Editorial Press Review, November 12

Rodica Ciobanu’s article from the Gândul is ‘Prohibited to minors!’ After portraying an ‘exaggerated fictional picture’, as she herself called it, in the beginning of the editorial, she reaches a sad conclusion, quote: ‘the Romanian political life has become very disorderly.

It has all the ingredients: sex scandals (the deputies Negoiţă and Călianu, protagonists in the prostitution network cases), business corruption (Ridzi, Voicu, Păsat and others), uninterrupted transits (the National Union for the Progress of Romania is composed of deserters), buying votes with the money for colleges, sabotages within institutions, continuous conflicts, insults, boycotts, blockages.

The politicians, the elected officials, are generally low class people, a fact that can be noticed from their empty speeches, the helter-skelter laws, the superficiality of their disputes and bad governance.

Perhaps the Romanian politicians needed a crisis that would reveal their true collors, as well as the electorate needed one to view them for whom they really are.’ – end of quote.

‘President Băsescu’s proposal for a political moratorium on the adoption of the three laws mentioned in the IMF agreement, although apparently reasonable, is based on a wrong premise.

The political peace is neither possible nor desirable’. – this is the opening phrase of the editorial signed by Cristian Câmpeanu in the România Liberă.

The problem is that not everyone is convinced that the IMF agreement serves the national interest, and, in this case, the journalists asks all politicians to take responsibilities, quote: ‘The Democratic Social Party (PSD) should assume the illusion of the social state and the risks of the inability to fund it, the Liberal National Party (PNL) should assume the claim of being a right-wing party, should help reduce the state apparatus and taxes, and the Liberal Democratic Party (PDL) should assume the Government’s Program instead of torpedoing it.

If they are not able to give a responsible, then we’d better go bankrupt. No problem, we’ll call the Germans,’ - Cristian Câmpeanu concludes.

'Kids don’t read anymore. But do we?’ –Mircea Cărtărescu asks in the Evenimentul Zilei.

‘Today the “great” culture is strongly rivaled by the devastating “popular” culture wave, street culture, entertainment, fashion, advertising, which have created a new environment simply unfavorable to reading. When the TV is turned on, you cannot read.

'Your eyes slip from the page to the screen involuntarily. We ourselves no longer really read, let alone our children. We don’t have time, the necessary state of mind (as reading is aristocratic, it involves a loose life), and let’s face it, we don’t have enough money for books.

'Modern life has flattened us, actually, we should call things by its proper name and admit that it has turned us into fools. We find ourselves not interested in books that we once loved with all our hearts when reading them again.

'Kids are not even aware of what they’re missing. If there would be no moon and stars in the sky, they would find it natural for the sky to be black at night.

'But for us, for whom the stars once glowed so bright, sometimes it is unbearably sad.’ - Mircea Cărtărescu ends.


Translated by: Iulia Florescu and Raluca Mizdrea
MA Students, MTTLC, Bucharest University