Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Election time.

Presidential elections in Romania are being held next week (November 2 to be precise), and I have to admit, I have more than a bit of curiosity about what's going to happen.  There are election posters plastered everywhere in Lupeni (it seems a peculiar aesthetic to me, but often people will put up 20 of the exact same poster, side by side, creating a strange sort of wallpaper across their businesses' front windows... all the same blank stare and half-smile of some politician, over and over and over again).  There are huge banners draped across the main street, sometimes two different ones fighting it out at opposing angles on intersections.  (Unfortunately this includes a banner right in front of our apartment, featuring the notorious and slightly bulbous mayor of Lupeni endorsing the current prime minister, Victor Ponta, in his presidential bid.  I have to say, it's not the most beautiful thing to see out our window first thing in the morning.  Oh well, at least it's been foggy lately.)

The posters are interesting to me for a lot of reasons, but mainly because I'm not sure how much popular support they really represent.  The other day I stopped in at a sandwich shop next to the office, where we've slowly been getting to know one of the employees.  As I waited for my lunch, I asked her about the Ponta signs that were blocking the daylight, covering the entire shop window.  "Are you voting for him?" I asked.  "Oh no," she replied.  "I'm not sure who I am voting for yet, but probably not Ponta."  Quizzically I looked at the posters and then looked back at her.  "So why do you have all the Ponta posters up then?"  "Ahh... trebuie," she said -- trebuie being a word that basically means, "I had to."

I've told this story to a few Romanian friends and none of them looked surprised.  Things like being pressured by the local mayor's political party to put up posters supporting that party's candidate, which strike me as pretty undemocratic and fraudulent, don't raise a whole lot of eyebrows among our friends.  Not that they like it -- but it just seems pretty run-of-the-mill.  Last night we had a bunch of friends over for dinner, and (instigator as I am, whoops) I asked about the election.  In the course of the conversation all of them mentioned things like "poor people being bought off" (or not even bought off, just given one free meal!) in exchange for a vote in a particular direction.  They weren't convinced that any of the candidates -- and there are a lot of them -- were above tactics like this, though they had tentative hopes about a few of the people running.

The one candidate who seems to be inspiring the most cautious optimism, at least among my friends here, is the current mayor of Sibiu, Klaus Iohannis.  His motto is "Romania lucrului bine facut," or "the Romania of things well done," and I have to admit, I find his website and campaign promises more interesting than some of the others I have seen -- not that I have done as much research as I should, since I can't actually vote next week.  (Lame excuse, I know.)  Plenty of people have plenty of legitimate questions about Iohannis, so I'm certainly not trying to say he's perfect.  But I find him promising, and curious, because in talking about him with friends, plenty of people have also said something along the lines of, "Well, he's German, so that's good."

I find that so incredibly interesting, and a little troubling.  To make sense of it, let me explain something really quickly -- Romania historically has had a number of German kings, and many little pockets of Saxons, including in and around Sibiu -- people of German ancestry who brought much of their culture with them and lived in ethnic enclaves within Romania.  Today they are mostly integrated, and you certainly hear more Romanian than German on the streets of Sibiu (though if you only spoke German you could probably get along okay there too).  There are other similar ethnic groups in Romania, most notably the Hungarians -- but unlike the Hungarians, with whom there is still some tension, it seems that the Saxons have always been admired.  The German villages in Romania are cute and tidy, and I have heard Romanian friends say many times, "Well, the Germans can keep their towns clean" -- as if it's something in the blood, or inherent to Germans -- and by association, apparently not inherent to Romanians.  This sucks.  I get it -- I understand where this disappointment and apathy comes from, or at least can guess at a few of its historical sources. But this sort of diminishing of their own history, culture, and national potential that so many Romanians demonstrate, and which appears in SO many forms (brain drain, adoption of Western holidays in place of Romanian ones, low voter turnout, civic disengagement, moving abroad)... it makes me so, so sad.

It makes me sad for two reasons.  One, in the last year I have traveled to a lot of places (nine countries, to be exact, and that's not counting layovers).  And not one of them -- including the United States -- is perfect.  To believe that they are, or even that they are significantly better than here -- is a lie, and bound to disappoint.  They may be fighting different battles, but each place has its own battles to fight.

And two, I love this place.  I love living here.  I am happy here.  Sure, it has its hard moments, but life in Michigan had plenty of hard moments too.  And so I don't like hearing people say that Romania sucks, and I feel a lot of weight about the decision to possibly leave here and go back to the US.  I know that we cannot, by staying, necessarily ascribe value to this place.  But I also wonder if leaving reinforces the message that life was better -- is better -- somewhere else.

I've wandered off the topic of elections by now, I suppose, but in my mind all of this is related.  If Klaus Iohannis wins, I hope and pray he really claims his Romanian-ness and helps people love and believe in a Romania of things well done.  If Victor Ponta or any of the other candidates win, I hope they can also help Romanians feel pride in their country, optimism about the future, and some measure of trust in their own agency.  

That's my prayer for this election.

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