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Title: The “Light Revolution” in Romania
Author: CrimethInc.
Date: March 9, 2017
Language: en
Topics: Romania, protest, government, analysis, nationalism
Source: Retrieved on 22nd April 2021 from https://crimethinc.com/2017/03/09/the-light-revolution-in-romania-when-toppling-the-government-isnt-enough

CrimethInc.

The “Light Revolution” in Romania

Throughout February 2017, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the

streets of Romania, protesting corruption under nationalist flags and

banners. In the following report, our Romanian comrades analyze the

discourse that drove the movement, scrutinize the class perspectives of

the participants, and explore how they function as an obstacle to

liberation.

It seems that the window of opportunity that opened up seven years ago

when uprisings and occupation movements began to break out all around

the Mediterranean has closed. To the south and east, these uprisings

ended with even more neoliberal or fascist governments taking power; in

some cases, they led directly to war. Today, the upheavals that once

offered anarchists a chance to create new solidarities in the street

have become a breeding ground for nationalism.

Some assume that in countries that recently experienced dictatorships or

socialism, these protests simply mark a stage on the path to Western

democracy. Others consider the protests to be nothing more than a proxy

war between elites. However, with much of society polarizing to the

right as geopolitical instability and state repression escalate, we have

to understand the part that protest movements have played in this

process and what we can do to regain the initiative.

Five Years of Unrest

The February 2017 protests in Romania have been dubbed the “Light

Revolution” for the images of cell phones brightening the air above

rivers of protesters in the streets. No protests have drawn so many

people to the streets since the demonstrations of December 1989 that

toppled the socialist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. However, these are

hardly the first of their kind.

During the 1990s, Romania experienced crony capitalism in its pure form.

The old party elite gave way to a new capitalist class that enriched

itself on the privatization of the state industries while rendering the

old working class more precarious. The IMF and World Bank facilitated

this process. Under the Ceauşescu regime, Romania had managed to pay off

all of its external debt at the expense of strict austerity measures;

after the collapse of state socialism, Romania privatized its industry

to gain access to the global capitalist market. One government after

another adopted a hardline neoliberal stance that favored foreign

capital.

Romania’s painful transformation to capitalism sparked several outbreaks

of mass unrest, gaining steam over the past five years. In 2012, outrage

about a health reform precipitated violent clashes in the capital city

of Bucharest and massive demonstrations in all the major cities. The

prime minister resigned in hopes of calming the situation and the

protests died out soon afterwards.

During these protests, a new class of politically active young

professionals emerged that was comfortable with capitalism and eager to

open the country further to foreign business. They took some topics from

the left milieu, even from the radical left, while identifying

themselves with everything attractive about the West.

Massive unrest broke out again in 2013 against the Roșia Montană mining

project. Today, Romania is one of the most business-friendly countries

in the European Union, welcoming foreign investments and offering cheap

labor both inside and outside its borders. Roșia Montană was a perfect

example of such policies: a huge open-pit project that would destroy

five mountains and leave behind Europe’s biggest cyanide lake with most

of the profits going to a Canadian company. This catalyzed massive

environmentalist protests against mining (in places like Certej) and

fracking. Starting on September 1 and continuing for months, there were

protests every Sunday and smaller actions during the week.

The 2012 protests had opened some social space for critical thinking.

This bore fruit in the 2013 demonstrations. In the beginning, some

people seized the opportunity to question the status quo as well as the

mining project. Radical politics had broken into the mainstream media

for the first time in 2008 with coverage of repression against anti-NATO

activists; these ideas made their way into the public sphere again in

2013. There were assemblies, anti-capitalist slogans, and the like. Yet

anarchist groups were ultimately ousted from the protests. From October

on, nationalists took over the protests, and neo-fascists were allowed

into the protests under the slogan “everybody is welcome.”

Two years later, in autumn 2015, the Colectiv protests erupted. These

protests were triggered by a fire in Colectiv, a Bucharest nightclub,

that killed 64 people and injured more than a hundred. The protesters

demanded the resignation of the prime minister, accusing him of

fostering the corruption responsible for the disaster. The government

eventually cracked under pressure and resigned, along with the local

mayor.

Light Revolution: Light Years from Liberation

This year’s protests started in late January, when the Romanian

government announced that it would pass a new law allowing a pardon for

certain crimes—especially those involving abuse of power. This law would

further decriminalize government corruption, enabling politicians to

escape prison sentences for taking personal advantage of public funds.

The protests grew every night between February 1 and 5, when the number

of protesters around the country exceeded half a million. Some

demonstrations ended in clashes with the police.

In the anti-austerity riots of 2012, the anti-communist liberalism of

the aspiring middle class had been confined to the margins. Yet it

gained momentum in the 2015 Colectiv mobilizations, and it overwhelmed

the protest movement of 2017. In 2012, the anti-austerity position

addressed the material results of the transition from capitalism,

opposing all existing forms of governance. This year, anti-government

only means opposing the current government. Protesters in the streets

are still demanding representation from the President of Romania, who is

seen as someone who can lead the country towards a better future—i.e., a

Western one.

Although economically precarious, the protesters of 2017 are seeking to

normalize a lifestyle based in Western values, affirming the values of

cognitive capitalism, anti-communism, and assimilationist voluntarism.

The protesters are a diverse crowd ranging from urban creatives,

corporate white-collar workers, and start-up entrepreneurs to students

and the urban bohemian precariat, but the first group dominates the

ethos of the protests. A survey of the protests in Bucharest reported

that most of the people in the streets are between 20 and 40 and possess

college degrees. While they lack broader working class consciousness,

they are acting according to what they perceive as their class interests

as the aspiring petty bourgeoisie of the cognitive economy.

They refer to the social-democrat government as the “Red Plague,” a

classic fascist slogan from the 1930s, understanding their civic

patriotism as saving “clean” and “beautiful” Romania from the “dirty,”

“backward,” and “primitive” nationalism of the Reds. Many express

contempt for the poor and those living in rural areas, referring to them

as parasites.

This emerging new class associates state communism with repression and

scarcity rather than with a particular political or economic program.

For them, communism means backwardness and censorship, as opposed to the

alleged prosperity of Western capitalism and the freedom of expression

associated with parliamentary democracy. It is difficult to find room

for revolutionary politics in these protests when the most allegedly

radical voices are simply calling for the end of corruption and the

“normalization” of capital.

To see people wearing national flags at these protests is not a paradox,

but a continuation of the liberal patriotism championed by the

self-proclaimed dissident intelligentsia of the 1980s who saw themselves

as the “true” representatives of who and what the nation is. In this

climate, the deep-blue flag of the European Union is brought to the

square as a symbol of cleansing and a message addressed to EU: “Save

us!” The protesters say they support the Jandarmeria—the riot

police—because they are “just doing their jobs.”

The ideology articulated in Victoriei Square in Bucharest is supported

by a matching technological infrastructure. All mobilization occurs

through Facebook. Smart phones are tools of protest—not just for

communication, but also for creating light choreographies intended to

dispel the darkness left by the uncivilized commies. Projectors beam

quirky GIFs on the surrounding buildings to threaten the government;

cool protesters wear HD printouts of posters made by graphic designers

from the advertising industry. Advertisements shine unchallenged from

the unbroken windows of shops surrounding the square.

The sudden politicization of large numbers of people in this atmosphere

does not work to the advantage of radical social justice struggles. The

discourse is dominated by the right-wing agenda. Everyone wants to be

educated European intellectual entrepreneurs. They are dedicated to the

ideology of so-called post-politics—the extreme center.[1]

Some of the more recognized figures on the Left are regarded with

suspicion, while bankers and members of neo-fascist organizations like

ProVita can safely join the demonstrations. The reorganization of the

political field is comparable to what took place in the Maidan during

the Ukrainian revolution: pro-European patriots hoping to save the

country from Russian threats open space for hardcore neo-fascists who

pass as allies as long as they maintain anti-Russian sentiments. This

sort of nationalism is not unusual in a country so marked by racism

against Roma people and others.

Historically, nationalism and liberalism (imported from 19^(th) century

France by bourgeois youth studying abroad) have been the only ideologies

to put down roots in Romania. After state socialism collapsed, these

were the only reference points for Romanian political parties, which

have been threading the line between these two frameworks ever since.

Even within the protest movements that oppose those parties, these two

ideologies once again reinvent and perpetuate themselves.

Anti-Corruption Started the Movement—and Stunts It

The law that initially brought people into the streets is worth

contesting. But the protests have been limited to opposing corruption—an

issue that can easily be manipulated by liberals, including those in

power under the leadership of the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis.

Anti-corruption discourse has been the common denominator of countless

upheavals in former socialist countries. In some cases, such as the

uprisings in Slovenia and Bosnia, this discourse has mingled with

anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, and directly-democratic ideas. In

other cases, the focus on corruption has limited movements to seeking

regime change in the name of conservative, nationalist, and even fascist

values. In Romania, anti-corruption discourse has served to rally people

to coordinate their own colonization and exploitation by Western

capitalists under the banner of anti-communism.

The architecture of this discourse is based on two axes: the

internalized idea that Romanian society is backward and uncivilized and

the anti-communist narrative that socialist and communist regimes have

“kidnapped” Romania from its European destiny and created a “void” in

local history. The problem is always framed as an individual or a

specific party, never the structure itself. In fact, corruption is an

integral aspect of the state apparatus, which serves the ruling class

and their interest systematically as well as in instances of abuse and

illegal activity.

One of the problems with building a social movement on opposing

corruption is that in the absence of any political alternative, this

directly empowers the state repressive apparatus, in this case the DNA

and National Security Services, which are then used as political weapons

to remove political adversaries. When one side of a conflict over

corruption manages to cement its hold on the state, a wave of repression

is sure to follow. The people in the streets are pawns in a power

struggle between a populist conservative party, the so-called

social-democrat PSD, and the neoliberal opposition spearheaded by the

president.

At the same time that it reduces politics to parliamentarism,

anti-corruption discourse enforces the neoliberal dogma of the free

market. This is a disturbing trend in Romania, legitimizing a new form

of technocratic rule without the slightest political responsibility.[2]

The technocratic government instated after the Colectiv fire was very

popular among the aspiring middle class. Even though its policies

weren’t effective, the Ciolos cabinet gained a lot of sympathy by

promoting the extreme center ideology of the EU.

The Role of Anarchists

In the wake of the alter-globalization movement, anarchists in Romania

shifted from prioritizing direct action and lifestyle to local

organizing and community building. Today, the anarchist movement is

diffused into hybrid collectives that run social centers and

cooperatives, engage in political art, edit zines, and participate in

grassroots organizations addressing housing, evictions, borders,

workers’ rights, and intersectional feminist issues. This focus on

solidarity and cross-class organization stands out in a context

otherwise characterized by NGO-dominated activism.

Although there are some NGOs that work towards emancipatory ends,

NGOization has taken a tremendous toll in Romania, defining how people

understand grassroots self-organized resistance. The worst aspect of

this is that it has promoted a self-centered vision of activism in which

liberal methods developed by the NGO industry are the only valid means

of organizing. NGOs have absorbed most of the people interested in

political work, contributing to the isolation of the radical movement.

Confrontational tactics are seen as romantic and childish.

Anarchists were heavily involved in the 2012 anti-austerity protests,

the 2013 Roșia Montană mobilization, and the 2015 Colectiv protests. We

foregrounded our anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and radical

ecological messages, organizing occupations and direct actions. At the

same time, we were confronting the rising affirmation of the middle

class center-right ethos, which intensified through the 2015 Colectiv

protests to reach its peak in the 2017 anti-corruption protests.

There have been attempts to open up space for discussion, but tactics

that were successful in the past have failed miserably in recent years,

only succeeding in engaging a marginal “leftist” minority. In these

current demonstrations, it has been impossible to be heard in the

overwhelming conflict between two competing ideological apparatuses that

have a far wider capacity to mobilize resources and people than a

handful of anarchists. On one side, we are talking about the biggest

populist party in Romania, with half a million members; on the other, an

aspiring young middle class that has the material resources and backing

of much of the mainstream media and the President as well. The scene for

radical politics is often divided; while there is a somewhat growing

interest in leftist politics, it is usually mobilized around diluted

social-democratic issues or organizations championed by leftist

intellectuals and NGOs.

One of the most damaging aspects of the 2017 anti-corruption movement is

the affirmation of nonviolence as the foundation of legitimate protest.

Any discussion about self-defense or how violence is defined in the

first place is labeled as an attempt to discredit the movement.

Meanwhile, nonviolence is normalized in flowery graphic design, in the

idea of protest as a fun activity characterized by live music, dancing,

and so on.

The second problematic principle is the notion that “everyone is

welcome, because this is true democracy.” Excluding fascists and

nationalists is dismissed as authoritarianism. Meanwhile, messages

against neoliberalism and in favor of social justice have repeatedly

been excluded from the protests. The general affect of the crowd is rage

against the “Red Plague” and scorn for all social issues.

Another characteristic of this wave of protests is the sudden rash of

pop-up saviors. Several families in Bucharest were evicted from their

homes in a run-down social housing building, prompting an explosion of

solidarity. Anarchists and grassroots housing rights organizations had

been involved in the struggle against gentrification for a long time,

but the eviction brought out a huge number of people trying to help in

the spirit of newly awakened civic engagement. We can hardly criticize

people bringing in supplies that provide material relief; but if we look

deeper, we can see that this approach is not emancipatory for anyone

involved in the process. It undercuts the work that long-term activists

have put into building community with one of the most targeted

populations in the city, while creating a hierarchical dynamic between

the evicted community and the people trying to help. Charity does not

help people to form relations that could be the basis of political

struggles against evictions.

While the short-term interests of the people in the streets may be

antagonistic to those of much of the Romanian population, they remain a

precarious class with an uncertain future. Multinational corporations

were attracted to Romania because of the cheap labor force, but in

certain sectors of the economy the wages have been going up for a while

now. Obviously, this will not last. In this respect, this mobilization

might have some potential for the future, in that now people are used to

taking to the streets when something bothers them. However, it is

unclear what the ideology behind the next wave of mobilization will be.

The most important thing is that anarchists continue to organize locally

around issues that can bring together people from different social

backgrounds to fight our common enemies.

The general mood within the local left and anti-authoritarians right now

is that resistance has to be organized apart from these protests. When

thinking through the experiences of the last five years, it seems that

the square occupation movements have reached their limits. If mass

protests don’t contribute to local struggles or grassroots organization,

it is hard to be optimistic about them. The question for us, then, is

where to focus our energy when mass protests do not accommodate our

politics—and how to change that.

Where Do We Meet Next?

Corruption is a crucial concept for the post-Cold War narrative that

legitimizes the peripheral position of Romania in a global matrix of

colonialism. It pathologizes social behaviors that are deviant by the

standards of neoliberal “normality.” By homogenizing class, social, and

cultural differences, the discourse of corruption equates precarious

workers engaging in sabotage or expropriating resources with the bribing

of high-profile politicians by multinational corporations. It effaces

class antagonisms, financial exploitation, and resistance of all kinds

to institute a hegemonic narrative.

An anarchist perspective from Eastern Europe has to sabotage the

discursive mechanisms imposed by assimilationist neocolonialism. In the

Romanian context, with a president whose sole platform is his ties with

Western Europe and a massive movement mobilized to cure society of its

orientalist disease, it is more urgent than ever to accomplish this.

To decode and deconstruct the discourse of corruption, we must look with

anarchist eyes at the practices with which poor people express their

distrust of governance, no matter the regime. This distrust is what has

enabled the social structures of the historically oppressed to survive

and reproduce. When these practices are framed as the symptoms of the

disease of corruption, this opens the way for new attacks on those

already dispossessed by the transition to capitalism.

Locally, we have to build solidarities that disrupt the complicity of

the aspiring-to-be-white-and-middle-class of the “beautiful youth” and

its celebration of global corporate exploitation. Internationally, we

call for the decolonization of our movements, opposing the orientalist

narratives propelled by Western media that erase longstanding local

struggles.[3] Facing both the rise of fascism and the push for a

Westernization that will smooth the way for a fascist future, we have to

strengthen our ties and develop new strategies.

[1] “Extreme center” often denotes a newly formed political party

supposedly beyond classic left right divisions—neither liberal nor

conservative nor social-democratic. In reality, such parties usually

carry out a conservative rule-of-law agenda that produces extreme-right

effects. For example, the current parliamentary majority in Slovenia

proclaims itself to be a centrist government while implementing plans to

wall off the European Union.

[2] Technocratic governments, also known as technical governments, were

very popular after the 2008 crisis in Europe. Such a government is not

ostensibly aligned with any political parties, usually consisting of

academics, economists, and other “experts” who are supposedly beyond the

classic left/right division. In reality, in peripheral states, for the

most part such governments blindly carried out the agenda of the

European Union to reconstruct the market and bank systems with austerity

laws.

[3] There has been plenty of orientalist projection onto the protests

from outside Romania. Liberal media such as Democracy Now, Al Jazeera,

and The Young Turks continue to misinterpret or ignore events in the

region. When protests like these occur, their coverage is full of

orientalist language in which “freedom fighters” are welcomed into the

grand family of emancipated Western societies, the masses flooding into

the squares are seen as an awakening of society, and anti-corruption

passes for authentic resistance. It is precisely the reproduction of

such orientalist Othering that prevents people from recognizing that the

“freedom fighters” are hardcore nationalists, Romania has a rich history

of struggles and resistance preceding this one, and anti-corruption

discourse is a playing piece in a rivalry between political factions

that paves the way for new authoritarian crackdowns. This kind of

coverage feeds the egos of the “beautiful free youth” on the streets of

Romania, legitimizing their patronizing attitude that there has never

been a movement as important or authentic as this one.