Laszlo Alexandru

 

CRAYFISH STEPS

english version by Axel H. Lenn

Just as Romania has joined the European democracies’ club, a few recent stands could very well throw us back whence we had left and worry us deeply. Instead of designing our future in a practical manner, we’re mainly concerned with refurbishing the past. In early December 2006, the Appeal Court in Bucharest passed a sentence that exonerates marshal Ion Antonescu, Horia Sima (leader of the Iron Guard) and other 19 members of the Romanian Government in 1940, from all the war crimes committed on the Eastern front. The military action against U.S.S.R. is justified by the need to suppress the “continual and imminent” state of emergency. I’m not going to debate whether a court is entitled to interpret historical, political or military actions. I’m not going to address the moral affront offered to the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed during the war (among them, the numerous Jews exterminated in Transnistria). Nowadays, this cruel sacrifice of innocent lives is rewarded by court order. The bizarre stand of the Bucharest tribunal did not escape diplomatic sanctions (official protests in the Republic of Moldavia and Russia) and western media criticism (Le Monde). Was this really the time to rehabilitate the nation’s fascist heroes?

In late half January 2007, a full squadron of well known intellectuals made a public appeal urging that Vintilă Horia be “reinstated”. The writer was depicted as an innocent victim of the communist regime that had offended him by fabricating his extremist past and by forcing him to leave the country. I had to step in and quote ample passages published in the 1938-1941 press to remind everyone that Vintilă Horia is in fact a propagandist who has shamelessly written the most paranoid odes to Hitler and Mussolini. My astonishment is still unanswered: was this really the time to rehabilitate the fervent national-socialist ideologist?

In late January 2007, the Timişoara municipality proclaimed Paul Goma freeman of the city. During the ‘70s and ‘80s, Goma was indeed a disident who protested against ceauşism – his merits were acknowledged only abroad (e.g. in France, Hungary). During the ‘90s, Goma the polemist protested against the decrepit structures and mentalities of the literary world – he received only flicks and insults. But, when Goma the novelist started denigrating the Jews’ history in Romania, using a deliriously violent and antisemitic language and a rarely dull obstinacy, he was pompously relished and covered in honors. Was this really the time to revere the duty denier of the Romanian Holocaust? No other destiny can match the bitterness of being insulted for honorable stands and honored for insulting stands…

In circus tricks, a white handkerchief is placed inside a hat and the peace dove is expected to come out of it. In social machinations, the caterpillar hidden among cerebral folds is no longer turning into a butterfly. The duty operators on the INTOXICATION buttons are insistently invited to take a hike.

(April 2007)