Tag Archive for 'politics'

Obama – The Catch-phrase

It seems that Americans (and people in general, I believe) are very sensitive when it comes symbols and quotes of all sort. Rhetoric drives a lot of what we do, after all. It also seems that most memorable American presidents had at least one phrase in their inaugural speech that become a global symbol of what America stands for. For instance, Kennedy uttered the world famous ”Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” in his inaugural speech, while Roosevelt cornered the equally famous “There is nothing to fear but fear itself”. I wonder what Obama’s historic catch-all phrase will be:

I have three candidates so far:

1. The world is changing and we are changing with it.

2. You will be remembered not but what you destroy, but by what you have built. (I have to pay royalties to somebody else for spotting this one)

3. In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. 

Any more ideas?

Can Europe Laugh at Itself?

 Later Edit: Bulgarians insisted to have the squat toiled depiction of their country covered up, so now Bulgaria is a black cloth on the European map. Totally ridiculous and shows how patriotic intentions can have the reverse effect! Read more about it here.

Romania by Entropa

Romania as seen by Cerny’s Entropa

Bulgaria by Entropa

Bulgaria as seen by Cerny’s Entropa

If you’re in any way art-sensitive or art-educated, the shortest of visits to Prague will get you familiar with two very controversial Czech artists: David Cerny and Jan Saudek. As a photographer, the latter could not overpopulate the public space with his allegedly immoral creations. However, the former is well-known for his daring public displays, by painting for instance a Soviet tank in bright pink.

Cerny stroke back in glory this time, with a work titled Entropa, commissioned by the Czech EU Presidency, that’s currently displayed in the lobby of the European Council in Brussels. Supposedly a collage bringing together artistic visions of artists representing all 27 EU countries, in reality it is an exclusive work by Cerny that whole-heartedly mocks stereotypes European nations have of one another.

Thus, Italy is displayed as a football match between the North and the South, France as a big strike, Romania as a huge Dracula park and so on and forth. Bulgarians seem to have been the most offended, as Cerny envisioned their country as a Turkish toilet – reminding us all of the Ottoman yoke in the region. As a result, the Czech ambassador in Bulgaria was called up for official explanations.

Not surprisingly, Romanian newspapers are profoundly “offended” by this piece of art, which reminded me of the fuming controversy around the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York this summer. You can read more info here and here.

The international media seems to have a rather moderate stand on the issue, with BBC News simply telling the story behind Entropa and with the International Herald Tribune being equally objective.

Czech officials seem to be discontent with Cerny’s petite joke – namely doing the work all by himself, and not by working together with 26 other actors, but they don’t seem to pick at the content of the installation. Actions are pending, so I wonder if their broad mindedness will take into account the fact that 2009 is the official European Year of Innovation and Creativity

Public Administration Reform Beats About the Bush

As all of you know by now, we have a new government in Romania. While it may be true that the politics behind it have been dirty at times, there are definitely some very valuable politicians in the new executive and let us all hope there will be enough political will for real actions to be implemented. One of these “real actions” people have been calling for is the radical reform of public administration. Mr. Emil Boc, the new Prime Minister, announced it will radically reform public administration, by limiting salaries and benefits for high-level civil servants, by cutting protocol spending and by putting a stop to the recruitment process in administration. Mr. Radu Berceanu, the Minister for Transport, fired 24 directors from the Ministry of Transport. Continue reading ‘Public Administration Reform Beats About the Bush’

Facebook Political Protest in Croatia

I have visited Croatia and I have a couple of very good Croatian friends. To me, their level of development seemed quite high and they seemed rather Westernized in everything from economics to political views. Thus, I always thought the fact they were left out of the European Union was merely bad timing and that things will be sorted out soon. Latest news was that they were scheduled to join the EU as early as 2009.

However, a couple of days ago worrisome events occured in Croatia. Political opponents of the current regime (Prime Minister Sanader) were arrested by the Zagreb police for political protests via Facebook. A Facebook group called “I bet I can find 5,000 people who dislike Sanader” became the main proof of anti-establishment behaviour :)   I believe such judiciary practices are obviously not fit for an EU member, to say the very least. I’m curious on the results of the investigation commissioned by PM Sanader…

Government Pending

Sunday was parliamentary elections day in Romania. Few Romanians left their cosy apartments for a trip to the ballot box (a bit less than 40% of them , to be more precise), and there’s worrisome statistics indicating that only 15% of the voters had higher education. This year we’ve also had a new voting system – a mixed member proportional representation, supported by a fairly large majority of the political spectrum (the liberals and the social-democrats), and opposed by the President’s party. As any proportional system, there were quite a few dissatisfactions with the way mandates were redistributed, but overall the system seems to have achieved its purpose.

The social democrats scored 33.6%, the democrats (allegedly a right-wing party, though their political programme seems to be the opposite) 33%, and the liberals 18.7%. The new voting system – with a 5% electoral threshold – eliminated extremist parties from the Parliament, which is great news. However, Sunday’s results leave us with a huge dilemma, as we do not know who will form the Government. Most probably, intense political negotiations will last till the end of December and our President will definitely take advantage of our semipresidential political system to veto plenty of government formulas that don’t suit him.

Unfortunately, the end of the year also reminds us we’ve done too little to curb corruption (one of the elected MPs this Sunday is actually in detention for fraud) and to absorb European structural and cohesion funds properly. With political strife prevailing over efficient administration, there are chances we will end up in the same situation of aid freezing as our Bulgarian neighbours…

Obama Plays on Feelings

obama economist coverAs I’ve commented on several Obama-related blog entries today, it will be long before we see  a fundamental change in policy following the much acclaimed victory, but a permanent change in the political discourse has occurred, which will come to affect everybody in time – Americans and non-Americans, and yes, even Romanians.

Saying too much about all this as a Romanian living in Romania is somehow dishonest. Instead, I will dare copy-paste an email that I received today from a girl I worked with in New York, from whom I haven’t heard in two years. It’s touching, beware: Continue reading ‘Obama Plays on Feelings’

November 4th: My Birthday and Obama’s victory?

obamaI love it how Romanians realize the importance of public issues that surround them only when they are hit hard and heavy by them. There have been very few public debates, either on TV or in the blogs, about the US elections in Romania. This last week however, Hotnews (one of the most popular news portals in Romania) was packed with articles and more or less intelligent analyzes about the American elections. A very interesting debate – “The American Night” – is broadcast on TV as we speak, with influential Romanian opinion makers discussing the US elections. Before this nonetheless, few Romanian bloggers discussed this subject – a rather trivial indication of this is the absence of any category titles “elections”,”Obama” or anything similar in Zelist’s tag cloud (a Romanian version of Technorati).

I wonder whether this is because Romanians simply don’t care about international politics or because international politics doesn’t affect Romania. On a first glimpse, I’d tend to stick to the first version. However, over the last couple of months it became consistently more obvious to me that Obama’s stand on Europe will not change transatlantic relations in any way, hence won’t impact Romania. I discussed this topic a couple of months ago on Blogactiv, and later on with some American friends and we all concluded Obama won’t change in any fundamental way the current status quo. At least not as rapid as we’d like to see it changed.

In order to fundamentally change America’s position in the world, the President has to be backed by Congress, by a prosperous economy, by interest groups and, of course, by the American people (which is far from being as web 2.0 as we imagined :) . Surely, he is charismatic, surely I would vote for him, surely I’d never prefer a Republican over a Democrat, but still it takes more than one American president to change the world. Also because the world has dramatically changed:

Whoever wins the US Presidency today will be facing the ultimate challenge: steering a self-destructing Western-based economic growth model through a painful transition towards a new global sustainability. This is a task far beyond any past Apollo project. (Willy de Baecker on Blogactiv)

Overall nonetheless, Go Obama! Anxiously waiting for the victory speech…

Europe’s Financial Crisis – The Basics

euro_reverse.jpgFew were imagining last week how Europe’s finances would look like in just a couple of days. As a matter of fact, last Tuesday I was disagreeing with Michael Berendt’s entry on Blogactiv, while claiming that Eurozone (and Europe in general) will have to face the storm really soon. And so they did. Mr. Berendt himself acknowledged his hasty judgment! To (over)simplify things, the subprime crisis sent American banks into bankruptcy, which consequently did the same with European ones. Germany gave out state guarantees for all private savings accounts, and other European countries followed suit. Moreover, Ireland offered similar guarantees for corporate actors; simply put, the state nationalized banks and other financial institutions. Surreal in 21st century Europe, isn’t it? Continue reading ‘Europe’s Financial Crisis – The Basics’

Obama and the World: A Sham?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAhb06Z8N1c&eurl=http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaroadblog/gGxyFs[/video]

I have openly declared my admiration for Barack Obama before (here and here). I have always been very much preoccupied with the prospects of changes in American foreign policy – especially with respect to its ties with Europe and global organizations. I remember disagreeing with Antal Daniel, a Blogactiv blogger, on this issue. While I’ve always felt that Obama as president would mean a total shift of paradigm in world affairs, both this article written by Obama himself a year ago and his recent visit to Berlin make me think twice before claiming this. The story with the visit goes pretty much along these lines: Obama was more of a rock star than a politician, with extatic crowds of 200000 people cheering for him, and with a speech that reminded everybody of the messianic figures of the American nation (i.e. Kennedy and Reagan). Continue reading ‘Obama and the World: A Sham?’

Fortress Europe Secures Its Walls

immigration.jpg

Photo: European Commission

June 20th was World Refugee Day. Plenty of celebrations all over the world. Cool things happened all over the world, even in Romania – where, surprisingly to some, there are quite a bunch of refugees, some living here for many years now (15000 refugees have received protection from the Romanian government since 199), and having become more attached to Romania than Romanians themselves. EVZ presented some of their stories, in a very nice Sunday article. Last week however was also the week when the European Parliament passed an highly debatable new laws on illegal migrants. Continue reading ‘Fortress Europe Secures Its Walls’