Cav's Place

After the twelfth Sunday, it was largely understood that we were seeing the end of this stage of the movement that started on September 1 and largely consisted of street protests, marches, counting Sundays and following the developments related to the law it all started from. The turnout was becoming so low that marching on roads and occupying squares was starting to be entirely unfeasible, the gendarmes could easily increase the pressure on those who didn’t give up yet, the colder weather and approaching holidays made it rather obvious that things weren’t going to improve, and the law itself was rejected by both the Special Commission formed to supposedly investigate the matter and by the Senate. Granted, the actual decision belongs to the Chamber of Deputies, which is yet to vote, but it’s obvious that the law in question will be rejected, also because the governing coalition has been busy splitting it in little pieces and including them in the proposed changes to several other laws, so rejecting that specific one will make no difference.
That doesn’t mean that there were no more protests before this thirteenth Sunday, in fact I believe they were staged each day, but we’re talking about a protest organized by something called “The Campaign for Life in Romania” across the road from the Chamber of Deputies side of the Parliament building. This was announced during the previous Sunday’s speeches and even formally notified, so it was even approved as of Thursday, after the mandatory three days had passed, but it’s not part of this campaign even if regular protesters and even some known activists who are part of the “United We Save” movement are involved in it as well. We’re talking about a movement that lumps together too many things, ranging from entirely legitimate and serious concerns to wild conspiracy theories or even things that should definitely be supported and promoted instead of opposed, those who lead or strongly support it as a whole being generally seen as an embarrassment or even as lunatics by many of the protesters who aren’t part of that group, myself included, so I believe I already gave it too much attention by focusing this paragraph on it and will stop here.

That said, the week’s events that I know of and want to list one by one started Tuesday morning, when a regular protester went to the Senate entrance, carrying a banner but alone. Though he couldn’t have possibly been an “illegal gathering”, he had two teams of three gendarmes each ask for his identification and demand that he stop filming, then was roughed up by one of the gendarmes from the second group, who surprisingly let go of him after he shouted for help a few times. After that, he was taken away to a nearby precinct, apparently to be fined, on the way being asked how much we are being paid to protest, before eventually being brought back to where he had left his bicycle after saying he will not continue protesting that day.
Not counting the fact that, according to some reports, people who simply happened to be at the statues, without having anything to do with any protest, were being carded Wednesday evening, the week’s other events were of an entirely different nature. As such, the “Rosia Montana 360” exhibition opened Tuesday evening and it also featured a day dedicated to documentaries, which was Friday, and one dedicated to related movies, which was Saturday. Thursday evening saw something of a strategy meeting supposedly meant to help determine the direction the movement was to take after the end of this stage oddly scheduled at the same time as a debate on the matter of shale gas, while a videoconference titled “How Can Rosia Montana Change Romania?” and supposedly meant to mark the collaboration between Romanian and French activists also started only an hour and a half later. Last but not least, Saturday saw the launch of the book titled “The Rosia Montana Affair”, a second debate on the matter of shale gas, and another titled “What Civil Society?”.

Thirteenth Sunday: The original plan was to once again meet at the statues, again from 4 PM, but only to properly mark the end of this stage by going over what happened since the start of the campaign, an important element of the announcement being that the next stage is intended to follow the model of the Spanish Indignados, multiple separate groups being formed to tackle each of the various issues, the main one largely being left to centralize the actions and facilitate collaboration. This was only posted Saturday and those who didn’t feel like attending yet still wished to mark the day in some way were even provided with lists of documentaries to watch on-line, so attendance was expected to be particularly low even before people realized that a Christmas fair will take place at the statues and the area is therefore closed while preparations are taking place.
Under those circumstances, the meeting place was eventually changed back to the fountain, but that was done by simply editing the post and not many noticed the change, so a few who arrived more or less on time, whether they were aware of the change or not, ended up walking around the area, trying to see what the best place to gather was while also looking for anyone who seemed lost and needed help to find the others. In fact, a group was away for quite some time even after that first hour or so, briefly returning to the fountain at one point before leaving again and only coming back for good after more of the known activists had finally appeared and something finally had a chance to start. Something not related to that “Campaign for Life in Romania”, that is, since some particularly, shall we say, enthusiastic members of that group had been making speeches and giving interviews to one or two television crews for some time by then, much to the displeasure of many of the others, who didn’t want their presence to be seen as supporting what those people were saying.
It may be said that “our” event started around 6:15 PM, when Alex started speaking, but it may also be said that it ended soon after, since the other known activists didn’t exactly seem willing to get involved and therefore those who spoke after him once again focused on issues and had approaches that, at best, made the others turn away and ignore them, when they weren’t actually expressing their disagreement. As such, the group gathered around the speakers was shrinking visibly, though we all ended up back together for a short amount of time after the rain started falling more noticeably and we moved into the underground passage, around 7:20 PM.
Once there, there was an attempt to start something again, but the shred of enthusiasm which seemed to have been momentarily regained vanished quickly and, since the other known activists still seemed unwilling to get involved and Alex couldn’t say anything else when he meant to do so because those who were speaking before the rain made us move had started doing so again by the time he tried, it wasn’t long before many were once again walking away. Some of those simply put some distance between them and the speakers but stuck around a while longer to chat with friends or other known protesters, but otherwise people were slowly, and perhaps somewhat haltingly, going home, many even saying out loud that they didn’t want to be associated with what was being said.
As far as numbers go, I tried to actually count several times and the most I got to was around 120, so even if I might have missed a few, we were clearly below 150 at the peak. There were also very few signs or banners, none of them new except those brought by that other group, and no incidents unless you count this largely silent conflict between the protesters, some gendarmes even having friendly chats with some protesters for quite some time. As such, I had no reason to take more than a few pictures and I’m not sure how many others took any at all.
Overall, it may easily be said that it was a disappointing end of a stage, and we definitely need to do something about that other group, but that’s rather difficult when those who lead or fully support it also attended our events all this time and are obviously more determined than the few of us who didn’t completely give up by now, not to mention the fact that, as I said, they do tackle serious and important issues, even if they mix them with all sorts of other things and their approach is often simply an embarrassment. On the other hand, perhaps the disappointment is a sign that we judge ourselves somewhat too harshly. After all, we successfully made it this far, scored some small victories along the way, have reason to believe we’ll make it through the winter with at least some embers still glowing, and are starting to build the structure needed to move on to the next stage. If we want this movement to actually have any real beneficial effects, that’s what matters most.