This year, in December, we will be
\ncelebrating 30 years since the 1989 anti-Communist Revolution in Romania, a
\ntime for remembrance, recollection and commemoration and, maybe, for nostalgia.
\nAlso, according to the Funky Citizens Association, this year is also a good
\nopportunity to chase away civic apathy. Starting from the principle that children
\nmust go through several experiences in order for the educational process to be
\nmemorable, especially when it comes to civic education, the Funky Citizens
\nAssociation started a project titled 80east, which seeks to recreate people’s
\nliving conditions in the 1980s. They equipped an apartment with everything that
\npeople used to have in their homes back then: from furniture to appliances and
\ndecorative items. <\/p>\n
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\n
\n
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The young visitors to this apartment
\ncan feel first-hand the difference between the many things people did not
\nbenefit from back then and the rights they are enjoying today. In this civic
\neducation lab, high-school students are explained the functioning of the
\ncurrent democratic system to help them become aware of their rights and
\nobligations and how they can be part of the decision-making process.
\nInaugurated early this year, the 1980s apartment was conceived as a mini-museum
\nof the daily life of people living in the final years of communism in Romania,
\nand also as a civic education lab, as Cosmin Pojoran from the Funky Citizens
\nAssociation told us:<\/p>\n
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In this apartment, children undergo
\nan interactive educational experience. We start from stories about people’s
\ndaily lives. They may have heard at home about Ceausescu or Dej but they do not
\nknow about people’s personal stories. In fact, this is what we want to highlight:
\nhow decisions are made and how they influence people’s lives. At first, we
\nplayed a little bit with the idea of a museum, that is why the apartment has a
\nnostalgic air. It would be easy to fall into a cult for the past, but this is
\nonly the first layer. Children who come to us are in high-school, so they are
\naround 18 and feel nothing of the nostalgia experienced by those who lived through
\nthose times. We have also set the goal of creating a bridge between
\ngenerations, between these children and their parents and grandparents. We want
\nthem, after they visit us, to go home and talk about communism with their
\nrelatives.<\/p>\n
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Interactivity is the main teaching
\nmethod in the 80east apartment, as Anabella Costache, from the Funky Citizens
\nAssociation, told us:<\/p>\n
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Through playing and other personal
\nexperiences, combined with historical and theoretical information, students get
\nto interact with that environment and draw their own conclusions, which doesn’t
\nreally happen in school, in civic education or history classes. In fact, the
\nproject started from us noticing that what is happening in school is too little
\nfor the student to feel empathy for what happened back then, for the many
\ninjustices committed then, and to know how to react if they see signs those
\ntimes are coming back.<\/p>\n
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After a walk around the apartment
\nand an immersion into the world full of shortages of the 1980s, the young
\nvisitors are asked to carry out certain tasks, which help them differentiate
\nbetter between the past and the present. Here is Andrei Bulearca, from the
\nFunky Citizens Association, who contributed to the creation of these tasks: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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These
\ntasks are intended to get on their nerves a little bit and make them feel
\nfrustrated. For instance, one of the kitchen tasks was to find some foodstuffs
\nwhich were difficult to get during communism and which are nowhere to be found
\nin the kitchen. Obviously, they will never find those foodstuffs and in the end
\nwe will talk about how frustrated they will have felt about not finding them.
\nIt will be a pretext for talks on shortages and what people lacked back then,
\nabout some of their rights which were violated back then, but which are being
\nrespected now, in a democracy. Thus, by emphasising the contrast to the
\nshortages of the communist years, we underline the importance of democracy and
\nwhy it is important for young people to get involved in current political
\nlife. <\/p>\n
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\n
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Thus the
\nassociation tries to complement the rather insufficient information on
\ncommunism which is provided to pupils in school. For instance, only one
\noptional course on the history of communism is included in the high-school
\ncurricula, and it is taught to 11th and 12th graders. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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However,
\nsome of the students who participated in the 80east project already had some
\nbackground information from their families. Anabella Costache: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
We’ve
\nbeen pleasantly surprised to see that many people were talking about the day of
\nDecember 17, 1989, a day that we mark in a special way, by playing a programme
\nbroadcast by Radio Free Europe on that day. The recording we play should be
\nused by them when they are asked to write an encrypted letter to a friend in
\nthe Federal Republic of Germany, demanding information on what was going on in
\nRomania, as Ceausescu was saying one thing on public television and they were
\nhearing an entirely different thing from Radio Free Europe. The letter had to
\nbe in code because letters used to be opened by the Securitate [the former
\npolitical police], and the secrecy of correspondence was thus violated. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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There is
\nundoubtedly a need for education and information on communism, proof of this
\nbeing some older opinion polls, as this topic hasn’t been researched in recent
\ntimes. For instance, in 2010, 44% of the Romanians said communism was a good,
\nbut improperly implemented idea. More recently, in 2016, according to a
\nsociological survey, more than half of the respondents (52%) who were asked to
\nrate the performance of the communist party as compared to that of the current
\nparties answered better, whereas only 18% of them said worse. Over 40% of
\nthe young respondents believed that the Romanian Communist Party was better
\nthan the current parties. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
Andrei Bulearca, 21, a student at the Faculty of Political Sciences has
\nan explanation for the opinions expressed by the generation he belongs to.
\nAndrei Bulearca:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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As young people didn’t live through that period, that we don’t have a
\nrecent history museum, and only a handful of courses on the history of
\ncommunism are taught in high school, they do not have sufficient sources of information
\nwhen it comes to communism. They consider however that it was better back then
\nbecause, in my opinion, they are actually showing a lack of confidence in Romania’s
\ncurrent or recent governments. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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People can overcome their disappointment with
\nthe functioning of the system and of the current institutions only if the
\ncurrent state of affairs is changed, and this can be achieved only through the
\nknowledge and civil involvement which the Funky Citizens Association seeks to
\nimprove. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201c80east, a project to recreate peoples living conditions in the 1980s for educational purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":143064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-143063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n