Cav's Place

Since few people still showed up around the fountain Monday to Friday, I wasn’t one of them and the media, be it independent or mainstream, had little to nothing to say about those days as well, I’ll cover days 16 to 20 very briefly, starting with the fact that perhaps slightly over 100 people showed up Monday evening, only a few of them, with all of one banner and two flags, still being there by midnight. Similar numbers were initially seen on Tuesday as well, but eventually around 200, including 50 or so dancers, gathered for the tango flash mob scheduled for 11 PM before starting to clear around midnight, only a few still standing around at 12:30 AM. That was the high point of these five days, however, seeing as Wednesday’s action group meeting saw all of four people attend and there were maybe 70 around the fountain at 9 PM, the numbers starting to slowly but steadily drop after that and the area clearing much earlier than before. Worse, there was nobody there at 8 PM on Thursday, some 40 people eventually gathering later and seeming somewhat more determined to actually protest, though the area once again cleared early. In the end, many of the better known activists, who had also taken a break over the previous few days, tried to gently restart the protests by organizing a discussion on matters of patrimony on Friday, but the 50 or so who attended it and the few others who stood nearby and tried to protest meant that the numbers were similar to those seen on Wednesday, perhaps in part because another group tried, and failed, to gather enough people to start an Occupy-style protest in Izvor park that same night.
As for the political scene, the same politician who was on the receiving end of chants against his party when he was noticed among the protesters at the end of the previous Sunday’s march made the news on Tuesday by entering the Parliament despite not being a member and making a scene, likely as another desperate attempt to present himself as a representative of the protesters, who once again chanted against him that evening as a result. However, the truly notable development also took place on Tuesday, and by this I’m referring to the fact that the Parliament approved the creation of a Special Commission meant to analyze the issue, after supposedly reviewing the available information and discussing with representatives of both sides. The protesters and the NGOs involved in the effort to stop the project, starting with Alburnus Maior, have however announced that they will not attend any such meetings, as they do not recognize the Commission, which is merely another attempt to stall. In addition, the Commission’s request for “leaders” of the protesters obviously generated a negative reaction and resulted in an announcement stating that no person who will attend and no NGO that will be represented when such consultations will take place will be recognized as taking part in the movement, the only communication between us and the members of the Commission being to submit the documentation against the project that is already available, and at most to once again state our list of demands in case they can’t read it themselves.

Day 21: Starting with ongoing protests against the law that will once again allow the killing of stray dogs if they’re not adopted within 14 days and with over 5000 cyclists marching across the city, the day continued with a human chain around the Parliament and a march back to University Square. Many cyclists returned to the Parliament building after reaching the end of the planned route for their march, to join the other protesters who were there mainly for the Rosia Montana issue in forming the human chain, so there were at least 5000 people in that location as well.
The wall that surrounds the Parliament building is three kilometers long, so forming a chain all around it was a challenge and it’s a good thing that one of the better known activists called people to start forming it at 6:30 PM even though the original plan was for everyone to gather at that time but only start forming the chain at 7 PM, very optimistically assuming that it’ll be completely formed in no more than 30 minutes. In the end, it was over an hour before things had mostly settled, those who were walking around only saying that the chain was basically formed, though still rather uneven, at 7:40 PM and finally announcing that it had mostly evened out as well some ten minutes later.
At 8 PM, the message was passed around that we should gather in Constitution Square, which is in front of the Parliament building, where we protested a little longer before the decision was made to start marching to University Square, the gendarmes once again being very accommodating and allowing us to do so. However, once we reached our destination and the cyclists started circling around the intersection itself while the rest of us occupied the piece of road between the fountain and the Theater, the negotiators asked those they perceive as leaders first to ask the participants to free the intersection and eventually, after 9:30 PM, as numbers sharply dropped, to free the road completely, which was a request that the remaining protesters readily complied with, though a few, including some of the better known ones, expressed their anger at needing to do so. The evening eventually ended with at most a few hundred people protesting in the fountain area for a while longer before they also went home quite early, obviously to prepare for the long day that was to come.

Day 22 (another video, mostly focused on interviews, with English subtitles available): Once again, nothing organized earlier, so people started gathering in the fountain area from 5 PM before eventually taking to the street at 7 PM. Unlike last time, there were no notable guests or speeches over those two hours, and it can in fact be said that not much happened before we started moving.
As far as numbers go, we were unfortunately fewer than before, initial estimates ranging between 10000 and 30000. That range had generally narrowed to between 15000 and 22000 by Monday, before most sources agreed on values around 20000 by Tuesday. Some media sources, including some independent reporters, continue to list values around 15000 while some protesters insist on at least 25000, but 20000 does seem to be a fair estimate if I’m to compare to the numbers seen the week before and assume that the estimate of 25000 was correct back then, and I’m saying this after waiting for the entire column to walk past at one point, not to mention once again walking back and forth to take some more pictures.
The march itself lasted for a good four hours for the first groups, so those who still wanted to catch the metro to get back home, myself included, had to pretty much sprint to make it to the station in time, as the head of the column barely made it to University Square a few minutes before 11 PM, those at the back probably being as much as 30 minutes behind, since the road was narrower and the group tended to be less compact. We still received significant support from people in their cars or apartments, and many joined us along the way, seeing as the numbers were significantly lower when we started marching, but this time around I also noticed some people who were bothered by the fact that we keep blocking the city with these protests, a few expressing this discontent quite loudly. This will need to be taken into account in the future if we don’t want to turn the silent majority against us.
Once the march itself was over, people started leaving more quickly than before, and I’m not only referring to that first group that ran to catch the metro, so the numbers dropped even into the hundreds at a time when one and two weeks before there were still several thousand people blocking the street. Those who didn’t leave so quickly wrote with chalk on the pavement and lit candles, but even the candles were far too few when you take into account the fact that people had actually been asked to bring them. Eventually, only a handful of people were left around 1 AM, though those, and perhaps even a few others who returned after hearing of the incident, ended up staying until around 2 AM after the police roughly grabbed a cyclist, threw him into one of their cars and hit him.
That was one notable incident, which resulted in a fair amount of anger being directed at the gendarmes and police even though they tried to defend themselves by saying that the cyclist was not one of the protesters. However, I can’t say I heard of any other problems, and in fact the number of gendarmes that walked alongside the protesters during the march seemed lower than before. On the other hand, there were more of them in front of the column, attempting to make sure that what happened during the previous marches, when thousands of people who insisted on walking faster than the rest scattered in small groups over a large area, won’t happen again.
That helped us as well, of course, since we’re trying to keep everyone together as well. In fact, for the first time, there were a few volunteers trying to do just that and these two elements, along with the fact that the known activists seemed to communicate better with each other, did result in a march that seemed just slightly more orderly than the previous ones. There were still plenty of people in front of the banners and chants were still getting mixed even at the head of the column, but it was somewhat better than before in spite of the increasingly numerous and vocal crowd that rejects any sort of organization, focus or the reasonable attitude that got us this far, shouting from the proverbial rooftops that all those who try to keep things together must have a hidden agenda and need to be pushed away. The sad part about this crowd is that I actually doubt that more than a few, if any, of them are infiltrated to break us apart, so we’re just talking about people being stupid and that’ll probably make them even harder to deal with.
This crowd will definitely be a threat, but it’d probably be a lesser one if the numbers would keep growing. Unfortunately, this fourth major march not only came after a week during which the protests had all but died out, but also marked a drop in the number of participants compared to the previous one, and that’s definitely a major reason for concern. Of course, it can be said that it came right after an exhausting Saturday, particularly for the cyclists, and the very long planned route might have scared some away, but those are hardly the only reasons and we need to work hard to make sure we won’t lose momentum even more. Thankfully, I see that some 10000 people once again marched in Cluj, so they’re holding strong, as are other smaller cities, some of which saw well over 10% of the population taking to the streets, but Bucharest is where the decisions are made, so this is where the pressure needs to at least stay at the same level, and preferably continue to increase, not decrease!

After the march, I once again took a break and nearly everyone else did the same, so I’ll once again quickly go through a few days, starting with the fact that only 30 or 40 people were around the fountain on Monday and even those left early. Tuesday also saw only some 30 people, though they seemed somewhat more determined and they cleared slightly less early, around 11:30 PM. The numbers were pretty much identical on Wednesday as well, but the protest against killing stray dogs taking place across the road meant that television crews and a significant number of gendarmes were once again present. Due to the fact that the law allowing stray dogs to be killed was approved by the Constitutional Court and promulgated by the President that day, the protesters against killing stray dogs actually tried to block the road that evening, after they had already blocked it elsewhere during the day, but the gendarmes roughly took them away, obviously also because there were barely 200 of them, if even that.
Elsewhere, Monday’s main event was in fact a press conference organized by the Order of Architects, along with a few NGOs that focus on matters of patrimony, showing yet again just why the Government’s position when it comes to the mining project’s effects is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. On the other hand, Tuesday saw two meetings, or at least two that I know of, between some members of the Parliament elected in Bucharest and their constituents, though all I can say about one of them is that the Minister of Culture, who was actually elected here and should have attended it, didn’t show up, but the meeting itself did take place in the original location and not in the Parliament building, where it was supposed to be moved in an obvious attempt to make it appear to be a formal discussion with representatives of the protesters. The other one I saw a more detailed report about, however, and it seems to have gone rather well, in the sense that the people speaking against the project did their homework thoroughly. Still, while all of the politicians present stated that they’ll vote against the law, they desperately tried to separate it from the project itself and slowly moved themselves towards a more balanced position regarding the bigger issue over the course of the talks, despite being repeatedly stumped by the arguments brought forward against such a stance.

As something of a conclusion, one has to admit that the movement is definitely losing some momentum in Bucharest, but it actually seems to increase in strength elsewhere. However, as I said above as well, the one does not necessarily make up for the other, seeing as here is where the decisions are made, so we need to work well together and find methods to keep people engaged in ways that will increase the pressure on politicians without exhausting the protesters even further. In addition, we need to see what the best way to deal with those who advocate behaviors that will harm the cause is, and here I’m obviously also including the better known activists who are switching to that side due to being discontent with what we have achieved by being focused and reasonable. This will be a long fight and the politicians are experts at stalling, dissipating the energy of those who challenge them and generally getting things their way while we are not, so, contrary to what many are saying, we do need to be organized and focused, and to look for and work with any allies we can get, no matter who they are or where they are found.