"Uniți, salvăm Roșia Montana!" A few thoughts on democracy.

This past weekend, Kelly and I were in Cluj on IMPACT business/seeing friends business, and there was a protest that we wanted to, at the very least, check out.

From what we've heard, there have been many protests like this in Cluj, as well as around the country. The tagline is, "Salvați Roșia Montana!" Save Roșia Montana, a command to many.

It's interesting. On the internet, I see a lot of little questionnaires asking me to "Say DA to Roșia Montana!" Say that I support blowing up the mountains to get at some gold. Make a lake of cyanide to give a hurting economy jobs for a period of time. Show that I want the Romanian government, from what I know a decently untrustworthy entity, especially when it comes to money, to make a deal with a big corporation to "develop" a possible UNESCO World Heritage site.

Wouldn't it be nice if these things were clear-cut, like the movies I grew up watching, and the stories I read? Where good and evil are spelled out from page one, and when they fight, it's obvious who's winning? Evil is deceptive. Evil is almost good. Evil is almost so good that you go for it, and only after you can't take it back do you realize it's evil. I guess this is why Jesus said for his disciples to be as innocent as doves and as cunning as snakes. Still have hope, but not stupid hope that "it'll just all be alright in the end." To try to trust the people involved, but not after they've proven themselves untrustworthy. To know the times, find the factors, try to understand the people involved. It's complicated, especially in a decision this big. I hate that it seems like one has to choose between jobs for a community that's 80% unemployed and blowing up mountains to get at gold and leave behind a lake of cyanide. One of our friends said he wasn't going because it was too complicated of an issue and he couldn't give his allegiance to either side. I agreed with him for a long time.

Well, on Sunday in Cluj, a crowd gathered in the big square, Piața Unirii.  The Square of Unity.  The leaders led us in chants like, "Uniți, salvăm Roșia Montana!" (United, we will save Roșia Montana!), and "Educație, nu cianura!" (Education, not cyanide!), and "E România, e țara noastră, și nu vrem cianura voastră!" (It's Romania, it's our country, and we don't want your cyanide!). Their main thrust was that Romania will solve its economic problems by being educated, not by blowing up mountains. They were saying that a lot of false information about the project was going around, and that if everyone knew the truth, they would for sure want to save the area. A guy mentioned that it was so important in the "uniți, salvăm Roșia Montana" yell that we were saying WE will save the mountain. Not just the rich folks, not just the government, but all Romanians participating in saving the mountain as well. Democracy in a fine moment, especially knowing that in the past, the government took care of all the big decisions, and punished the people if they tried to get involved.

It made us glad to see the people taking part in their democracy, the system living up to its name. In Lupeni, most folks still need a lot of persuasion to be involved with any decisions and projects outside of their own home. Even for something like addressing the hundreds of street dogs that bite a hundred or two people every year, the community didn't really get behind the sterilization project that FNO tried to accomplish in conjunction with the town hall and the resident wealthy philanthropist. And the project fell when, after two days of bringing dogs to the old shelter and sterilizing them, a third went missing, no one was allowed in the shelter except city hall members, and the mayor told our colleagues that he wanted to kill the dogs now, not waste money sterilizing them.

FNO left the project because we don't want to kill dogs. We want to treat them with some sort of dignity, even though they bite people and scare kids. We wanted to walk the line between the people that hate the dogs and want to never see them again (they have to deal with it until they die or get adopted), and those who still love the dogs (they can say goodbye to the ones they love in a natural way, or adopt them). But the city hall just wants to kill them, and since they control the shelter, they got to make the call. I don't know if FNO could sidestep the city hall to continue sterilization, but if we did, there would be some sort of nasty response, I'm sure.

I just wonder how it could be different, if the thrust to do something came from the people, the governed, the alleged citizens who should have a say in their democratic government. The project began from an IMPACT club, and the kids put up posters, did a press release, and were going to take care of the dogs as they recovered from being snipped. I don't know if they plan to try to continue the project in any way. I hope so. I hope they realize their say in decisions, like people have with Roșia Montana. I hope that we can see a democratic country living up to its system of government's potential. It's especially odd to write this as our own US government is shut down over our Congress' inability to agree on a budget. How can we, as US citizens, participate in this decision? Would our calls and letters and emails outweigh the money they get from special interest groups? Even though many districts are drawn according to partisan lines these days, can we, the people, find it in ourselves to say that we will vote you out if you don't compromise in order to make decisions that are for our good? Can we convince the president to not give up on talking with the House Republicans, even though their talks seem to go nowhere, and they fight every three months on a budget?

Democracy exists for the people to be involved in for their own good. For our own good. And in this age of global trade and communication, everyone's good. How do we realize it, whether we live in a small town in Romania or in the biggest city in the US? How can we participate, together, in making decisions that affect us all?