase is a man of culture, a real art enthusiast who owns collections of paintings and he has the education level required to understand art.
Unfortunately the IQ level of the Romanian society as a whole is exactly the same as the IQ level of my grandmother so they voted for Basescu instead of voting for Adrian Nastase.
About prostitution: we shouldn’t legalize it, it would mean to legalize the devil. The Church is right on this matter. However, we are people we are not saints so we should tolerate it while it being illegal.
About drugs: the youth of today’s Romania are already very stupid; now it’s pretty hard to decide – either we legalize marijuana and we call them “drugged youths” in the press so they don’t pretend to run the country anymore or we keep them illegal and try to save whatever we can from this generation of youngsters. I think we should legalize it, at least we can get the most of them off our backs and we can run the country in peace.
Craig,
Oh, so Basescu is much smarter then Ceausescu was? What happened with his daughter Elena then??????? A bit of an air head to say the least.
@Davin Basescu’s level of education? He is a sailor by profession, graduated a naval academy I believe. For all his faults he isn’t stupid: the village idiot persona he adopts in public is – I think – an act. Wins him votes apparently.
I was not more than 10 meters from Basescu last night in the contemporary art museum. I was told that he likes art a lot. Really?! Has Basescu studied art history? What is his level of education. His daughter sounds like dunce. Luckily the Secret Service guys didn’t recognize me. On Monday I shot video of Basescu’s motorcade as it went by up at piata Vivtoriei and one of the blue BMW Secret Service cars stopped from 50 meters away and the agent in the back seat stared at me for a bit. I quickly went up a side street and escaped.
Just watched a priest on Realitatea TV and i was applauded by the fact that he compared prostitutes to the women living wt their men without being married. That’s absolutely insane. Our lovely church (btw: why does it have to poke always ???) has such a view that makes the democratic countries cringe.
I am not exactly into the politics (never have been) but for once maybe we should do something abt the problems in our country; prostitution is so obvious to naked eye that those who say it shouldn’t be controlled are trying to be blind. Drug use is sort-of-legal. No one gets in jail for USING, they are only punished for SELLING.
Bottom line? We are going to hear a lot more weird comments (especially from the church) on these and i think i’m going to switch to a music channel rather than have the news in the background as I work!
Just to continue my previous comment about astute foreign observers of the Romanian prostitution scene of the last couple of centuries…
Another interesting one is Alan Clark, the famous/ infamous Tory politician, a very ‘qualified’ personage in the ‘vice’ field, who has insightful notes in his published diaries about the multitude of whores he encountered in communist Romania (he came here in official missions as a Thatcher government minister). Interestingly, he does not have much to say about Bulgaria, which he also visited, in that respect…
‘Battle of ideas’ on the Romanian scene?!… you must be joking… In this region only the Hungarians and eventually the Greeks (their 19th century political and cultural movement called Megali Idea) had battle of ideas, the rest just petty squabbles.
As for prostitution, that is a well known Romanian feature, well documented since the Phanariot times or by 19th century historians such as Jules Michelet or the famous Bolshevik journalist John Reed in his writings. In the last two decades a large proportion of news about Romanians in European media is about the rampant prostitution practised by many among their co-nationals in the in the west and Romania alike. Basescu wants thus to legalise a general behavioural background.
If you want to get rid of prostitution do like in some Scandinavian countries: women are allowed to sell sex but there are penalties for men who but it. There is little or no prostitution there.