Notes From the Insurrection

The Wikileaks Revolution

By MAXIMILIAN FORTE

The State. Secrecy. Security. Censorship. Big Brother. Courts. Police. Corporations. Banks. Espionage. Treason. Assassination. Infowar. Field of battle. Troops. Terrorists. Criminals. Hackers. Activists. Danger. Arrest. Imprisonment. Avenge. Retaliation. Defiance. Subversion. Justice. Freedom. Rights. The People.

These are the keywords of a conflict with revolutionary potential. Most of them could be the keywords of any conflict. They happen to be some of the most frequently recurring words one encounters when following the battle between the Wikileaks movement and the state.

This is a conflict, with publicly announced goals, with actual confrontation, where strategies are at play and power is at stake. This may be obvious, but remembering that this is a political process, and should be analyzed as such, may help to prevent some from carting it off into some obscure, minimal sub domain of specialist discourse, like “cyber activism,” “digital politics,” or even “info war.” (Not to worry though, the “social media and digital activism” industry that has been spawned around State Department sponsorship, with all of its gurus and TED talks, will ensure that this diversion of the discussion will in fact take place. Some will be convinced: this is all just about “the Internet,” not about “the real world.”) But this war is not about information. The war is about what people accept as their relationship to a state that has been ardently expanding its power at our expense. It is a long-term war. The Iron Curtain did not fall in 1989; instead it was simply drawn around the entire globe. In somewhat broader terms, we are continuing and hopefully drawing to a conclusion what Immanuel Wallerstein and others called the World Revolution of 1968 (and some of the actors then, are present and fighting once again now, thank you Daniel Ellsberg). In an even longer time frame, we are battling the fact that the Nazis were not so much defeated after World War II, as much as their politics became the template into which our imperial politics were assimilated (whether in terms of mushrooming state propaganda, the accepted use of torture and scientific experimentation on captives, to using weapons against civilian populations, to massive state surveillance). If people keep calling each other Nazis, so frequently, it is precisely because the Nazis have been so successful. And in much greater temporal depth, we are fighting the effects of the rise of the modern state and its profoundly damaging impacts on human social relationships. This is a still unresolved clash between centralized power, a relative novelty in human history, and more egalitarian social forms that dominated the majority of human history for millennia. Now, the state wishes to reduce all of us to an infantile, vulnerable, dependent population—a bunch of thumb-sucking, head-bobbing, burbling toddlers preoccupied with “safety,” requiring the father state to “protect” us.

It is a conflict, but the political arena in which it is fought out is constantly changing shape, widening to be certain. It is not a “game,” as anthropologist F.G. Bailey liked to say, with agreed upon rules and established judges, and predetermined goals and prizes. This is a conflict where the rules of the game (diplomacy, state secrecy) and the game itself (empire) are being directly challenged, with the intention that such games never be played with people again.

It is now a Wikileaks movement about which we have to speak, and a movement that is being targeted by the imperial American state (explicitly: staffers, supporters, donors), comprising at least half a million people, worldwide, of all walks of life. Just as some were having to admit DDOS (distributed denial of service) to their vocabulary, we now have to admit DPOS (distributed provision of service). At last count Wikileaks mirrors set up by supporters now number almost 1,700. The arrest and imprisonment of Julian Assange has dealt a life blow that made the movement become visible as a movement: Wikileaks’ communication with the public via Twitter has not only continued, there are now several individual Wikileaks accounts; the number of cables being released has increased, and seemingly a greater volume at a greater speed; sites that have blocked, censored, or terminated dealings with Wikileaks have been taken down (including PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, Swiss Post, and others), thanks to Operation Avenge Assange led by Anonymous (also connected to Operation Payback and now Operation Leakspin); and, over 500,000 people have demonstrated their support for Wikileaks (you can too). Julian Assange’s role has been critical, but his temporary displacement has not crippled the movement. The movement has flourished. The strategy of the state in trying to silence him has shown the world that what he said all along was true: he is a lightning rod, not the organization.

This is a conflict, Wikileaks is a movement, but what transformation can we expect, and would that transformation be revolutionary? That we have reached a crossroads is clear: never again will the relationship between state power, media, and citizenship be the same. It should be easy enough to agree with Julian Assange who recently stated: “geopolitics will be separated into pre and post cablegate phases;” and Carne Ross, a British diplomat, who wrote: “History may now be dated pre- or post-WikiLeaks.”

Some things can never be the same again. For the state, the over classification of information, and the everyday reliance on secrecy has just been abruptly transformed: it cannot forego documentation; documentation severed from those charged with the application of policy is worthless; word of mouth cannot serve swollen, centralized bureaucracies, especially not the vast U.S. national security apparatus; and, continued engagement in war, undertaking atrocities then kept secret, provokes those with a conscience to leak information. Either the U.S. ceases to use embassies as spy nests, and brings public pronouncements in line with actual actions, or it risks continued leaking and irreparable damage to its “soft power” resources. The state’s excessive monopolization of information has already been damaged beyond repair.

The relationship between states and media will also change dramatically. As Wikileaks blew in through an open window, the whole raison d’être of embedding reporters in military units, and of forcing journalists to play extra nice just to get some inside access to what is, after all, a publicly funded military, has just been blown out the front door. Thirty years of increasingly restrictive control over military and diplomatic information, and the cowing of the corporate media, has reached a climax and now we enter the phase of decline. Now either media report honestly and fully on what they know about what the state is doing in the name of citizens, or they will be swept aside as irrelevant and incompetent, or worse: as private organs of the state. Likewise, with direct access to leaked documents, no longer do journalists need to remain locked into a quasi-blackmail dependency relationship with the state. Critical and investigative journalism—in any country—no longer has a reason for not existing. Journalists, who fail to report on what could and should deeply embarrass the state, will now have to explain and apologize for their failures. Should the U.S. crackdown on Wikileaks under the 1917 Espionage Act, or some variation, it will inevitably have to be applied to mainstream media organizations, keeping in mind that Wikileaks has acted as part of a consortium with media—none of them leaked the documents (someone within the U.S. national security system did that), and all of them are equally pushing the documents. Dismissing Wikileaks’ journalism, the way that State Department spokesmen have, simply on the basis that Assange is an actor with an agenda, and has a political point of view, does not solve the problem: the exact same can and has been said, with an over abundance of evidence, about everything from Fox News to the BBC and Al Jazeera. Perhaps the State Department does not recognize anything as “news media” that is not ultimately owned by a defense contractor and weapons manufacturer, such as NBC, CBS, and Le Figaro.

The political economy of the Web, always an arena for struggle, is now approaching a climax where private ownership and state censorship are being frontally assaulted. China and Iran are revealed as being unexceptional. The State Department’s touting of “Internet Freedom” and “Civil Society 2.0” are exposed as cynical and confirmed as manipulative geopolitical tools—for everyone watching, not just for a select clique of critics. All of us have seen more than the leaks; we have seen a battery of private corporations acting as arms of the state, imposing their non-legal interpretations of what is legal, and following the state in applying harsh extra-legal measures. There is certainly a clash over the horizons of what is possible and acceptable, and the fight for The People’s Web has entered a new phase. This is now a different place. It feels like we are using a new Web.

There has been confrontation, conflict, and open defiance. Those who are diffident about speaking in terms of “revolution,” can at least speak of Wikileaks as a rebellion. Both Julian Assange and Wikileaks supporters in general, are being classed as “terrorists” by prominent right wing speakers and politicians. Even the more “moderate” voices call us “criminals.” There are open calls for assassination. We are their insurgents. For many different and even opposed interests, this will get ugly: brace yourselves.

As a rebellion, some stark realities come into open view, realities that many of us knew existed but that others refused to see. The real “war on terror” is in fact a global counterinsurgency program directed at all of us, not just ten guys in some cave. We live in a regime of global occupation, where psychological warfare, assaults on human rights, and increasingly dictatorial state powers are directed against citizens, not just foreign “enemy combatants.” That is what Wikileaks has revealed, and it is a truly revolutionary revelation because we can never go back to the same sort of dependent and submissive relationship with the state. Many people who support Wikileaks have, for the first time in their lives, experienced direct death threats, but from fellow citizens, voiced with such hate-filled anger that was previously reserved only for “jihadists” (as some thought). The real war was always as much at home as abroad, if not more so.

If by revolution some expect the fall of an entire political and economic system, governments overthrown, and the spawning of a new world socialist order—then they are likely to reject the idea that Wikileaks is a revolution. On the other hand, we live in a very uncertain period where lots of outcomes cannot be foreseen, and Wikileaks may prove to be a critical catalyst in realigning our understanding of world politics, which are not defined by an existential fight against some Other, but a fight against us, by states that fear their own citizens. Where Wikileaks is certainly a revolution can be understood in more proximal terms, dealing with the politics and economics of information and communication, relationships of citizens with the state, relationships between states, and heightened expectations for the promise of democracy. That is not little.



Maximilian Forte is a professor of anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, where he teaches courses in Political Anthropology, political activism and the Web, and the New Imperialism. He is also a columnist for Al Jazeera (Arabic) and writes regularly at Zero Anthropology (http://zeroanthropology.net). He can be reached at max.forte@openanthropology.org.

The New Statesman

What would Jesus do?

by Mehdi Hasan



Conservatives claim Christ as one of their own. But in word and deed, the son of God was much more left-wing than the religious right likes to believe.

Was Jesus Christ a lefty? Philosophers, politicians, theologians and lay members of the various Christian churches have long been divided on the subject. The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev once declared: "Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind." The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, went further, describing Christ as "the greatest socialist in history". But it's not just Russian ex-communists and Bolivarian socialists who consider Jesus to be a fellow-traveller. Even the Daily Mail sketch-writer Quentin Letts once confessed: "Jesus preached fairness - you could almost call him a lefty."

That conservatives have succeeded in claiming Christ as one of their own in recent years - especially in the US, where the Christian right is in the ascendancy - is a tragedy for the modern left. Throughout history, Jesus's teachings have inspired radical social and political movements: Christian pacifism (think the Quakers, Martin Luther King or Bruce Kent in CND), Christian socialism (Keir Hardie or Tony Benn), liberation theology (in South America) and even "Christian communism". In the words of the 19th-century French utopian philosopher Étienne Cabet, "Communism is Christianity . . . it is pure Christianity, before it was corrupted by Catholicism."

These days, however, the so-called God-botherers tend to be on the right. In his book God's Politics, the US Evangelical pastor Jim Wallis, spiritual adviser to President Obama and Gordon Brown before him, laments the manner in which Jesus's message has been misinterpreted by the warring political tribes, writing of how the right gets Christ wrong, while the left doesn't get him at all.

He reminds his readers that being a Christian is not necessarily the same as being a "right-wing Christian fundamentalist", and that the Bible's focus on social justice and the poor shows that economic life should be organised around the needs of society's weakest and most vulnerable members.

The unemployed son of two asylum-seekers - Joseph and Mary - who fled to Egypt to avoid the genocidal tendencies of King Herod, the Jesus of the Gospels is a bearded, sandal-wearing, unmarried rabbi from Nazareth with all the personal traits of a modern revolutionary. In an essay published in 2007, the Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton noted that the Gospels present Christ as "homeless, propertyless, peripatetic, socially marginal, disdainful of kinfolk, without a trade or occupation, a friend of outcasts and pariahs, averse to material possessions, without fear for his own safety, a thorn in the side of the establishment and a scourge of the rich and powerful". Eagleton added: "Jesus has most of the characteristic features of the revolutionary activist, including celibacy."

Traits of character aside, where would Jesus stand in the main debates of our time, such as war and peace, wealth and taxation, health care and financial reform? To use the formula made popular by Evangelicals in America (often abbreviated to WWJD), "What would Jesus do?" He would do the same as any self-respecting lefty. Here are five reasons why.


1. Jesus the class warrior

From Cuban communists to New Labour social democrats, a belief in redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor is at the core of leftist thinking. The means used to achieve that redistribution, such as higher rates of income tax, are often decried by conservatives as representing the "politics of envy", a misguided Marxist desire for class war.

Jesus, however, went far beyond the 50p top rate of tax or a bonus tax in his zeal for redistribution and his rhetorical attacks on the richest members of society. To see what the "politics of envy" looks like in the Gospels, turn to Mark 10:21-25. Here, Jesus gives a startling answer to a pious Jewish man who has asked him how he can "inherit eternal life".

"21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Forget taxing the rich until the pips squeak, Denis Healey-style; Jesus declares that the Roman Abramoviches and Donald Trumps of this world will struggle to achieve salvation in the afterlife. Why? "You cannot serve God and wealth," he says (Matthew 6:24). And, according to the epistles, "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10).

Further, Jesus argues that we have a moral obligation to pay taxes. In one of his parables, he heaps praise on a "righteous" tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). Were he alive today, Jesus would be leading the campaign to crack down on tax-dodging billionaires and multinational corporations. Here, in one of the best-known stories from the Gospels (Matthew 22:17-21), he is challenged by the followers of the Pharisees:

17 "Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. 20 Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" 21 They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."

It perhaps offers a fitting slogan for the placards of UK Uncut, the newly formed group protesting against tax avoidance, at its next high-street demo. In recent weeks, UK Uncut has used direct action to shut down stores owned by Vodafone (accused of being let off £6bn in tax) and the coalition government's "cuts tsar", Philip Green (accused of avoiding a £285m bill by transferring ownership of his Arcadia business empire to his wife, who lives in a tax haven, Monaco). Jesus would approve.

On one occasion, despite telling his companions that he is not liable to pay the "temple tax" that is demanded of every Jewish man in Palestine - because the Father does not require it from his own son - Jesus publicly pays the tax (Matthew 17:24-27). As the Scottish theologian and New Testament scholar William Barclay wrote: "Jesus is saying, 'We must pay so as not to set a bad example to others. We must not only do our duty, we must go beyond duty.'"


2. Jesus the banker basher

In March 2009, the windows of the detached stone villa in Edinburgh belonging to the disgraced Fred Goodwin, former chief executive of the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland, were smashed and his Mercedes S600 was vandal­ised. Some complained that the bankers were being made "scapegoats" for the financial crisis. I suspect Jesus might have been tempted to throw the first stone. He had form with "banker bashing", as Mark (11:15-17) testifies:

"15 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; 16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 He was teaching and saying, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers."

Tables turned over, wealth scattered, moneymen described as robbers - Christ's "cleansing of the temple" is a blueprint for the direct action against the financial and political elite by left-wing activists today. In Eagleton's words, this was Christ's attack on the "bastion of the ruling class".


3. Jesus the fair-wage campaigner

It isn't a coincidence that the campaign for a “living wage" - the minimum wage required for every worker to earn enough to provide his family with the essentials of life - has been driven by Citizens UK, a collection of urban community and faith groups that includes churches. The Gospels don't quite tell us that Jesus was a trade unionist, but they do suggest he backed a living wage.

Matthew 20:1-16 narrates the "parable of the workers in the vineyard", which tells of five sets of labourers who arrived for work very early in the morning, at 9am, at noon, at 3pm and at 5pm. They are all paid at 6pm and each labourer receives the same amount - one denarius, as agreed to with their employer. Unsurprisingly, those who arrived earlier and did more work complained that they had received the same pay as those who had come later: "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat." But, for Jesus, the casual labourers who came to work for the landowner in his vineyard had basic needs that had to be satisfied, and those who had come late had been struggling to find work in a laissez-faire market: "No one has hired us," the last labourers tell the landowner. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," in the words of Karl Marx.

According to Jack Mahoney, emeritus professor of moral and social theology at the University of London, this parable allows us to think of the employer "as not being simply a generous, or overgenerous, employer, but in fact as being a just employer", someone who pays "a daily living wage".


4. Jesus the NHS champion

Jesus was a healer. The Gospels contain countless stories in which he helps the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the lame to walk. There is little evidence that he charged for his services, demanded to see an insurance card before offering treatment, or profited from his miraculous ability to bring the dead back to life.

He called on his disciples to do the same, instructing them to go into towns and "cure the sick who are there" (Luke 10:9). Again, there is no discussion of payment or fees or charges. Indeed, throughout his life, in word and deed, Jesus was a champion of universal health care, free at the point of use. He would have been an ardent and passionate defender of the NHS from free-market "reforms".

Take the story of the synagogue leader Jairus and his terminally ill daughter, and that of an unknown, destitute woman who has been haemorrhaging for 12 years and has "spent all that she had" paying physicians (Mark 5:21-43). Jesus heals both the sick daughter and the destitute woman. The linking of these two stories reminds us how sickness and ill-health are universal; we all, regardless of social status or bank balance, need access to health care at some stage in our lives.

The American academic, blogger and Baptist minister Drew Smith explains the political significance of these verses. "In a market-driven system of health care, the unnamed woman would have perhaps gone untreated, but Jairus would have had the health care he needed for his daughter. After all, Jairus is a man of means . . . But in stopping to heal the unnamed woman instead of proceeding to Jairus's house uninterrupted, Jesus also rebuked a system that offered preferential treatment for those like Jairus who have power, status and money."

It is no wonder that in the heated town-hall debates that were held across the US in the run-up to the signing of the Obama administration's health reform bill, which extended health-care coverage to an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans, some liberal activists carried placards proclaiming: "Jesus would have voted Yes".


5. Jesus the anti-war activist

Would Jesus have backed the Iraq war? Or would he have joined the two million anti-war protesters marching through the streets of London in February 2003? How about the war in Afghanistan? Stay the course? Or do a deal with the Taliban and bring the troops home? WWJD?

Jesus's pronouncements on war and peace, action and reaction, confirm his preference for non-violent struggle. "Blessed are the peacemakers," he says, "for they will be called children of God" (Matthew 5:9). And: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also" (Matthew 5:38-39). He also says: "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52).

Christian peaceniks point to these verses when challenging the militarism of ostensibly Christian nations such as the US and the UK.

“I want a faith that takes Jesus seriously in foreign policy," says Jim Wallis. "When Jesus says, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' what does that mean? This is what Jesus taught. He doesn't say the 'peace lovers'. Blessed are the peacemakers." Wallis also says: "I think it's not credible to believe that Jesus's command to be peacemakers is best fulfilled by American military supremacy through the imposition of Pax Americana."

In his new memoir, Decision Points, the former US president and born-again Christian George W Bush recalls how he arrived at his decision to approve a request from the CIA to waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 11 September 2001 attacks. "I thought about the 2,973 people stolen from their families by al-Qaeda on 9/11 . . . 'Damn right,' I said." But Jesus, the man once identified by Bush as his favourite political philosopher, has little time for such talk of vengeance and retribution. In Luke 6:27-28, he says: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."

The ex-president is said to have confessed to a group of Palestinian officials that God told him to "fight those terrorists in Afghanistan . . . and end the tyranny in Iraq". Given Jesus's rhetoric on non-violence and "peacemakers", I suspect the voices in Bush's head were not those of God, or his son.

Love your enemies. Renounce your wealth. Pay your taxes. Help the poor. Cure the ill (for free). These are the hallmarks of a left-wing, socialist politics. What Jesus wouldn't do is allow the rich to get richer, give a free pass to the bonus-hungry bankers and invade one foreign country after another. It is difficult to disagree with Wallis when he says: "The politics of Jesus is a problem for the religious right."

Mehdi Hasan is senior editor (politics) of the New Statesman. Read his blog here.

"Un popor de oi naste un guvern de lupi"

Acad. Florin Constantiniu - "Clasa politica postdecembrista este cea mai incompetenta, cea mai lacoma si cea mai aroganta din istoria Romaniei"


20 de ani de la Revolutia romana

La 20 de ani de la marea varsare de sange din decembrie 1989, Romania arata ca un animal bolnav si haituit.

Ne uitam in urma si nu ne vine sa credem ca au trecut doua decenii de sperante zadarnice.

Nimic din ce-am visat nu s-a implinit. In jurul nostru domnesc stagnarea si deziluzia, inceputurile neterminate, politica murdara, cu degetul pe tragaci, manipularea televizata. Lipseste o viziune, un proiect national de salvare.

Lipseste harta viitorului. Trista priveliste n-a cazut din cer. Au creat-o politicienii si romanii insisi.

Cum a fost turcul, asa a fost si pistolul. Nu mai putem sa ne ascundem dupa deget.

Ca o confirmare, academicianul Florin Constantiniu, istoric de prestigiu european, ne pune in fata o oglinda necrutatoare in care, daca avem curajul sa privim, ne vom afla poate izbavirea.

"Din nefericire, sansele imense care se ofereau tarii noastre in decembrie 1989 au fost ratate"


- Cum evaluati, fara menajamente, cele doua decenii de libertate din viata noastra, domnule profesor?

- Ca pe un inaugural ratat. In istoria fiecarui popor exista evenimente cruciale, care inaugureaza o noua etapa in evolutia societatii. Decembrie '89 a fost un astfel de eveniment: crucial, innoitor, fondator.

Din nefericire, sansele imense care se ofereau tarii noastre au fost ratate si, astfel, Romania imparte cu Bulgaria si Albania ultimele locuri din clasamentul tarilor foste comuniste.


- Pentru un individ, 20 de ani inseamna mult, aproape o treime din viata. Ce reprezinta pentru istorici aceeasi perioada?

- Pentru istorici sunt foarte instructive, intr-un astfel de moment, comparatiile cu alte intervale de timp ale istoriei nationale. Iau doua exemple de perioade cu o intindere de doua decenii, ca aceea scursa de la caderea regimului comunist.

Prima: 1859-1878; a doua: 1918-1938. In primul caz, perioada a fost marcata de un progres uluitor: de la Unirea Principatelor (1859), care pune bazele statului roman modern, la castigarea independentei (1877/1878). Politica de reforme a lui Cuza, in primul rand reforma agrara din 1864 si politica de modernizare promovata dupa aceea de Carol I, au facut ca statul roman sa se smulga din inapoierea determinata - in principal - de dominatia otomana, si sa se modernizeze rapid.

Progresele au fost vizibile pe toate planurile: politic, economic, social, cultural. Sa nu uitam ca, in acest interval, apar "Junimea" si Eminescu!

A doua perioada: 1919-1938. Iesita dintr-un razboi pustiitor si lovita de o criza economica de o duritate nemiloasa (1929-1933), Romania a izbutit, totusi, sa inregistreze un remarcabil progres in toate directiile, 1938 fiind anul de varf al Romaniei interbelice.


- Vorbiti de doua perioade exceptionale, domnule profesor! Ce se intampla astazi in Romania se afla la polul opus!

- Intr-adevar. Am ales aceste doua perioade tocmai pentru ca ele sunt cele mai potrivite spre a fi comparate.

In toate cele trei cazuri, avem de-a face cu inaugurale: in 1859, asa cum am spus, se aseaza temelia statului roman modern; in 1918, se desavarseste unitatea nationala a romanilor; la 22 decembrie 1989, se inchide "paranteza" comunista, deschisa in 1945 de ocupantul sovietic, si se reintra pe fagasul dezvoltarii firesti a societatii romanesti.

Veti fi de acord - sper - ca la cea mai sumara comparatie, perioada postdecembrista apare cu o intristatoare saracie de rezultate.

Suntem liberi, este adevarat, dar a progresat in vreo directie Romania ? Sunt, astazi, romanii mai fericiti? Exista un mare ideal national care sa-i mobilizeze pe romani?

In raport cu 1859-1878 si 1918-1938, ultimii 20 de ani nu ne dau decat infime temeiuri de satisfactie si deloc de mandrie.

"Clasa politica s-a aruncat asupra Romaniei cu un singur gand: sa se imbogateasca. A jefuit cum nici hulitii fanarioti n-au facut-o"


- De ce, in ultimii 20 de ani, romanii nu au mai fost in stare sa repete performantele din perioadele pe care le-ati amintit?

- Parerea mea este ca perioadele de progres sunt asigurate de conjugarea eforturilor elitei politice si intelectuale cu angajarea plenara a maselor intr-un proiect national, mobilizator si stimulator.

In 1859, generatia pasoptista (Mihail Kogalniceanu, Ion C. Bratianu), cea mai creatoare generatie a istoriei romanesti, s-a aflat la unison cu societatea moldo-munteana, care voia unirea si independenta. In 1918, generatia Marii Uniri (Ion I. C. Bratianu, Take Ionescu, Nicolae Iorga) s-a aflat la unison cu societatea care voia "Romania Mare" si afirmarea ei pe plan european.

Din 1989, societatea romaneasca a fost profund divizata (vezi "Piata Universitatii"), lipsita de un proiect national si incapabila sa-si mobilizeze resursele pentru a valorifica sansele ce i se ofereau: in primul rand, unirea Republicii Moldova cu Romania . Pe scurt, nici clasa politica, nici societatea romaneasca nu au fost in masura sa asigure inauguralului din decembrie 1989 justificarea imenselor posibilitati oferite de caderea comunismului.

- Cu alte cuvinte, putem vorbi de o "ratare" postcomunista a Romaniei?

- Vorbim de clasa politica si de societatea romaneasca. Cea dintai a intrunit trei superlative: cea mai incompetenta, cea mai lacoma si cea mai aroganta din istoria Romaniei. Lipsita de expertiza, avida de capatuiala si sigura de impunitate, ea s-a aruncat asupra Romaniei cu un singur gand: sa se imbogateasca.

A jefuit cum nici hulitii fanarioti n-au facut-o. Responsabilitatea ei fata de situatia catastrofala a Romaniei este imensa.

Astazi, constatam ca industria este lichidata, agricultura e la pamant, sistemul de sanatate in colaps, invatamantul in criza, individualitatea Romaniei pe plan international disparuta.

Criza economica nu a facut decat sa agraveze relele care au precedat-o.

Incompetenti, guvernantii nu au stiut sa atenueze socul crizei ce ne-a lovit.

Daca Romania profunda se zbate in dificultati si deznadejde, clasa politica prospera.

Case peste case (oameni politici cu patru, cinci, sase locuinte; te intrebi ce vor fi facand in ele), vile in tara si strainatate, masini de lux etc. s-au strans in proprietatea clasei politice.

Stiam ca avutia este rezultatul unei activitati economice. Acum, vedem ca politica este mijlocul cel mai sigur de imbogatire.

"Un popor de oi naste un guvern de lupi"

- Cine este vinovat de aceasta situatie?

- Cred ca principalul vinovat de aceasta situatie este insusi poporul roman!

El ilustreaza perfect observatia ca "un popor de oi naste un guvern de lupi".

Spiritul de demisie, pasivitatea, resemnarea romanilor, au permis clasei politice sa-si bata joc, nepedepsita, de tara.

Lipsit de spirit civic, poporul roman nu a fost capabil, in acesti 20 de ani, sa traga la raspundere clasa politica sau sa "tempereze" setea ei de inavutire. Pe roman nu-l intereseaza situatia generala.

Daca prin fin, nas, cumnat, amic etc., si-a rezolvat pasul lui, restul duca-se stim noi unde!

Mostenirea multiseculara a lui hatar si bacsis a ramas atotputernica.

Cum sa indrepti o tara , cand cetatenii ei se gandesc fiecare la sine si nu la binele comun!?

Astazi, asistam la situatii si mai dramatice. Romanii pleaca - din nevoia de castig - sa lucreze in Spania sau Italia, sa lupte in Afganistan. Energii si vieti se irosesc astfel in beneficii straine.

Nu poti sa-i condamni: mai bine sa lucreze pentru straini, decat pentru noii ciocoi postdecembristi, care ii trateaza cu un dispret suveran.

- Intrarea Romaniei in NATO si UE a fost, totusi, o biruinta postdecembrista.

- Sa fim seriosi! Am intrat in NATO pentru ca SUA, factorul decisiv al Aliantei, au vrut-o.

Aduceti-va aminte ca, in 1997, cand Romania a dus o campanie pe cat de zgomotoasa, pe atat de inutila, SUA ne-au inchis usa la summit-ul de la Madrid. In dorinta de a castiga bunavointa Washingtonului, am incheiat tratatul dezastruos cu Ucraina, fara a obtine nici un folos.

Dupa 11 septembrie 2001, evaluarea americana s-a schimbat radical. In lupta impotriva terorismului islamic, SUA aveau nevoie de noi aliati; in acest context, Romania a devenit membra a NATO. A fost o decizie americana, nu un merit al guvernantilor romani. O situatie similara, si in cazul intrarii in Uniunea Europeana.

Directoratul marilor puteri ale Uniunii a decis extinderea ei in Est. Daca avem un dram de sinceritate, trebuie sa recunoastem ca suntem inca departe de a fi o tara la nivelul standardelor vest-europene, care sunt ale Uniunii.

Directoratul marilor puteri a considerat insa ca este in interesul sau aceasta extindere, si atunci, la gramada - iertati-mi expresia! - am intrat si noi.

"Patriotismul e privit, in anumite cercuri ale intelectualitatii noastre si ale societatii civile, ca o boala rusinoasa"


- Ce-i lipseste Romaniei pentru a fi din nou ceea ce a fost candva?

- O "mare idee", un mare proiect national. Inainte de 1859, a fost Unirea; inainte de 1918, a fost desavarsirea Unirii.

Astazi nu ne mai insufleteste nici un ideal mobilizator. In perioada interbelica, Cioran ar fi vrut ca Bucurestiul sa devina Bizantul sud-estului Europei. Si, fara nici o exagerare patriotarda, ar fi putut deveni.

Astazi nici nu vrem, nici nu putem sa ne afirmam. Economic , Romania a devenit o piata de import.

Nu cunosc vreun produs romanesc vestit la export. Practic, suntem un fel de colonie.

In politica externa, am disparut de pe harta diplomatica a Europei.

In plan cultural, scriitorii romani asteapta, in continuare, Nobelul... In stadiul actual, cred ca sectorul in care Romania ar fi putut sa se manifeste cu sanse de succes era cel cultural-stiintific. Din nefericire, guvernantii postdecembristi si-au batut joc de invatamantul romanesc, supus la tot felul de "reforme" si "programe" inepte si distructive. Daca, din randul elevilor sau studentilor, au iesit elemente de valoare, ele sau au plecat in strainatate sau au disparut in mediocritatea din tara.

Aveam sansele sa fim Bizantul Europei de Sud-Est. Am ramas insa la periferia Europei.


- Mondializarea ameninta structura fiintei nationale. Se poate sustrage Romania acestui carusel mortal?

- Mondializarea este un proces caruia Romania nu i se poate sustrage, dar caruia ii poate rezista. Nu o rezistenta, as spune, de caracter antagonic, ci printr-o afirmare a identitatii nationale.

In Franta, tara cu o atat de veche si stralucita cultura, guvernul a initiat o dezbatere despre identitatea nationala.

La noi, cand cineva abordeaza aceasta problema, se aud imediat voci care il acuza ca este nationalist, nostalgic etc.

Patriotismul e privit, in anumite cercuri ale intelectualitatii noastre si ale societatii civile, ca o boala rusinoasa.

Americanii - ii am in vedere pe cetatenii SUA - ne ofera cel mai frumos exemplu de patriotism.

Noi, care ii copiem in atatea privinte, ramanem indiferenti la minunata lor pilda.

- Mai poate fi patriotismul o valoare in zilele noastre?

- Daca vorbim de un patriotism lucid, da, fara indoiala. Eu unul am aderat la principiul atat de sanatos al "Junimii": "Patriotism in limitele adevarului". Sa-mi iubesc tara si poporul, dar sa nu le ascund niciodata defectele.

Poate este o deformare de istoric, dar cred ca identitatea nationala are o componenta esentiala: memoria istorica.

Traditia se cultiva, in primul rand, prin cunoasterea istoriei.

Cand monumentele istorice se paraginesc si se ruineaza, memoria istorica e pe cale de disparitie.


- Cum credeti ca vor judeca perioada postdecembrista urmasii nostri de peste o suta de ani?

- Peste o suta de ani, cred ca judecata urmasilor si, intre ei, a istoricilor, va fi foarte severa. Anii 1989-2009 vor fi considerati o perioada de declin, clasa politica si poporul roman impartind, in egala masura, responsabilitatea pentru aceasta trista realitate.

Sa dea Dumnezeu ca atunci, peste un secol, Romania sa aiba situatia fericita pe care a ratat-o astazi!