Streets become stage for Romanian discontent

Anger over austerity measures and corrupt politicians used to be discussed privately in this ex-Soviet bloc country but slowly the street has become the stage for Romania’s winter of discontent.

The ‘apartment revolt’ took to the street this time

Thousands of protesters have been braving freezing temperatures over the past two weeks across the country, calling on the centre-right government and President Traian Basescu to step down.

Their slogans display both irony and disillusionment towards politicians, going from “Excuse us for not producing as much as you can steal,” to “PDL (ruling party) and USL (opposition) = same garbage”.

Young Romanian playwright Mihaela Michailov and director David Schwartz have joined the protesters for several nights in a row.

“People’s revolt was usually expressed only in private but the ‘apartment revolt’ took to the street this time,” Michailov, 34, told AFP.

Michailov’s plays, which have been staged at Romania’s major theatres and have been translated into French, English and German, deal with discrimination (Google my country) or the negative effects of mass consumerism (How Barbie survived the world crisis).

Together with Schwartz, 25, she has written plays about the mass street protests that took place in Romania in 1990 (Hot heads) or people losing their homes when communists confiscated property.

If the recent protests have only drawn a maximum of 10,000 people a day in the whole of Romania, a far cry from the masses turning out at similar rallies in France or Greece, the numbers are significant for this eastern European country with a history of authoritarian regimes and not a strong tradition of grassroot opposition.

“The open door exercise of democracy is only budding in Romania,” Schwartz said, stressing that the Balkan country knew successive authoritarian regimes for more than half a century. Unlike other former Soviet bloc countries like the Czech Republic, where Vaclav Havel managed to form a strong dissident movement around himself, in Romania very few people dared voice their opposition to the communist regime, Michailov stressed.

Today’s protesters may not be numerous, but they are “very persistent,” she said.

And they can already claim a victory, forcing the government to reinstate a respected health official, Raed Arafat, who had been pressured into quitting after a row with the president over health care reforms.