Romania. 2017 That was #Colectiv . That was the end of 2015. It was like after a few days of heavy rain when a river starts flooding. Then sunshine comes out and the river recedes to its banks in a few hours. 2016 was a cloudy year with plenty of sunshine but it grew darker by the end of the year. Finally it rained heavily at the beginning of 2017 and this river, this generation I am part of, started flooding the streets as it never did before in its lifetime. I am proud of my generation and I am not usually proud of it.
I am proud because we gave it all we had. 600 000 Romanians protesting peacefully during February in the whole country. That’s something glorious. Those people who faced the snow and the cold of the Eastern European winter are my heroes - the poster I ripped out of a magazine and stuck on my wall.
Romanians are spontaneous. If something goes wrong, they rush out and try to fix it. They can focus all this energy at once to get things moving. Unfortunately, our spontaneity is demolished by lack of breath. We can complete the short run. We can’t manage the long run. If things get solved in the short run then we are winners. If not, we regretfully quit.
This February was the start of a long run. There are some warriors out there who can keep up this kind of battle. I knew that we won’t make it all together. Even I am not hardwired for this. But I’m content. I’m happy that so many came at the starting line. The sprint along the first 100 metres was amazing. But the finish line is several revolutions ahead. We will join again this nerve racking 5000 metre race. This is #Rezist .
