Permaflow 14, Revolutions - http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

Permaflow 14, Revolutions http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

 

We have had the chance to be close to the University Square protests, in the winter and spring of 1990, all the way into the beginning of summer, when between June 13 and 15, the miners would descend on the capital, beat and even kill some people…indeed, they could have murdered us too, for we have happened to be there…

 

I was covering the protests for the journalist from Radio Sweden, as her assistant and translator, but because she had grown to trust me, and probably even more because she had had an affair with the correspondent for The Times, we would be sent in ‘the field’ to see what is going one for them and take notice.

With me I had Mihai Radu, who was working in the same capacity for the man with The Times, Mihai had been much luckier on a few fronts with that, his correspondent was friendlier, and maybe more importantly, The Times would keep an interest in the country and Radu would go on to work for journalists and I think he became one himself, a sort of freelance, whose job would place him in a discovery documentary I have seen, where he explains what has happened around here in recent history…

 

Funny that I had had to push him into this, and I am the one who has changed his life, if we think Jacques Le Fataliste by Denis Diderot, then it was all written in the big book up there, but otherwise, I had met with Mihai in the subway train, on the way home, we both lived in the Titan area back then, in 1989…

We have been in the same high school, in Mate Fizica 3, and at one point, we were competing for the same goalkeeper position in the team, he was one or two years older and probably better, he was the one to get the post…

 

In the train, I told him he must come at the Intercontinental Hotel, for this where the place is crawling with journalists and there are chances to make money, and not the flimsy sums we are used with, but many times the monthly wage, in the time of day, and I have already started with TIME, but there are plenty of others…

Mihai said that I must be crazy, with the fights going on – this was when there had been intense shooting, albeit the massive attacks from the enemies, forces loyal to Ceausescu would later prove to be bogus, fake news as we say today, and most of the casualties have been the result of friendly fire, poorly or untrained conscripts shooting at random, upon those they thought are the enemy, often following the wrong orders…

He insisted that he would never do such a stupid thing and walk willingly in the line of fire to day for some dollars, no matter if they would be the salary for some months, he would still be dead at the end of a few days or hours…

 

It was going on along these lines, with me insisting that this is the chance of a lifetime and he responding that this is mad, and he is in no way going to commit suicide and come there any time soon…

This is not the dialogue as it happened, but I have read 50 Psychology Classics and learned that most of the conversations we have are not listed to, if I am not mistaken, more than seventy five percent of what is talked about is never assimilated http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/06/50-psychology-classics.html

 

In the end, Radu would show up at the Intercontinental hotel, where I had already landed a connection with Christina Nylander from Radio Sweden, and Mihai would work with the correspondent for The Times…

The two journalists would often stay at the hotel (albeit just ‘stay’ might not be the right term, maybe they jumped around, played games in their rooms, drank) and send us in the field, and we have had some interesting days like that, in one, we would enter the building of the government, as it was occupied.

 

At least I did, and called some people – the few who might have had one in the house, remember, this was before the days of the omnipresent, omniscient portable phone – to tell them I am ‘with the government’, and then at other times we would witness vicious events, just as the siege at the headquarters of the National Peasants’ Party, where the iconic, glorious Corneliu Coposu has had to get out in an armored personnel carrier.

The mad, ignorant, primitive miners had been brain washed by Iliescu and his acolytes into believing that Corneliu Coposu was some kind of monster, when in reality, Iliescu was the hydra and he sent a pack of demons that would sack, steal, embezzle and become rich, in the manner that is better known in connection with the Russian oligarchs…

 

Corneliu Coposu was a demi god, not a perfect, absolute, 100% one, for he had some flaws, but his courage, integrity had no equal, he had been through communist jails as a member of the ancient opposition, and when he had gone in, he had had the physique of a boxing champion, which he was, but upon release, he would weigh half that, losing so much in prison, where he had been abused by the instruments of the regime.

He had been a beacon, a light, a symbol of hope, someone who had been a role model, dedicated his lie to the good of others, his house was about fifty meters from the flat in Unirea, where we have lived for ten or fifteen years, and this is where I still have the domicile address on my ID, even if I live here, in the north of the city, just under one kilometer from the exit, the limit where Mogosoaia begins…