Cav's Place

I’m falling too far behind with these protest reports and writing one to cover all the time since the previous one is an increasingly daunting prospect, so in order to get myself going again and post something today, I’ll split this period. The current plan is to write the next such post by Thursday or Friday and have it cover everything that happened between January 27 and at least tomorrow, if not Thursday as well, but if the few small events taking place during the first part of this week will seem to be too much trouble to add to it then I’ll have it cover only last week and call it good enough for now, because otherwise next week I’ll find myself in the same position I’m in now.

This post’s title comes from the page created on January 22 and meant to inform people of all protests and related events taking place in Romania. From what I see, anything organized by or closely connected to politicians or political parties will be ignored, but pretty much anything else that doesn’t directly oppose the demands that may be said to have largely been accepted by the United We Save movement will be mentioned, at least one event having already been posted with a disclaimer stating that making the announcement does not in any way imply supporting the group organizing it or its ideology. As such, I’ll be selecting what to include in these posts even more carefully.
There was a fair amount of confusion when this page was created, many, myself included, assuming that it indicates a split. However, I recently saw an interview that briefly explains that those behind this page have generally identified themselves with the United We Save movement and will continue to do so, this merely broadening the scope in a way they thought was necessary without intending to challenge the others by it. At the same time, the significant drop in activity on the United We Save page is hard to ignore, so let’s see how the situation will continue to develop.

As far as actual events go, and seeing as I’ll completely ignore everything related to the hunger strike, the first one I need to mention is the January 21 protest that took place in front of the Romanian branch of the European Commission, as part of what was intended to be a coordinated action against the development of unconventional fossil fuels within the European Union, the main purpose of this particular event being to ensure that Romanian anti-fracking activists will deliver copies of the open letter as well, in Romanian and English. Unfortunately, it seems that similar events were organized in few other European capitals, most other anti-fracking groups deciding to simply send the letter instead, yet over here a few other documents, including some related to the ongoing situation in Pungesti and others proving the harmful impact of fracking, were delivered as well. Unlike nearly all the others, this protest was authorized, even if that required Maria to put herself through a particularly unpleasant meeting the day before, not to mention that it obviously required us to stand in a “pen” and stick to a certain schedule.
Then again, the schedule wasn’t exactly the problem, since the signed protocol stated that the protest was to take place between 3 PM and 6 PM, yet the cold rain made us clear away around 5 PM, not long after the two activists who went inside to deliver the documents finally returned and filled us in on everything that happened. Yes, they also asked for an audience, but that wasn’t granted, so that means it took them about and hour and a half to simply get those documents registered, since the employee who was supposed to do so seemed terribly bothered by actually needing to do her job, initially meant to only give them one registration number and then left and took her sweet time before returning to register each of the documents separately, as required.
While the two of them were trying to keep calm inside and lectured the gendarmes on the dangers of fracking while they waited, many speeches were made outside, one activist intending to let each person have the loudspeaker for a few minutes. Though we never were more than 50, a few, myself included, managed to avoid being called over by him and a couple of others firmly refused when he did ask them to speak, but many made use of the opportunity, some of those saying things that bothered me terribly, particularly in the last 30 minutes before we left. In fact, under those circumstances I was just about to leave even if the others would have wanted to stay until 6 PM, so it was a relief when the decision was made to end the protest early, since we were all wet and shivering and had already done what we meant to do.
I later found out that some of those who attended regrouped once again in front of the Bucharest National Theater and continued trying to inform passersby of the dangers of fracking, but I’m not sure if that was significantly different from what happens there on most evenings. In addition, one activist took the opportunity to announce that he will organize informational events which will take place in a club every Tuesday and Wednesday, saying that any artists willing to perform for the cause, obviously for free, are welcome. Since this wasn’t mentioned by any of the other activists or groups that I follow, however, I have absolutely no idea whether any such events actually took place or, if so, how they turned out.

Moving on to January 22, the day’s event was announced on extremely short notice and by very few activists, the first message I saw being posted at 2:13 PM and asking people to gather at one of Herastrau Park’s entrances at 4:30 PM, to take part in a flash mob to protest against the authorities “pruning” the trees on that alley by cutting off most of their branches and leaving some as little more than bare trunks. I’m still not sure who actually organized the protest, that first message mentioning an NGO but Remus Cernea, who had successfully struggled to suspend that butchery after being made aware of it, seeming to run things once there, this connection with a politician possibly being one reason why other activists chose to ignore the call.
Under these circumstances, the fact that about 20 people did attend is more encouraging than it may seem at first glance, especially since the event itself turned out quite well, even if it started later than it was supposed to and could hardly be called a flash mob. Printed sheets of paper were brought and handed out to the protesters, each being asked to pick a tree and stand next to it while holding the sheet of paper as some pictures were taken. After that, as you can see from my pictures as well, the sheets of paper were stuck to trees with black tape, to signify mourning, though it appears that very little such tape was brought and regular tape needed to be used after no more than a few.
Thankfully, though I’m not sure how much of an influence the protest itself had over that, the complaints filed by Remus Cernea resulted in the “pruning” being halted completely and those who had approved and carried out that butchery being fined. Unfortunately, about one hundred trees already suffered in such a manner before this happened, even though the actual approvals were for limited pruning of only 17 of them, other interventions on the old trees lining that alley having otherwise been specifically banned as of last summer.

Before moving on to the weekend, I should also mention the calls to boycott OMV Petrom, since the first messages were posted and the event was created on January 23. The reason behind this is that, while activists were busy fighting on other fronts, mainly against Chevron’s attempts to start exploring potential shale gas deposits, OMV Petrom stealthily started building wells all over the country in great haste. While anti-fracking activists are convinced that the purpose of all of this is fracking, and that in some places it’s not even a matter of merely exploring potential deposits anymore, it’s entirely possible that at least some of them are built on top of, or as part of an effort to search for, conventional gas or oil deposits, yet this is no excuse for the secrecy and disregard for existing laws, nor is it something that should be encouraged either way, seeing as we need to move on to renewable energy sources as quickly as possible.

Still on the matter of fracking, activists announced that a viewing of Drill Baby Drill was taking place on January 26, starting at 3 PM, as part of a film festival. Then, from 5:10 PM, those interested gathered in front of the Bucharest National Theater in order to discuss what to do to restart the protests, both against fracking and against the newest form of the Mining Law, in Bucharest as well, since in other parts of the country they’re still ongoing yet here they largely died out over the winter. That time was obviously picked both in order to allow those who went to watch the movie to arrive and to avoid any overlapping in case the other event taking place in University Square that evening would have lasted longer than initially announced. The fact that the location was changed to the Theater after initially being announced as being the fountain probably had nothing to do with any of that, however, the purpose likely being only to once again gather around the hunger strikers, so it’s a good thing I changed my mind and decided not to attend.
Said other event I mentioned above was meant to show solidarity with the Ukrainian protesters, or at least with those who are neither violent nor extremists, and to commemorate those who died there. Another protest with a similar theme, supposed to take place in front of the Ukrainian embassy, was organized by an NGO and scheduled for January 25 at noon, but I don’t have any information about what actually happened then and, considering the blizzard Bucharest was under at the time, I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t actually take place after all. This other one, however, was part of a series of similar events taking place in several other cities throughout Europe and the world and started precisely on time, at 4 PM, the organizers, some of them Ukrainians, apparently arriving some 30 minutes early and seeming to know what they wanted to do so well that I couldn’t exactly figure out how to add myself to the group of around 25 that I found there when I arrived as well and therefore largely limited myself to taking a few pictures.
The fact that the event only lasted around 25 minutes, therefore sticking to the information posted on the event page that day, which specified that it’ll end after at most 30 minutes, surprised some of the others who wanted to attend and were used to arrive much later, extremely few ever being on time when it comes to the protests organized over here, so a small group ran into some trouble with the gendarmes when they arrived after the actual event had already ended and attempted to stage their own. According to a message that was posted, at that time some of those who actually attended the event apparently continued to display the signs and flags as they had a brief walk through the Old Town.
And since I have no idea how to fit this in otherwise, I’ll also add here at the end that some known activists and groups also mentioned a creative protest that took place earlier that day outside the Floria Capsali Choreography High School, which is to be merged with the Dinu Lipatti Art College and therefore cease to exist, teachers, students and parents singing and dancing in the snow in order to draw attention to their plight. The messages only appeared after the protest took place, when some news pieces about it were published by the media.