Cav's Place

Was wondering whether I’ll manage to make a post out of a rant I sent Alma at the start of the week, after struggling to hold back on actually spilling it all out directly to my parents during a recent conflict, despite not being caused by the conflict or by what caused that, but simply being a breakdown and my view of my future, or more exactly lack of any, and somewhat connected to what caused a part of what caused that. A bit hard to keep track of, isn’t it? But it doesn’t matter; not like I’m writing this for anyone else.
Either way, not going to do that now. Maybe I will the next time I’ll end up in such a state or, more specifically, in such a state and with my mind working, or not quite working, in the same way. That may well be soon, or maybe it won’t, or maybe in part I even already did write at least a good part of that, can’t say I recall anymore, after all these pointless and hopeless years like this.

Right now I’ll just say that, if last week I was screaming silently after waking up from a nap, this morning I actually woke up screaming, and did so twice. Actually woke up at least five times before actually getting up, but only clearly heard myself scream those two times, which I believe were the first and third but I’m not entirely sure of that. The first definitely was like that, and I also know that was a little after 7:30 AM, so after sleeping for only about an hour and a half. In spite of that, was considering just getting up and then going back to bed at some later point, as I did every time I woke up, but eventually managed to get some sleep, interrupted as it was.
Also clearly recall what I was dreaming that first time. Apparently my mother was talking to an otherwise unidentified friend in her bedroom and I happened to hear that friend mention the name Andra in connection with my worst fear. Had no idea who she was truly referring to or how could she possibly know the Andra I was thinking of, but I rushed there and tried to get information regardless, and then they left the room and someone which in my dream I identified as a friend of mine, who looked like Andra but otherwise had no other identity I can think of, joined me there as I was lying on the bed and reading a message apparently posted by Andra somewhere which was projected on the ceiling. There were four lines, but I got as far as the second and saw she was making fun of me in it and I was trying to keep reading and just couldn’t, struggling to focus while my vision was spinning and letters were getting messed up and I was just drifting away. Jumped off the bed, trying from another position, but that unidentified friend of mine who looked like her also got up on the other side and turned off the projector, and then reached to press a button that I knew would delete the message. She might have actually managed to press it, I’m not sure about that, but I launched myself at her screaming, and woke up actually screaming, and sort of watched myself in that state between dreaming and awake as in my dream I elbowed and punched her and she smashed her head against the heater with my mother and that unidentified friend of hers watching from the hallway.
The other parts of dreams are less clear in my mind, the first being fixed both because of the impact and the fact that I went to the bathroom after waking up. I really don’t recall how the second one got to its final part, though it does seem to have been an attempted continuation of the first, but at the end I recall a giant mosquito that I meant to kill but which was taken on a hand or foot, possibly also by my mother, and pushed towards me as I was trying to get away. Really don’t know if that was the second time I screamed or not, nor many details about the third part, which I believe ended with me staring into some large recipient with some milky fluid that was obviously draining through some hole at the bottom and something or someone was caught in it, spinning and spinning and getting sucked in. And there may be one I’m forgetting completely here, as I seem to recall thinking right away that there were four parts that were somehow connected and I believe the next two weren’t.
Or even those might have been, or at least one of them, but they don’t seem so anymore, just seeming somehow connected to each other though I seem to remember thinking they weren’t. Either way, one had something about an experiment that had to be done on sick tiger cubs and some workers were trying to figure out which tiger cubs to grab according to which tiger mothers may be aware that their sick cubs that are taken away by humans may come back cured, but may be an affordable loss if they’ll now learn that sometimes they may not come back at all. And the other was about a group taking a trip on a road running through a forested area when they came upon a few bear cubs playing, with no sign of the mother, and those leading the group had gathered together on the other side of the road from the cubs, trying to decide what to do.
Now I’m wondering whether the second scream didn’t come at the end of that dream that I think I forgot, while at the same time wondering if I forgot any at all, because the number otherwise seems right. Also, wondering if I didn’t also scream when I took a nap and at first dreamed I was battling a demon trying to possess me and losing, and it didn’t seem that I was dreaming, everything being otherwise just as it had been when I got in bed and not recalling falling asleep. Also wondering whether that was yesterday or two days ago. Everything is a mess… And I sure used to be good at lucid dreaming. Guess I’ll need some practice again, if this keeps up.

Later edit: I was in the kitchen, getting ready for dinner, when Micky walked in and curled up on the seat, which reminded me of the dream part I had been forgetting. Didn’t remind me of too much, but I know it had something to do with Bubu, old and arthritic, positioning himself to sleep on me in such a manner as to ensure he’d be in pain if I moved. May have involved him doing something else after being woken up as a result of this, as I remember looking at him on the floor, and may have been a part of the same dream that ended with the giant mosquito instead of a separate part, but I remembered this much at least.

I’d like to be able to say that something’s being done regarding the manner in which green spaces are being massacred in my Sector, as that was bad before and has now gotten significantly worse after the Sector 3 mayor was reelected with over 60% and also has the full support of the new mayor of Bucharest. Sadly, the known groups and activists don’t seem to be taking on the matter, so there’s nothing to state here about that and not that much visibly done either way. A few locals and some of USB’s local councilors are trying to document as much as they can and file complaints for possible lack or violation of approvals, but there’s no significant public action or any real call for anything of the sort and, either way, work continues unabated and trees 30 to more than 50 years old are being hacked apart and chopped down at a truly frightening rate.

I’d also like to be able to add something new about the proposed new public gatherings law I was mentioning in the previous post, but there has been almost complete silence on that as well, even the page created for it having no new posts since July 11. Alex included it in a post about the issues that will be tackled in the near future, but even that promised method of submitting comments is still nowhere to be seen and when I asked him about it he said it was decided to delay releasing it and any other actions regarding this are likely to wait until autumn… Which seems very strange from where I’m standing, because while it’s true that summer is a bad time to get any significant number of people together to do something visible and the real fight regarding this issue will probably come after the Parliamentary elections, a project such as this shouldn’t simply be formally submitted and then pretty much forgotten about.

But to get back to actual public events in Bucharest, there was a sort of flash mob yesterday, between 11 AM and 11:30 AM, across the road from the City Hall. It was also posted on the group, but was actually organized by an NGO that actually filed a notification for it and came to an agreement with the authorities, which obviously also meant the participants were fenced in on a stretch of sidewalk, but this time those fences were actually useful in at least stopping the larger balls from ending up in the street, as long as they didn’t bounce or get thrown over them. Unfortunately, one went over the other fence and into the river.
The reason for this protest was that, after one of the first statements made by the new mayor of Bucharest after taking office was that she was bothered by Kiseleff Boulevard being shut down to traffic over summer weekends in order to open the area to people wishing to play sports, she wasted little time in moving from words to actions, canceling the Via Sport event, which was currently in its seventh year. At first she proposed alternate locations, such as parks, but the entire point of the event was to take over a central road and hand it over to people, the motto being specifically: “Stop traffic! Start playing!” So, when the organizers didn’t agree with her proposal and their approvals were in order, she decided the markings must be repainted on that stretch of road and that will take a long time and the location can’t be used for such events during that period.
As such, a first visible response was this event, people being asked to come and play right across the road from the City Hall during working hours, albeit only on the sidewalk. There were obviously never going to be many participants, being on a weekday during working hours and also in the summer, so somebody else tried to create another event taking place in the same spot at 8:30 AM, but I heard pretty much nobody showed up then, while a few dozen people did attend the 11 AM one. And I was one of them, though other than wearing my running pants instead of those I usually go out in and stretching a little and awkwardly lifting myself up on my arms on that fence by the river a couple of times, I stuck to taking some pictures.

As for the Certej issue also mentioned in the previous post, after last week’s good news came the bad on July 27, when it was shown that work continues in spite of the court sentence and people were asked to file complaints, the call being taken up by known groups and activists. The police did already investigate to confirm the obvious, but it remains to be seen what, if anything, will actually be done about it and whether it’ll actually have the desired effect.

This month’s story should be the proposed new public gatherings law, which a few activists and Remus Cernea worked on and which he submitted to the Parliament on July 1. However, after a brief initial push to announce this as a major event and promises to quickly release tools to gather comments and suggestions for improvement before taking to the streets and staging various other events in order to both create awareness and show support, the matter seems to have mostly been dropped, which is quite strange and worrying in itself.
As such, with these posts mainly being protest reports and there being no protest or other public event to report regarding the issue, I had little reason to mention it so far… And equally little reason to write more about it now, other than to say I sure hope things will change, because that proposal needs massive changes in order to actually be a good thing, and then it will need to be pushed through against the will of the politicians, so the only chance is to push them in every way possible, and at the moment none of that seems to be happening.

So what I’ll be writing about now are the two silent, “standing man” protests that took place in front of the Turkish Embassy this Wednesday and Thursday, as a reaction to the “witch hunt” that was the Erdogan regime’s response to the recent attempted coup, seeing how it was used to purge all sectors of any trace of known or potential critics, suspend human rights and entrench an obvious dictatorial regime, making the foreseeable future terrible and terrifying to even think about for anyone except the loyalists. There was a petition at first, released on July 17, demanding a reaction from our authorities, but what official statements were released were even in explicit support of the regime, so somebody had to at least react to what was happening in some visible manner and any members of the Turkish community who may have been inclined to do so failed to make that position public, probably out of fear.
As a result, a first such protest was announced for July 20, starting at 7 PM. While I didn’t attend myself, I did see a few pictures and a little description, plus one more picture better showing the group of supporters of Erdogan, which I heard was in large part made up of embassy staff, who were already there at the time. Obviously, that made for quite a tense situation, all of seven Romanians showing up to silently protest outside the Turkish Embassy against a regime that a larger and noisy group of Turks was there to support. Don’t see anything about actual incidents though, but it remains to be seen whether there will be any fines, since the gendarmes definitely weren’t happy about the protesters.
It was somewhat different the next day, when I also at least showed up, though I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t actually take part in the protest, feeling too edgy in spite of the much calmer situation and only sort of hovering around and taking a few pictures. A couple of minutes after 7 PM, when I arrived, about a dozen protesters and a similar or even larger number of journalists were already there, and the number of protesters eventually peaked at around 20 around 8 PM, when I also left, after seeing one or two peel away from the group, what I saw later saying that the rest left very shortly after that as well. There were no supporters of Erdogan this time around, so the event was calm and silent, and I made note of the great discipline of most protesters, who truly stood pretty much motionless during that time, also not interacting with the gendarmes except to calmly and silently present their cards when asked for identification. There were even at least a couple who refused to move at all even then, prompting the gendarmes to search their pockets and backpacks until they found their cards, which they also calmly put back after copying the information.
No other events were announced after that, so we’ll see whether anything else will happen. It depends to some extent on what else Erdogan will do, but I’d say it depends mostly on what the Turkish community here does, as the lack of reaction of those who oppose that regime sends a terrible message. Back in 2013, it was the Turkish community that quickly reacted and came out in support of the Gezi Park protests and against the regime’s reaction to them, before a Romanian NGO organized a protest in front of the embassy for the same reason, which Romanians and Turks attended in similar numbers, but now there’s very little public reaction and what is there is usually unfortunately in favor of the regime. The notable exception was the General Manager of the Lumina University, part of the Lumina group of educational institutions, who took an explicit stance against the regime, not shying away from calling it “pure dictatorship” and the real coup taking place after the Turkish ambassador requested all institutions belonging to the group to be shut down. However, even he mentioned he personally dissuaded a person who contacted him wanting to protest in front of the embassy because of it, saying they’ll take the necessary measures to protect themselves through official channels, protests not being the way they do things.

On a completely different note, some good news regarding cyanide mining came on July 22, but the event itself took place the day before, when the construction permit for the site management facilities of the Certej tailings dams was suspended by the Court. This is the second attempt to obtain a permit and the second one struck down, though not even this particular battle can be considered over when an appeal is to be expected. The war itself, against cyanide and open-pit mining in general, has a long way to go yet, but Certej is at least the second major project successfully challenged so far.

Quite a crash two days ago, the noise from the construction work nearby waking me around 9 AM and not letting me quite sleep again until I eventually got up, even if that was after 1 PM. Just kept nodding off and then waking again, being confused and miserable, even though it was just drilling and hammering and shouting and stuff being thrown straight down outside, so not like when neighbors do it and there’s no escaping it. The problem was that, while the windows may have mostly solved the problem if they’d have all been closed, only the one in my room was, so the noise was flooding in from all other parts of the apartment and getting to my room the other way around.
Meant to go out even earlier to try to get away from it, but eventually only did just before 5 PM, sort of wandering in the general direction of two protests scheduled to start at 7 PM, one at the University Square fountain and the other in front of the Turkish Embassy. That embassy is quite far to walk to, however, so I ended up wandering around the Old Town instead, checking out the used book stores there, plus having a quick glance at an antique fair I happened to stumble into.
No money on me, the situation from that point of view being really bad lately, so I haven’t gotten any in about a month now and have to make do with what is bought otherwise, that also being less and, shall we say, far more restricted in most ways than before, so I was obviously just looking as I was wandering around there, but did keep a few things in mind for the future. Don’t think I checked out any but one of those places again on my own, so the last time I as much as stepped inside the rest probably was when I met Andreea and we checked them out back in 2010.
Either way, after wandering around a bit longer, I eventually did walk past the fountain at about 7:25 PM, but that’s all I did, not staying at the protest for LGBT rights triggered by the fact that the Constitutional Court had just ruled that the initiative to change the Constitution in order to explicitly state that marriage is only between one man and one woman and therefore block any potential future legalization of gay marriage is constitutional and can therefore move to the next step, which is the debate and vote in the Parliament. Didn’t spot known activists there at a glance and only one of those I follow had shown explicit support, while the gendarmes were present in large numbers compared to the number of protesters and their positioning and posture made it clear they weren’t going to allow the event to continue, which the few articles I read later that evening confirmed.
After that, I got back here, eventually crawled back in bed, managed to nap for about an hour, then needed close to 30 minutes more to drag myself out of bed, but only for a few seconds, because then I crawled right back in and pretty much fell apart just because I kept hearing crickets from outside and my parents talking in the kitchen. Screaming internally that I just wanted everything to be quiet and leave me be, while at the same time still needing someone and to cuddle as much as ever, but I didn’t actually make as much as a sound and doubt I even moved. Just pulled the sheet over my head and sat there quiet and motionless while feeling like I was about to explode because the rest of the world, or at least the bit of it in my immediate vicinity, wasn’t.

Ran twice this week again, since it seems it’ll be too hot to go during the day the next. Tuesday my stomach was complaining about running after eating a fair bit of watermelon, so I picked a comfortable target time and completed the seven kilometers in 35:40, with sector times of 4:33, 5:24, 6:12, 4:43, 5:22, 6:22 and 3:04, making for lap times of 16:09 and 16:27. Watch actually showed 32:35.96, if I remember correctly, at the end of the second lap, but I’m using 32:36 because for once I actually pressed the button just before getting to the line I take as the end of a lap, paying more attention to another person in front of me.
As for yesterday, I meant to run until I dropped, since I was still feeling the effects of the previous evening’s crash and hoped I could at least work some of that out if I got to the point of simply being unable to keep walking after finishing. But I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to try to get under 34 minutes on seven kilometers again or try ten again, aiming to get under 52 minutes, and ended up taking it quite slowly again and sort of going for the second option but never actually deciding on it until I finished two laps and me and a cyclist coming from the opposite direction got into that awkward dance of trying to get out of each other’s way and failing to until we changed direction I think four times.
With my mind being on that, once I got past him I found myself about to go past the base of the slope I climb on for the final sector of the seven-kilometer route and next thing I knew I was climbing on it, having apparently decided not to go for ten kilometers after all, even though my time until that point gave me a chance to hope to even get below 51 minutes, not only 52. But, instead of that, I just covered seven kilometers again, in 35:38, with sector times of 4:40, 5:27, 6:14, 4:33, 5:14, 6:19 and 3:11, making for lap times of 16:21 and 16:06. Obviously, I was very far from dropping, so did nothing about the other issue.

At least in part because of that, I then decided to attend the second silent, “standing man” protest scheduled to take place in front of the Turkish Embassy. Wasn’t sure about it, but since I didn’t do much with the run, said I’ll at least try to do something else that day, though the plan was to stay on the other side of the road and take pictures at first, then see how things play out and decide whether I’ll actually join the silent protesters later.
Well, I didn’t stay on the other side of the road, crossing it after just a few minutes to stay right in front of the embassy as well, but that was all I did, as I didn’t actually take part, only taking a few pictures. Also filmed a few moments, but my camera corrupted every single video, with too little being saved properly to make any of them useful for anything. Still got carded by the gendarmes, of course, but just for being in an area that requires increased security, and I did point out I’m not actually taking part and the gendarme said he noticed that as well.
Feeling quite embarrassed about it, actually being there and yet not taking part in spite of everything that’s happening and the need for at least a few people to show they’re aware it’s unacceptable and need to react in some way, but… Still too afraid of another fine, plus that it feels strange when the otherwise sizable Turkish community here has so far been notable in its lack of reaction, with the unfortunate exception of something of a counter-protest staged by a group that I heard was mostly made up of embassy staff, plus a few other supporters of Erdogan, during Wednesday’s first silent protest.
I know that those who’d want to oppose him and his actions are currently afraid of the repercussions, even here, from others in the community as well as from actual agents of the regime, and especially if they have close friends and relatives still in Turkey, but it feels strange to stand against the abuses and dictatorial regime in a country when the significant number of immigrants from that country and their families fail to react in any visible way. I mean, back in 2013, when the Gezi Park protests started, we were first a handful of Romanians supporting the protest of the Turkish community, which had come out in support of the protesters back there, and then a rather even split of Romanians and Turks in front of the embassy, while now they’re nowhere.

But I probably wrote too much about the protest above, since I’m thinking a post about that should be this week’s second one and now there’s little else left to say. But I’ll see whether something else will happen today and maybe also tomorrow and then post a “protest update” tomorrow or Sunday, possibly also including one other bit of information that was released today, on an entirely different topic. Until then, this is already long enough and I keep falling behind on reading that book.

I’ve been wondering how to title this post since late Friday night, when it became clear that the attempted coup in Turkey will fail, but I’d say this is short, simple and accurate enough. Sure, military rule can never be desirable and a coup usually works out dreadfully, Egypt now being clear and obvious recent proof that even when it’s meant to solve an obvious existing problem, it’ll replace it with an even worse one. However, Turkey’s history offered some hope that it’ll be different, and reasons to allow for some tentative, limited and definitely conditional support for this as a temporary solution to a very real and major problem plaguing not only Turkey but negatively influencing the entire region and even the world.
But Friday night was do or die, and now Turkey’s lost for many years to come, with fallout almost certain to spread over the entire region and beyond. What Turkey’s looking at for the foreseeable future is an authoritarian president whose paranoia has apparently been proven justified and who has lost no time in making full use of the events in order to greatly hasten his ongoing efforts to ensure complete control over all sectors of the country, ruthlessly eliminating anyone not fiercely loyal to him and jailing anyone who as much as dares to express any sort of criticism even more than before. There’s of course even the very serious talk of reintroducing the death penalty, and it was said that opponents will be “eradicated”.

Articles detailing exactly what happened, why and why it failed are all over the Internet and that’s not just because everybody has an opinion about it, but because it’s so easy to say, especially when it comes to the reasons for the failure. It was a poorly planned and poorly executed attempt, the president not being captured or killed as the very first action, the Parliament not being taken over or at least put under complete siege, the media not being taken over and used efficiently in order to give the impression that the deed was already done and there was no turning back, the Internet apparently not used in any relevant manner at all, aircraft and vehicles not under the control of the rebels not being disabled or too far to react in time… In short, they made just about every mistake they could have made, almost as if this was all staged and meant to fail quickly and offer the authorities this opportunity to return triumphant and take revenge.
Which, of course, is something many have been saying was actually the case. But I remain “allergic” to conspiracy theories and would require some solid direct evidence before believing such a claim. Instead, at the moment I’m thinking it was a rather desperate attempt by the relatively few who managed to remain in any position to do this without being fiercely loyal to the regime, and who knew the last possible window of opportunity was about to end. So they had neither the time nor the resources to plan this properly, the regime was probably aware of the threat and took precautions, and the result was what it was and it is now being taken full advantage of. Which, in fact, means it was caused and is being used by the regime just as much as if it’d have actually been staged, so it doesn’t make much of a difference whether the conspiracy theorists are right or not.

Which leads to the bigger problem, which is the reaction. Inside Turkey, all the political opposition was united in condemning the attempt, there are reports that those who took part in the protests that started with Gezi Park were even on the streets Friday night to push back against the rebel troops, Saturday saw large gatherings of loyalists praising Erdogan and Allah and demanding the death penalty, and anyone who may have any real and completely justified concerns or criticism to express is being silenced. So there’s absolutely no hope left for anything but a drastic worsening of the situation for the foreseeable future.
Even worse was the international reaction, however, and it all started from the United States, the current administration once again proving that having even someone with half a ball in the White House would be an improvement and absolutely necessary for the world when they were the first to release a firm message of support for the Turkish government while the situation was still fluid. Of course, it’s also possible that they had all the information before anyone else and already knew the outcome at that time, so they were merely backing the winning side, but an explicit message of support for that regime, without pointing out its crimes and demanding drastic and immediate changes for the better, is a terrible signal, and one which has unfortunately been echoed since then by nearly all other countries, as well as the European Union and NATO. Egypt, for obvious reasons but making a perfectly valid point, got in the way of a UN resolution, but that’s a rare exception, if not even the only one.

So this is the end. Huge increase in the support enjoyed by the regime, a complete and ruthless consolidation of power and control, the elimination of any known or suspected critics while any who may still think for themselves and manage to get away with it will flee or hide in fear and censor themselves, and an “international community” not daring or even caring to react to the abuses. Erdogan was elected president in 2014 for a five-year term that can be renewed once, so, barring truly shocking events, Turkey is lost until at least 2024, and almost certainly for some time after that as well, as merely being unable to maintain this particular position after that point will stop neither him nor those he surrounded himself with. As a status I saw today said: “If an attempted coup doesn’t result in the death certificate of the dictator, then what dies is even the shadow of democracy which had still existed until then.”