#ceausescu

Last year, in my dad's paperwork, I found this photocopy of a letter to my maternal grandmother, from a friend in Romania. She had presumably given a copy to my dad because of its historical significance: the letter is dated "22 Dec '89 - 22 Jan '90 - one month from the revolution!" It describes her life under the Ceaucescu regime, the things she had never been able to tell; and details its fall.

When I found it, I thought it was an interesting thing, and that I should share it. But I balked, I guess, at publicizing someone else's private letter; it's not so historical that the writer might not still be alive.

Now, It feels not just historically notable, but painfully, critically relevant. It's long, and it's not all politically pertinent - there's a bit about me and my cousins being adorable - but it's an all or nothing kind of read.

"Very few people fought to stop the wrong activity of that criminal Ceaucescu. If every important person in state didn't agree to report only lies concerning the economy (industry and agriculture) Romania would have been the same rich country, worthy of her brave past. Instead of truth it was easier to die thousands of people in order to regain our dignity, to have a better and a new life? For this reason we shall never be forgiven by the next generations. Will this revolution wash the shame?"

"Sometimes people have to live their dream. So if living their dream means a lot of dead women and orphans, maybe they're going to have to live that dream. And maybe they're just then going to have to figure out who's going to have to pay for this. Who's going to pay for the orphans, and the dead women? Because that's what you're going to have.

I'm waiting for the first lawsuit in which the family of the dead woman sues the state, and I'm also waiting for a lawsuit that says, if you force me to have children that I cannot afford, you should pay for the whole process. You should pay for my pre-natal care, you should pay for my otherwise very expensive hospital delivery, you should pay for my health insurance, you should pay for the upkeep of this child after it is born (because that's where the concern seems to cut off with these people - once you take your first breath, out the window with you), and it is really a form of slavery to force women to have children that they cannot afford, and then to say that they have to raise them.

So if that's not going to be the story, you're going to end up with Romania under Ceaușescu, in which the orphanages fill up. [Ceaușescu] mandated four children per woman, and you had to have a pregnancy test every month, and if you did not get pregnant you had to state why - why you had not gotten pregnant. It was nuts. And it did result in a number of suicides and a number of kids being put into orphanages with no proper care at all. It was just horrible. So if that's what you want, State of Texas, live your dream. We can all watch and see what that looks like, and whether you're actually going to go so far as to force this upon women, and families, and not pay for any of it.

If you're drafted into the army - the other situation in which the state seizes control of your body - at least you get three meals a day, clothing, and a place to sleep. So if you're going to do that to women, pay up."