Laszlo Alexandru

 

A MISCARRIED PROTEST

"...in the fight between real civilizing and a resisting nation,
the nation, and never the real, gets smashed."

(Titu Maiorescu)

english version by Axel H. Lenn

Public protest is an extreme way of reacting to the injustice committed against someone or against a group of individuals, by the violation of community laws or principles. Protest is a blatant form of dissociation, of moral sanction, an attempt to redress abuses. Most often it is followed by effective measures, especially where legal grounds are concerned, aiming to reconcile the asserted values and the values officially recognized by society.

The basic condition for expressing any king of protest regards moral rightfulness. The form of protest that presents distorted, deceitful facts simulating revolt; that, behind false indignation, refuses to acknowledge the obvious; that uses threatening and intimidating campaigns; that sustains antisocial ideas sanctioned by legislation, is coarse insult.

An unprecedented form of protest was showcased on the Romanian public scene recently. Approximately 200 subscribers ventured to assert their solidarity with Paul Goma, the ex-dissident, and with his anti-Semitic writings. And there you have it: a rare performance for an exiled author! Thirty years ago, in Drumul Taberei, he clandestinely succeeded in gathering hundreds of signatures against the communist dictatorship in Romania. Today, right from Belleville, on the outskirts of Paris, he succeeds in gathering hundreds of signatures against European democratic laws and pro arrogant anti-Semitism. Well, Paul Goma’s current clichés are few, but utterly fixed. Although Jews have been chased out of contemporary Romania almost completely and their community is growing extinct by the day, those responsible are the victims themselves: they have orchestrated instigations for decades past, they have constantly shown a lack of devotion for this poor country housing them with maternal care. Any excuse to slip into discussion this deeply insulting old song is more than welcome for Paul Goma: whether it is the 1907 uprising, the First World War front situation or Second World War fact analyses, whether he embarks on insulting Israel or castigates Romanian writers’ passiveness under Nicolae Ceausescu, whether he criticizes post-Decembrist complicities with Ion Iliescu, all roads lead to a single destination: Jews are to blame.

His anti-Semitic writings in recent years have triggered ample debates in the daily and the cultural media. His convictions were not stirred by the numerous views, arguments and passages counter-quoted by a dozen intellectuals. He did not seem a bit worried by the pathetic nearness his noxious hallucinations turned to since they were borrowed and intensely popularized by magazines such as Obiectiv legionar (issues 20-21/2005) and România Mare (issues 766, 767, 768, 769/2005).

Paul Goma was not hindered from publishing his fallacies at length in the mainstream media, on occasions repeating his preposterous ideas in two or three lines in various geographical corners of Romania, ever preaching an anti-Jewish hate policy. However, it happened that, following the 1001^st anti-Semitic article signed Paul Goma in Viaţa Românească magazine in Bucharest (issues 6-7/2005), the Council of the Writers Union in Romania got sick of it and, in an official statement, dissociated from the revolting contents of the above mentioned publication issued under its very patronage. Liviu Ioan Stoiciu, the second editor-in-chief, directly responsible for having published the text, got fired.

Excellent seeds of scandal! Here’s a wonderful excuse to turn the victimizer into victim, in a nervous attempt to revarnish his compromised reputation. Approximately 200 (tele)spectators of all backgrounds, ruler to folk, in Romania and abroad, rushed their clamors upon the Writers Union. Ziua daily was the suitable counteroffensive loudspeaker, September 14. There’s nothing more pathetic than someone protesting without a reason! If one or two hundred people lay their signatures on a pile of lies, do these automatically become truths? Is quantitative piling really able to induce a qualitative leap – including moral issues – as stated in the Marxist theory?!

Protesters of both sexes contend without blinking: "Consecrated detractors of the exiled writer have long attached the infamous label [anti-Semite] to him, especially for the historical work The Red Week or Bassarabia and the Jews that, most obviously, none of them ever discussed per se, they only labeled it". I must specify that Paul Goma’s "historical" work mentioned previously was published in Romania in 2004 by Vremea XXI Publishing House in Bucharest, thus it could not have caused for labels being attached to it for so "long". No one could have possibly judged the book before it was published. I gave the volume a detailed account in Paul Goma antisemit/Paul Goma – an Anti-Semite (in E-Leonardo, issue 5/2004; in Tribuna, issues 56-57-58/2005). I dedicated 35 pages, 50 foot notes and more than 30 ample quotations. What should I have added to consider it a discussion "per se"?! Another 300 or 400 pages? Should I have published another book based on the first – a preposterous pile of lies from the beginning till the end? I attributed the anti-Semite label to the Belleville writer after I had read and fully dissected his hypotheses. As far as I am concerned, I can’t call myself a detractor, I used to praise and defend Paul Goma. I am not a detractor now, because I’m revealing the truth about Paul Goma based on quotations, arguments and demonstrations.

Wonderful public protest: three lies packed in one sentence!

However, protesters of both sexes go on without hesitation: "In our opinion it’s more than clear Paul Goma is not an anti-Semite, not only because he’s husband and father of Jews. But also for the fact he has not denied and does not deny the Holocaust and all the other atrocious crimes committed against Jews, including those perpetrated by his fellow countrymen". An intellectual’s private life is by no means extenuating for his views – partial, deeply unjust and insulting for an entire ethnic group. Paul Goma denied the Holocaust explicitly when he wrote: "The Romanian Holocaust is a lie, clear forgery, regular fraud, vile threatening (Your purse or your life!)" (in Săptămîna Roşie…/ The Red Week..., Bucharest, Vremea XXI Publishing House, 2004, p. 273). I have not yet heard the author apologizing or repenting for these assertions – or for any of his many others, just as rude.

If 200 people say Paul Goma did not write what he actually wrote and published, are they right? If the 200 revolt hypocritically, should history be altered? Should the law be broken?

However, protesters of both sexes go on without stirring: "Regarding the anti-Semitism allegation and many other allegations directed at Paul Goma nowadays, we find significant that all these accusations have been raised in the past by the Securitate [Romania’s secret service] as well". The fact that Paul Goma was unjustly attacked by the Securitate does not acquit him of the nowadays well-grounded and just accusation sustained by an avalanche of quotations.

Do the 200 somehow imagine the present moral imposture can be dragged under the carpet based on Paul Goma’s past moral rightfulness?!

However, protesters of both sexes go on without blowing their top: "Paul Goma declared he would take all those who accused him of anti-Semitism to court". I am one of those who accused him and I’m still accusing Paul Goma of anti-Semitism, having studied his Săptămîna Roşie.../The Red Week... meticulously. I expect to be taken to court as well. I’ll bring the book to court and I’ll read passages out loud.

Do the 200 somehow believe intimidation is the best way to silence the truth?!

However, protesters of both sexes go on undisturbed: "We’re addressing those heading the Writers Union (...) considering that – following a hard to justify act of censorship – the most natural right of a writer, namely that of publishing his writings, has been infringed in the case of the two men". Actually, the two men (Paul Goma and Liviu Ioan Stoiciu) have published their views unbothered in books and mainstream magazines. "Censorship", in dictionary terms, stands for "preliminary control imposed on the contents of publications, radio and television shows etc.". Had their writings been censored, they could not have been commented upon. Critically judging and morally dissociating from a text already published are by no means acts of censorship. As any private observer, the Writers Union reserved the right to express its (negative) view on opinions already issued, which – therefore – had not been censored.

If 200 observers on the sidelines cannot tell public disapproval of a text from censorship, thus proving they have no idea what "censorship" means, are they right?!

As I’ve stated in the beginning, the basic condition for expressing any kind of protest regards moral rightfulness. A writer raising his voice to publicly seek justice should not involve lying, intimidation, ignorance, manipulation. Furthermore, he should pay attention in choosing his allies.

In this particular case, one of those initiating and sustaining the protest "of the 200" – by direct interventions on Ziua’s forum, by making public personal contact information, by coordinating the signature gathering campaign etc. – is none other than Mircea Stănescu, notorious postface annotator on negationists, translator of anti-Semites and blatant show-off in historical research (see my text Păcală învaţă istorie/Merry Jester Teaching History). In issues 6-11/2004 of Timpul magazine, the one and only Mircea Stănescu published an ample study scandalously stealing the research work conducted by two colleagues. The printed lies premier was accused of terrible plagiarism. Without too much fuss, he got in a pool of ashes so quickly you could say he was from Togo: "Given the seriousness of this mistake I made, that is appropriating the intellectual work of my colleagues without specified permission to do so, I wish to apologize to them (…). I then wish to apologize for having violated the standards and ethics in scientific research" (in Timpul, issue 5/May 2005, p. 17).

Briefly, seeing the May plagiarist accusing the Writers Union of censorship in September, alongside 200 or so disoriented characters, is the absolute crown of imposture in our autochthonous public life!

Collective protest became a consecrated fighting weapon against Ceausescu’s dictatorship in 1977. Collective protest has died a violent death under our astounded eyes, trying to justify Paul Goma’s anti-Semitic writings.

(January 2006)