It was impossible to watch Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi being hit in the face by a model of Milan Cathedral at the weekend without thinking that it is surely only a matter of time before somebody throws something similarly sharp at Romania’s newly re-elected president, Traian Basescu.
For the two men are remarkably similar.
Abrasive, divisive, deliciously politically incorrect, anti-establishment, fond of doing business with (and appointing) cronies, friends and family, and lacking in diplomatic tact, both men instill genuine loyalty in their followers, while driving the other half of their respective countries to despair. (They also, apropos of nowt, spent their early years at sea: Berlusconi as a cruise-ship crooner, Basescu as a sea captain).
Foreigners look on in wonder at how the two men could ever have been elected once, let alone twice, or even, in Berlusconi’s case, three times. This is to completely misunderstand their appeal to their electorates: Italians love Berlusconi because he is so tactless, so politically incorrect. Many Romanians adore Basescu, a man who – though he did very, very well for himself during the communist period, jollying it up at sea or in Belgium while the rest of the country stood in line for bread and milk – has a willingness to cast aside the niceties that might be expected of a head of state and allegedly slap cheeky little boys or call impertinent journalists ‘stinking gypsies’ and steal mobile telephones.
Yet precisely for those reasons, few who have watched Berlusconi’s many faux pas can really have been surprised that someone finally decided to land one on him. Instead, many commentators are wondering how it took so long.
So we would not be at all surprised for Basescu to end up suffering the same fate. The next time he gives a child a slap or calls a female reporter a stinking gypsy he might well have to dodge a model of Casa Poporului. Our advice would be to do what that other politically incorrect battleaxe of a politician John Prescott did in Britain in 2001: fight back!
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
There are no tourist souvenir shops in Bucharest, except for the airport(s) and some museums. Almost any other capital in the world has (too much) of them. Indeed a business opportunity…
@Craig: It’s funy to see how the Western press considers Basescu as the “good” one. The fighter against corruption and the oligarchs who defeated the ex-commies of PSD. The same press does the opposite with Berlusconi, the richest guy in Italy, owner of half the mass media and consumer of young female flesh.
@Davin: It’s indeed funny and strange at the same time that Romanians who criticise their country don’t accept it when foreigners do the same. They suddenly become blind and full with patriotism and histerically defend their country.
Parmalat: What do you mean, are there really not toy models of Casa Poporului for sale?! I am not joking when I ask. I mean I would imagine there would be such models along with little figurines of Elena and Nicolae and Securitate etc. This is what I find bizarre about Romania: it’s like Ceausescu stepped in for 24 years and commanded Romania while no normal person actually agreed with him at all. Today, everyone seems to be ashamed of what he did to Bucharest and sort of write his rule off as some bizarre period in the history of Romania. This is indeed true, but I just wonder what people were up to while he was in power?! I mean why was Romania so easily manipulated by Ceausescu, a shoemaker’s apprentice?! I mean c’mon. So, I guess it does make sense in away that there would not be models of the Palace of Parliament in the same way that children probably don’t play with toy model horse carts, they play with toy models of racing cars and the like.
Lately, I have found I have not been able to post observations about life in Romania on my Facebook page without Romanians defending the country and thinking I am judging them. It seems many are very self-conscious about Romania. The same goes for my photographing here: people automatically think I must be trying to show Romania in a bad light if I am taking a picture on the street. Romanians need to get over this paranoia. Maybe I am taking a picture because every other young woman looks like the most beautiful woman in the world.
@Craig: yeah, but we should make them in China because if we make them in Romania the Chinese will copy and sell them for 1/4 of the price.
@Parmalat Now there’s a niche for an entrepeneur
The difference between Italy and Romania ist that here in Romania there aren’t any models of Casa Poporului for sale…
It just got more bizarre: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/world/europe/17italy.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimesworld