[Riposta lui "S" ]
From: an70614@anon.penet.fi (an70614@anon.penet.fi)
Subject: Comments on Mr. I. Rosca's diatribe
Newsgroups: soc.culture.romanian
Date: 1994-02-17 18:25:29 PST
In what can be characterized as an extremist, anti-democratic and antisemitic
diatribe, Mr. I. Rosca provided a reply to Mr. Ghica's comments about my
objectivity. I do not know whether or how Mr. Ghica will reply, but, since the
posting had to do with my writings, I will answer Mr. Rosca's posting.
Mr. Rosca starts with some trivia about how wrong it is to apply general
models to the particularities of a concrete situation. In other words,
all the principles that form the basis of the modern Western democracies and
that other former communist countries are trying to adopt, should only
selectively be applied in Romania, due to the "particularities". As Mr. Rosca
contrasts "reality" with "utopia", he might have a point though, as his own
posting shows a way of thinking that is completely alien to the mainstream
Western way. In the 19th century, when Romania adopted the Western European
political system, the same debate was raging between the "utopists" and
the "realists" who were pointing out to how foreign democracy, free speech, etc.
were to the feudal-levantine-Phanar centuries old tradition. As for the
attacks on democracy and for its antisemitism, Mr. Rosca's writings seemed
anchored more into the thinking of Goebbels, N. Crainic, C. Codreanu and such.
Following the introduction, the author starts a seven point "argument":
In 1. Mr. Rosca attacks the very essence of democracy, advocating the use of
force in order to achieve his goals( "Exita un punct critic pe care Noul
il rezolva *in forta* pentru a se putea degaja de Vechi." ). In other words,
the "bullet" rather than the "ballot"; or the Jesuite saying that the aim
justifies the means ( applied so succesful throughout history! ). The transition
to democracy should be done without much respect toward the values that it is
trying to promote. ("...consider eliberarea Romaniei de germenii unei
grave degradari mai importanta decit satisfacerea unnor consecvente pricipiale",
in 2.) Similar to the justifications of Stalin's persecutions based
on "necessity in a difficult transitional phase toward a better society". Of
course, the call to force is legitimate only when it comes from his side; when
the government does it, is wrong.
In 2. Mr. Rosca attacks "symetry" between the parties. Of course, in his world
there are only two parties: "them" ( the Communist-traitors unchanged for 45
years - pure evil! ) vs. "us" ( the people-patriotic-victims, pure good! ) with
no shades in between. Mr. Rosca also mentions that the communists did not give
any chance to other political opinions throughout their reign, an aparent
reference to the ban on other political parties. Of course, what he somehow
forgets, is that throughout most of the the reign of the "other political
parties" the communists were banned by law.( Talking about symetry, it seems
that the communists responded in kind, to a policy that the other side put
in place first. Of course, they would have done it anyway, but this does not
change the fact, that the other side was not exactly democratic ). Thus,
Romania had two choices, after the Revolution: to have learned nothing from its
past and continue the cycle of banning political parties ( with the corolary
that someday the roles might be reversed! ), or to do what other Eastern
Europeean countries did, namely to adopt democratic principles. The used
euphemism "quarantine", with its limitted temporal meaning, does not change the
essence of the ban.
In 3. Mr. Rosca is somehow hard to comprehend: on one hand he acknowledges that
the opposition made mistakes and that they should be told about them; on the
other hand, he moves to the emotional "painfully unjust" to blame them for
those mistakes because they are some David fighting Golliath. What exactly does
this mean ? What is his position about the opposition's mistakes ? The only
interpretation I could come up with, is that Mr. Rosca advocates telling them
about their mistakes secretely rather than in the open, such that the people
at large do not find out about them. That's why it seemed acceptible for him
to send the list of mistakes to the "group", while it is unacceptible for me
to publish the list for everyone to see. Isn't an open political system
something to strive for ?
In 4. Mr. Rosca produces a list of statements that he attributes to my postings:
some correctly, some incorrectly, most of them mixed. Without explanations or
arguments he declares them "GRAVELY FALSE" and swiftly moves to point 5.
In 5. Mr. Rosca mainly criticizes my methods. The supreme argument for their
discreditation is the allegation that their conclusion is convenient to the
current Romanian Government. The posting claims that I use the "communist"
method of taking some truthful but out of context aspects, of "recomposing"
them in such a way that the (stupid!) reader is focused on the truth of the
details and misses on the large picture. First, Mr. Rosca has yet to prove that
I wrote things out of context. Looking at individual aspects one by one, in
an analytical fashion is part of today's scientific method in historical
research; to be contrasted with broad generalities that reinforce beliefs and
stereotypes and conveniently glides over details. Second, what is detail and
what is essential depends on the frame of reference: to Mr. Rosca the killing
of Jews by the thousands in WWII is just a footnote to history, because it
happened to what he perceives to be others; to a survivor of the massacre,
whose family was maybe killed, it probably looks like an essential event; to
such a person, the fact the Romania had to live some 40+ years under communism
is probably a detail. Note that, in my original posting on Antonescu I did not
make the Jewish issue the defining one for the period, because I did not
consider it to be; it is only when I was challanged to give details that I
provided them, with disclaimer. I think, that Mr. Rosca finds problems
with my writings not necessarily due to my methods, but more, because they shed
a not so favorable light on his heroes, their activity, etc. Moreover, he
thinks that pointing out bad things about others somehow diminishes the
evils of communism, or causes fatigue or unneeded complications in the
common man, who has to know only how bad communism was and little else.
Point 6. is by far the most interesting and revealing. He mentions my alleged
denigration of Antonescu as part of some ill-defined ploy against the royalty.
( Of course, since Antonescu was no friend of the royals, by denigrating
Antonescu I would actually help the royalty; but of course, this might be only a
smoke screen ). He calls for focusing the discussion to the last 45 years, as if
history started in vacuum 45 years ago, with the installation of communism.
Of course if we add some 10 more years the picture becomes quite different.
We see USSR as an economically weak and backward country, politically in
turmoil, militarily quite impotent, and completely isolated and shy in foreign
policy. This situation lasts for 20 years. It is only when Stalin watches
France and England doing nothing to protect Poland and Hitler defeating France
and England in 1940, that he starts embarking in imperial policies. Clearily,
the primary responsibility for bringing communism to Europe belongs to the
Soviets and their local underlings. This does not change the fact though, that
it was Hitler and his local associates that made this possible by destroying
democracies and nations, by making dictatorship, repression and killings a
normal way of life, by military adventurism and by ultimately creating a
political void that the Soviets hurried to fill. Thus, the responsibility for
bringing communism around has to be shared.
France
Then Mr. Rosca adds antisemitism to his record:
a) The "Romanian-Jewish conflict" term implies that the Jews from Romania were
not really Romanian ( no one refers to the black-white conflict in the USA as
a conflict between *Americans* and Blacks ), thus subscribing to a peculiar
definition of who is Romanian.
b) The conflict is refered to in euphemistic terms: "differend". Of course like
the Romanian-Soviet "differend", like the government-opposition "differend",
etc.
c) At this point, Mr. Rosca departs with the traditional position of
historians in dealing with antisemitism: hide it, minimize it, blame it
on others ( Germans ). To my disbelief, he actually tries to justify it and the
resulting attrocities by blaming its victims. First he implies that after WWI,
somehow, Romanian Jews were siding with USSR against Romania. In other words,
after enduring 2000 years of persecution to keep their religion, the Jews would
surrender it, out of the blue, to the atheist bolshevics. Of course, since most
Jews were merchants and traders( rather than workers and landless peasants),
they were willing to give up their workshops to the collectivist state, just
to harm Romania's national interests. Then Mr. Rosca moves to the ethnic
composition of the Communist Party( reminds me of the "social origin" based
persecutions under Stalin ). Now since the tiny Communist Party was said to have
had less than 1000 members, let us assume that they were all (100%) Jewish.
Since there were some 800000 Jews in Romania, it means that less than 1% were
Communists. Or that over 99% were not.
d) Mr. Rosca mentions the "special relationship between anticommunism and
antisemitism". What exactly is this ? Hitlerism ? Would Mr. Rosca bother to
explain ? And how does this go hand in hand with Romania trying to join the
West and the democratic world ?
e) Mr. Rosca seems to allude to some conflicts in Basarabia( not in Bucovina,
from where very many Jews were deported ). What exactly were those ?
I would be grateful if some facts rather than heresay and inuendo were
presented. Did all tens of thousands of Jews in Basarabia including babies
participate ? Was their transgression so enormous that made killing most of them
without trial appropriate ?
f) One typical aspect of the antisemitic discourse is to refer to Jews as
a collectivity rather than as individuals ( on bad things only, of course! ).
When the legionaires killed Jews in Bucharest during the rebellion, everyone
said that the *legionairs* did it; no one said that the *Romanians* did it,
which would have been factually correct since all the perpetrators were
Romanian. The trials and punishment targeted the responsible individuals and not
the Romanian people at large, babies included. When it came to Jews though, the
principle stopped being applied and the full collectivity had to pay for the
alleged deeds or political opinions of few.
g) Mr. Rosca tries to justify the Odessa massacre by claiming that the Jewish
population appeared enemical and dangerous(??) to the Romanian army. In other
words, if a governing authority believes that a population is enemical, it is
entitled to exterminate it. I assume that in 1916 when the Germans occupied
Romania the whole population was enemical too and that would have justified its
extermination, by Mr. Rosca's enlightened opinion. Given the fact that Mr.
Rosca's opinions might appear enemical to someone in the Romanian government,
it would be acceptable to have him and his family killed.
h) At this point Mr. Rosca launches a new ( to me! ) historical theory:
the installation of communism in Romania had the unique and peculiar feature
of being in part an act of Jewish Revenge( with capital R in the original
posting ). The fact that countries like Bulgaria, Albania or China with very
little or no Jewish population went through the same sufferings and Stalinist
terror and attrocities seems irrelevant to Mr. Rosca. He claims that he is
horrified by the thought that survivors of the Odessa massacres might have been
involved in establishing communism in Romania. From this statement one can draw
only two conclusions. First, that the Romanian army made a major mistake by
leaving survivors behind! They should have killed them all, to the last! The
second, is that the Romanian people had a unique historical luck in the
fact that the Jewish revengers decided not to return death for death and
exterminate them, but to give them the milder punishment of living under
communism.
i) Mr. Rosca raises the issue of who was Jewish in the Communist hierarchy.
( In other words, Jews should be identified and a list of them should be
drawn ). The longer term leaders of the PCR when it was in power were
Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceausescu; the ministers of the interior ( in control of
the Securitate, camps and prisons ) were T. Georgescu and Al. Draghici.
All those characters were genetically pure Romanians, with good Orthodox
baptismal certificates. Other communist leaders were Ana Pauker ( Jewish,
from Focsani ) until 1952, Vasile Luca ( Hungarian ) until 1952, Emil Bodnaras
( Ukrainian ), I. Chishinevski (Russian Jew ) until 1958, L. Patrascanu
( Romanian) until 1948, I. Gh. Maurer ( Romanian ). What is this supposed to
prove ?
j) Getting more bizarre, Mr. Rosca sees "subtle threats" and "blackmail" from
some ( unspecified, of course! ) conspiration of "Jewish historians and
politologs" who are looming out there, with nothing better to do than
interfere in Romania for some malefic, yet unexplicable reasons.
In 7. Mr. Rosca considers the current political struggle in Romania a war. The
implication is that "the other side" is not a political adversary, but an enemy
to be distroyed by force, if need be. Therefore anything goes and the
opposition is under no obligation to play by the rules. He seems to make an
apeal to emotional zeal, to overcome reason, perspective or balance.
To conclude, Mr. Rosca's posting goes along the lines of the committed
extremist, full of revolutionary fervor, for whom the ends justify the means,
who deep down in his heart knows he is right, but somehow cannot explain it
to the world in a way that can be understood. The world is black and white,
conspiratorial and frozen in time to the few months after the Revolution. To
his frustration, most of the people lost their zeal. His criticism is not
directed against the policies of the Romanian government, but toward their
past affiliations with an unfortunate, oppressive, sometimes criminal and
essentially absurd system. He shows very limitted inclination toward democracy,
(which he attacks from essentially fascist-nazi positions ) or for its
values of tollerance, free expression, openness and political alternatives.
** S. **
rom: Marius Hancu (hancu@crim.ca)
Subject: Re: Comments on Mr. I. Rosca's diatribe
Newsgroups: soc.culture.romanian
Date: 1994-02-19 06:36:32 PST
>>>In article <023315Z18021994@anon.penet.fi>, an70614@anon.penet.fi writes:
>> In what can be characterized as an extremist, anti-democratic and antisemitic
>> diatribe
Antisemitic, possibly. I must say from the very beginning that I felt
uncomfortable with the view presented by I. Rosca concerning the
relations with the Jews. Petru Groza (who brought the communists in
power, to a large extent), Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceausescu were all ethnic
Romanians. The Romanians (be it ethnic Romanians or otherwise) cannot
escape their own guilt for the communism by heaping accusations
against ethnic minorities, nor by saying that it was all the Russians'
fault.
Limited in his views, I. Rosca might be. For example, he is always
weak in offering any pointers in economics and his analysis in that
area is absent. But extremist and anti-democratic, he is probably not.
True, I feel frequently alienated by the torrent of words coming from
his side, many too loud and big, but he also presents on many
occasions truths that cannot be escaped.
On the other side,
what is disturbing in S. presentations, is that he never really
discusses the guilt of the people presently in power in Romania for
45 years of communism. He/she only focuses on the faults of the
opposition. One cannot make tabula rasa in Romania so simply. True,
the democracy must be enforced. But it is fully understandable the
desire of people who have suffered under communism of seeing some
justice done. And the point is that he hasn't dealt with this issue
too well.
At the same time, while pretending to focus on policies, S. does not
make any analysis of the way the FSN and its ulterior derivatives
implemented a coherent economical policy in Romania (they did not, in
my opinion) or how democracy in Romania was implemented (let's talk a
little bit about how the television was controlled in all these years, for
example).
The scope of S. analysis and criticism has to be much more evenly
spread over all involved parties, in order to be thought of as being
'objective'. Indeed, he has done a relatively good job at criticizing the
opposition, let's see him doing the same about the government, if he
wants to be considered objective.
>> In 2. Mr. Rosca attacks "symetry" between the parties. Of course, in his world
>> there are only two parties: "them" ( the Communist-traitors unchanged for 45
>> years - pure evil! ) vs. "us" ( the people-patriotic-victims, pure good! ) with
>> no shades in between.
Holding such a view is no crime. Such beliefs were shared by the
US President Ronald Reagan too ("the evil empire"). As much some can
dislike Reagan, his consistency in fighting communism lead,
together with other factors, to the break of the Berlin Wall and the
freedom of Eastern Europe.
Of course, one has a difficulty with seeing how justice can be
implemented in practice in Romania in the present current situation,
where the guilt is shared. However, people who during the communist
era tortured political prisoners and innocent people should be
brought to justice.
Of course, a weakness of I. Rosca's presentation is that the is not
discussing how he sees implementation of justice in the current
situation in Romania. But at the same time, one cannot side with S. in
side-stepping this moral issue, in a cold analysis.
>> In 5. Mr. Rosca mainly criticizes my methods. The supreme argument for their
>> discreditation is the allegation that their conclusion is convenient to the
>> current Romanian Government. The posting claims that I use the "communist"
>> method of taking some truthful but out of context aspects, of "recomposing"
Well, S. is leaving himself open to such accusation by the way the
presents facts. While he certainly has a good style of discourse, the
documents are not there, in general, just the analysis and the
argumentation.
>> This does not change the fact though, that
>> it was Hitler and his local associates that made this possible by destroying
>> democracies and nations, by making dictatorship, repression and killings a
>> normal way of life
How about the "proletariat's dictatorship" and the purges operated the
Stalin and communists in Russia before even Hitler was in power.
>> He shows very limitted inclination toward democracy,
This is only partially true ...
>> (which he attacks from essentially fascist-nazi positions )
This is is just name-calling, an option that was dismissed by S. until
now.
Marius Hancu
--
Marius Hancu, Parallel Architectures Group
Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montreal (CRIM)
1801, avenue McGill College, Bureau 800, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2N4, Canada
phone: (514) 398-5561, fax: 514-398-1244, email: hancu@crim.ca
--
SIG
From: Mihai Dima (mihai@lamar.ColoState.EDU)
Subject: Re: Comments on Mr. I. Rosca's diatribe
Newsgroups: soc.culture.romanian
Date: 1994-02-22 11:31:21 PST
>Antisemitic, possibly. I must say from the very beginning that I felt
>uncomfortable with the view presented by I. Rosca concerning the
>relations with the Jews. Petru Groza (who brought the communists in
>power, to a large extent), Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceausescu were all ethnic
>Romanians.
Mr. Rosca should probably have takled a bit more about the Pauker-Luca-
Teoharie "era", when being romanian was sufficient to keep you out of
Foreign-Trade, out of Ministry of Exterior, Interior, anything for that
matter. (And send you in jail if your feelings about the past and your
ancestors went further than the border of your mouth.) When Eminescu was
forbiden, and so was Goga, and anything romanian.
When the light came from Moscow, and the FIAP was the one to bring it.
And then some wonder "why ?" are romanians struggling for their identity.
>Limited in his views, I. Rosca might be. For example,
>
>On the other side,
>what is disturbing in S. presentations,
Actually everybody is wrong, only "we" know better. Aha !...
Mr. Rosca is RIGHT with the most important point: ACTION !
> But it is fully understandable the
>desire of people who have suffered under communism of seeing some
>justice done.
Those who produce noise and insults, will never deliver justice.
>opposition, let's see him doing the same about the government, if he
>wants to be considered objective.
That's true. Maybe the goverment also has something to learn in how to deal
with the people and lie such that they will not be caught again. The analysis
will help them.
>US President Ronald Reagan too ("the evil empire"). As much some can
>dislike Reagan, his consistency in fighting communism lead,
>together with other factors, to the break of the Berlin Wall and the
>freedom of Eastern Europe.
Freedom came from AmeriKa. Ye-pee !! ...
Let's have US troups in Macedonia and possibly soon in Romania !
Long live Reagan, the third-class actor, "first"-class president that
brought liberaty to the world. What prevented Nixon from dismantling
communism in China, then ?
Poor support that put up Gorby ... better luck next time.
As we say in romanian: "Alta data !"
Mihai O.
From: Dorin Baru (stssdxb@sugarland.unocal.com)
Subject: Re: Comments on Mr. I. Rosca's diatribe
Newsgroups: soc.culture.romanian
Date: 1994-02-22 15:51:41 PST
Mihai Dima about Marius Hancu's comments:
>>Antisemitic, possibly. I must say from the very beginning that I felt
>>uncomfortable with the view presented by I. Rosca concerning the
>>relations with the Jews. Petru Groza (who brought the communists in
>>power, to a large extent), Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceausescu were all ethnic
>>Romanians.
> Mr. Rosca should probably have takled a bit more about the Pauker-Luca-
> Teoharie "era", when being romanian was sufficient to keep you out of
> Foreign-Trade, out of Ministry of Exterior, Interior, anything for that
> matter.
Mr. Dima, you forgot Chishinevski.
And the above mentioned assholes were also romanians (unless you imply that
communist jews were less 'romanians') Taking a bunch of (mostly) jews and
forgeting about the not so jewish people like Dej or Draghici sounds
a bit antisemitic to me. You also forget that for a long time being
jewish was enough to keep you out of Foreign Trade, Army, etc (there were
exceptions, of course).
While I still need more to establish Rosca's antisemitism, I have long
time ago concluded that you can easily be qualified as antisemitic
> And then some wonder "why ?" are romanians struggling for their identity.
You mean 'generic romanians', don't you ?
>>US President Ronald Reagan too ("the evil empire"). As much some can
>>dislike Reagan, his consistency in fighting communism lead,
>>together with other factors, to the break of the Berlin Wall and the
>>freedom of Eastern Europe.
>Freedom came from AmeriKa. Ye-pee !!
>Let's have US troups in Macedonia and possibly soon in Romania !
> Long live Reagan, the third-class actor, "first"-class president that
> brought liberaty to the world
While I would perhaps give Reagan less credit than Marius does, I believe
there is substance in Marius's point. All your argument is:
'.....Ye-pee!!' You forgot to add...UFO
I will tell you, there is no freedom in America, it's just the propaganda.
The media (CNN & Co) who is trying to brainwash everybody (of course, they
could not succede with smarts like yourself).
There is also a big jewish conspiracy in America, which does not allow the
'generic-xx' enjoy their identity.
Dorin