[ View menu ]

A Tour of Parties, Organizing and the Climate – November 16 to 29 in Bucharest

The date range in the title may start from November 16, but the first event I’m specifically aware of was another “Colectiv Unplugged” concert, on November 20. Same as the first time, it took place near the University Square fountain and those who gathered were given sheets of paper with the lyrics of the songs which were to be played, so they could take part as well. I didn’t attend myself, but those who did seemed to agree that about 200 people were present and several known activists were among them, some also giving some brief interviews to the reporters who showed up as well. Some of these brief interviews were broadcast during a television show that aired the next evening, when two known activists were invited and actually offered a reasonable opportunity to express their opinions and desires despite the fact that the television station in question is otherwise known as hostile.

Of course, the fact that I’m not specifically aware of what took place before November 20 doesn’t mean that nothing did, and it was actually mentioned during the meeting that once again took place in Izvor Park, on November 21, that people did continue to meet in small groups to discuss what to do next and organize. In addition, during that meeting it seemed to have been agreed that the next immediate goals should be to appeal to the Ombudsman in an attempt to persuade him to challenge the current electoral law, especially when it comes to the existence of an artificial electoral threshold, at the Constitutional Court, and to make a concerted effort to persuade Nicusor Dan to take on the role of leader of a real, non-Parliamentary political opposition before next year’s local elections, guarantee that he’ll stay away from the influence of existing parties or other interest groups and take the preparations for the coming campaign seriously, so he won’t miss this great opportunity to actually be elected Mayor of Bucharest.
These issues, though perhaps taken more generally, in the sense of changing the electoral law in every way needed to facilitate the access of truly new parties and real independents and of uniting under a single plan of action for next year’s local elections, seemed to have remained the main topics during the next meeting that was announced publicly as well, taking place on November 26, at the National Library. I kept debating whether I should try to attend or not and eventually ended up not going, so that’s pretty much all I know, however, and it comes from a post written by one person who was there.

Due to the bad weather, the next meeting in the park, initially scheduled for yesterday, obviously couldn’t take place anymore, and if it was replaced by some other meeting of a smaller group in some other location, it wasn’t announced publicly and I’m not aware of it. What did take place, on the other hand, was the “Colectiv Unplugged” concert scheduled the day before, this time in the University underground passage, since it was raining outside. I haven’t seen any known activists mention the event, however, and all I know comes from a couple of posts mentioning this change of location and a few pictures that seem to show about 50 people attending and, as before, gathering in a circle to either sing along with the few who had brought instruments or simply listen.

In between all of these, on November 25, a small number of known activists made a tour of the headquarters of the parties represented in the Parliament and also stopped by the Government, staging brief protests in each location due to the fact that the new Prime Minister removed the entire paragraph that had to do with changing the electoral laws and originally included agreeing with some of the protesters’ demands from his program, stating that there is no support in the Parliament for such changes. A few other known activists traveled to Cluj to stage a similar protest there as well.

As for today’s event, it was Bucharest’s tiny contribution to the Global Climate March, even though it wasn’t actually a march. One was planned and had been registered on Avaaz, being supposed to start in Constitution Square, but the person organizing it had some personal problems and was unable to do much, in the end announcing that the event in question was canceled and redirecting those who wanted to attend to another announced by some of the known activists. This event was to take place at the University Square fountain and was presented as a flash mob, though what was actually supposed to happen was very much unclear and, in part probably also due to the short notice, interest seemed low.
Still, about 40 people did attend, one bringing a larger banner, one a bag of paper Suns and green hearts that other participants could hold, another a number of cards for people to fill with messages to the new Minister of Environment, a few others some sheets of paper on which some messages were written on the spot, and one I believe also a small box of green earrings. And we sat around for about an hour, took some pictures, a few had some interesting conversations with the gendarme who had showed up, and who seemed to share at least some of our concerns and desires, and then, as some were already leaving, the group moved to the nearby Christmas market, where some had said from the beginning we should go, in order to make the issue known and talk to anyone who showed any interest.
I didn’t think that was a good idea though, and had said so from the beginning, as it seemed far more likely to simply generate conflict with people who were there for an entirely different purpose and perhaps give the gendarmes or local police reason to step in, so that was when I left and all I know at this point about what happened later comes from the last seconds of a short video which was already posted. But yes, I did take a few pictures as well this time, even though I haven’t otherwise been doing that this month.

0 Comments

No comments

RSS feed Comments | TrackBack URI

Write Comment

Note: Any comments that are not in English will be immediately deleted.

XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>