The 1989 Uprising in Romania
Before the fall of Communism in 1989, Romanians were craving to enjoy the rights and freedoms of the western European states.
Florentin Căpitănescu, 23.12.2015, 12:58
During the Communist period, that lasted more than 40 years, Romania was a country difficult to live in. The obsessive control exerted by the regime on the population, by means of the much-feared Securitate, the then political police, the cold in people’s homes, the lack of food, the violation of fundamental human rights and of the right to freedom of speech and even of the right to life in the case of political opponents, were the instruments used by a ruthless regime. A former political dissident, Radu Filipescu, talked about the oppression of the Communist regime in an interview to Radio Romania:
“Communism was a society of failure. One cannot speak in positive terms about those times, one can only speak about a personal experience. It is good that the Communist regime fell, that Ceauseascu was toppled, even if we still have a lot of things to set right.”
26 years after the 1989 anti-Communist uprising, the Romanian society is still far from the ideals that Romanians nourished at the time. And that happens in spite of the fact that Romania has rediscovered its European vocation. A member of NATO since 2004 and of the EU since 2007, Romania now enjoys rights that it could not even dream of during Communism. A former prime minister of post-Communist Romania, Petre Roman, talked at Radio Romania’s microphone about one of those dreams:
“The big win of the Revolution was freedom. When you have freedom you don’t appreciate it enough. People nowadays consider freedom a current, normal reality”.
However, after all these years, many Romanians continue to be disappointed. A big disillusion of these 26 years is the failure to finalize the so-called Revolution case that has been recently closed. The opening of the case was considered a natural attempt to find the people guilty of crimes, to establish the historical truth and to come to terms with the past, given that more than 1,000 Romanians lost their lives in December 1989. But the wish for justice to be done is still alive. The wife of a man killed in Sibiu at the 1989 Revolution told Radio Romania:
“For us it was a tragedy back then, and continues to be a tragedy now. We want our voice to be heard, after 26 years, we want the big leaders, politicians, governing parties or whomever they are to listen to us, to pay attention to our wishes. It is not possible to close the Revolution case. No people have been found guilty of the crimes in Sibiu, but 99 people died here during the 1989 Revolution”.
The closing of the Revolution file is the result of a society which, according to many Romanians, is going in the wrong direction, but in which they can feel free, though.
(Translated by Lacramioara Simion)
