Cav's Place

The week began with three anti-fracking activists finally being granted, on May 19, the audience requested on January 21 and meeting a team of four representatives of the Romanian branch of the European Commission. The independent reporters who meant to join them were not allowed inside and the activists themselves were asked not to reveal what they were told, so they limited themselves to stating that the meeting lasted over two hours and the representatives seemed receptive on a personal level, but it’s quite clear that their hands are tied when it comes to actually doing something about the situation in Pungesti. Still, the posts I saw seemed to indicate that the talks were considered somewhat encouraging, at least on some level, and in the end the very fact that this meeting took place at all is a positive development.

Still on the matter of fracking, at least as far as their operations in Romania are concerned, a small number of activists marked the International Anti-Chevron Day, on May 21, first by posting materials informing people of the practices and crimes the company is guilty of around the world in 30 bus stops and then by staging a flash mob in front of the University Square fountain. Once again, I was not aware of any of it until after the fact, but it’s still a good thing that something happened in Bucharest after all, though the same unfortunately can’t be said about the May 24 March Against Monsanto, seeing as, as far as I know, Cluj was the only city in Romania to observe it this year.

Otherwise, also on May 21, a debate about the role of visual design in social activism was held, while some activists also mentioned the event meant to promote cycling among businesspeople and office workers, which took place the following day. This involved a “parade on bicycles”, the participants being asked to wear office clothes, which was followed by a “session of speeches and networking”. The week ended, or at least I definitely wish it would have ended, with a call for those willing to donate goods to the victims of the floods in Serbia and Bosnia to deliver them to the University Square fountain Sunday evening, starting at 5 PM, as a small number of activists were waiting to gather all donations and transport everything to the respective embassies later that evening.

Unfortunately, I can’t end this post now because I guess I also need to mention this idiotic campaign to boycott the European elections, whether by not voting at all or by casting an invalid vote, that most known activists and many regular protesters embarked on. A few did make efforts in the opposite, and correct, direction, gathering information about candidates and contacting them, including those from small parties or running as independents, to see which would be willing to pledge to support some of the causes we’re fighting for, and which ones have in fact supported us in the past as well, but those who did this were usually people associated with but not exactly directly part of this movement. Worse, even in these cases there were odd situations where the official stance of a group was to encourage people to vote for one of the parties whose leading candidates seemed acceptable as a result of their analysis, but some of the known activists leading it stated repeatedly that they personally will not vote, or will cast an invalid vote.
Obviously, even the defaced campaign posters, banners and tents were used to promote not voting, at least by some, and likely even more so during this last week of the campaign. They were fixed on the idea that this way they’ll send a strong message to the politicians that the electoral law needs changing and new alternatives must be encouraged, even though the only thing they did was prove to those in power that the system is working perfectly and they don’t even need to do anything to get rid of the supposedly informed, interested and intelligent people, so those who may be harder to trick, manipulate or simply buy off, because they take themselves out of the equation well enough if simply left to their own devices. Plenty of regular people who took part in the protests so far complained, and I obviously was one of the most vehement ones, but everything, at best, fell on deaf ears, and often enough it was seen as a sign that their strategy was working and we were accused of trying to push the agenda of the major parties which, for some reason I can’t fathom, were “clearly” panicking because of this.
A serious discussion should have taken place on May 19, when TVR, which is the state-owned television station, broadcasted a debate on whether or not people should still vote, a few known activists and journalists who agreed with the boycott being among the participants. Unfortunately, that turned into a complete mess, in part because six of the ten participants were in favor of the boycott and the remaining four, while apparently highly educated individuals who held respectable positions, seemed almost completely clueless, and in part because, after a brief presentation of the arguments against voting, everything turned into a shouting match filled with personal attacks that had nothing to do with the matter at hand and which the moderators didn’t seem to care to stop. Under these circumstances, the debate organized by the activists themselves, on May 23, might have been more interesting if I’d have believed that they were in any way interested in debating, but knowing that they were simply going to keep saying that the boycott is a brilliant idea while completely rejecting any and all arguments against it, I didn’t bother, so all I know is that about a dozen people seemed visible in a couple of pictures I happened to see.
In the end, people were called to “vote in the street” on election day and maybe about 100 attended the event taking place in front of the Bucharest National Theater, starting at 5 PM. Apparently the debates began around 6 PM and ended after 8 PM, but it was largely a matter of activists talking to each other and admitting, if they were asked, that the event itself was a failure. However, they continued to say that the campaign as a whole was a success, and they stressed that even more over the course of the following days, after the results were announced and it was revealed that close to 6% of the total number of votes were invalid.
In other words, both before and after the elections, activists bragged about reducing even that small number of votes that small parties and independent candidates could hope to obtain and therefore increasing the percentages of those they claim to be fighting against even further instead of causing a shock and sending a real message by helping a small party take one or two seats away from the major ones. As such, I do believe that “congratulations” are in order for the “United We Save” movement… They divided us, destroyed what we had created together, and kicked away a chance we won’t have again at least until the 2016 local and parliamentary elections, seeing as this year’s presidential ones obviously can’t possibly bring a success for us.

I should probably start this post with the fact that some activists kept defacing the banners, posters and campaign tents of the major parties, crossing out parts of the slogans and spraying others that were closer to the truth, adding some slogans chanted so far during the protests, occasionally spraying Hitler-style mustaches on the faces of the leading politicians and asking people not to vote. Of course, this last part I have a huge problem with, so I’ll leave it aside for now and stick to the action in general, which I believe gained more momentum during this period but was in fact hinted at by a few activists even during April. For obvious reasons, all of this took place at night, there were never any actual calls to help and I assume that activists usually worked independently of each other, but it was interesting to see when, after cleaning up a couple of times, the Social Democrats (PSD) simply gave up replacing what was defaced, at first only covering what was sprayed on the tents with posters or even blank sheets but eventually not even doing that anymore at times.

Moving on, the most notable protest that took place during this period, in terms of both attendance and media coverage, was the cyclists’ march on May 10. The authorities actually tried to stop it, saying that other events were taking place along the planned route at the same time and those who organized those had sent notifications first despite the fact that the organization that defends the rights of cyclists decided its protest schedule for years in advance, until the end of 2016 if I remember correctly, and filed notifications for all of them several months ago. As such, they were determined to take the matter to court if the Police and Gendarmerie won’t be more understanding and eventually, I believe after some quick changes to the route, it went ahead as scheduled, people gathering at 2:30 PM and leaving an hour later, and stopping after reaching Basarab bridge to lie down for a few minutes before continuing. The official count, which was possible since each participant was asked to take a number, was 1396, but the estimates of around 1500 may have in fact been closer to the truth, since some may not have taken numbers after all.

Another significant protest was the May 17 one against killing stray dogs. In itself, the 100 to 150 people who attended meant that the one that took place here, in Victory Square, was disappointing even when compared to the previous one, but it was part of a series of protests that took place on that day in several dozen cities across the world, activists and animal lovers far and wide being outraged by what’s going on. Since once again, still because the vast majority of those who are part of this movement promote mandatory spaying and neutering as the solution and I oppose that just as much as I oppose killing, I neither attended nor followed what was posted particularly carefully, I can’t say much more than that, however.
What I did try to attend was what was announced as a small protest in front of the Bucharest Appeals Court, starting at noon on May 12. The reason why I wasn’t able to do that either was that there was no protest after all, as the idea was that as many people as will be able to fit inside the courtroom should show their support for this effort to annul the rules for implementing the “Euthanasia Law” and therefore make it impossible to apply by simply being in the audience, and only the rest will remain outside. However, likely less than 30 actually showed up, everybody could fit inside, nobody waited outside to guide those who weren’t already part of the group and, while a few others did so, I wasn’t up for simply going in and looking for the courtroom in question on my own.

Going back to the beginning of this period, two protests took place on May 9, but only the one at the Ministry of External Affairs, supposed to start at 6 PM, was announced. The main topic was the situation in Ukraine and the list of demands began with asking our authorities to get more involved in solving the crisis in general and protecting the Romanian citizens living in the affected areas in particular, but then continued with something about additional rights for said Romanian citizens and finished with a completely unrelated request about our ambassador in Moldova. As such, only supporting the first two demands and actually opposing the last, I was torn about attending and eventually showed up just to see what will happen, spending some time talking with the first person I found there and then taking a few pictures, which I didn’t even post myself, of the precisely three people, not counting myself, who eventually gathered, two of them being allowed inside to submit the petition.
On the other hand, the other protest was far more notable but, for obvious reasons, it was not announced. As such, without anyone else knowing what they were planning and therefore being unable to support them, a few anti-fracking activists showed up in the area where a workshop and an exhibition were set up with the occasion of Europe Day, people being asked to express their ideas and expectations from the European Parliament. Unsurprisingly, the organizers were not happy to see a couple of banners, requests for paintings to portray the concept of a frack-free Europe and an adapted version of the lyrics of “Imagine” written with chalk on the pavement, so they called the Gendarmerie and Local Police, but after being told that the activists will not be removed because they were doing exactly what the event description asked people to do, they rushed to wash away the writing and asked reporters not to mention this. Still, the activists were not deterred and continued paying brief visits to the locations where other related events were scheduled to take place, spreading fliers before apparently ending the day in front of the University Square fountain.

Otherwise, one thing anti-fracking activists did announce was taking part in the nongovernmental organizations’ “festival”, the main part of which taking place on May 10 and 11 in Herastrau Park, the first day’s schedule also including a debate on this topic, between 5 PM and 7 PM. Another group announced two debates about new methods of organizing activists, which included participants from other European countries, on May 9 and 10, and a third, titled “Democracy and the Future of Europe”, on May 11, apparently only this last one also being part of the “festival” mentioned above. In addition, documents proving the involvement of corrupt politicians and even organized crime in funding mainstream media in Romania and the surrounding region were supposed to be presented during an event that apparently took place on May 12, starting at 7 PM, but I found absolutely no other information about this. Last but definitely not least, another screening of Where Are You Bucharest? took place on May 11, starting at 8:30 PM, as part of the European Film Festival, while some of the footage Vlad Petri captured during last autumn’s protests could be viewed on May 17, starting at 6 PM, as part of another festival.

I’m still quite out of it, so this will be short, but I definitely need to mention that my contestation was accepted yesterday and the fine annulled. Now the Gendarmerie has 30 days from the moment the decision will be communicated to them to appeal, but let’s hope they won’t bother with that. After all the stress this caused, the less than one hour of sleep I got yesterday morning, how I shivered and sweated and the way my stomach acted, I definitely don’t want to go through something like that again, regardless of the fact that the result was positive.
I won’t go into details, in part because there is a protest to go to tomorrow and I’m still out of it, so need to use today to try to recover at least somewhat better, and in part because, though everything was public, I’m not completely sure about posting a few things. Suffice to say that I was lucky in more ways than one and it definitely went better than expected, but it still messed me up completely and I doubt I’ll ever fully recover after it. At the same time, I do want to work towards being able to accept the risk of needing to go through something like this again for a cause.

Otherwise, while cleaning my room today I noticed a significant amount of mold in an area that wasn’t sprayed a month and a half ago, so something will need to be done about that, possibly next week, and we’ll need to be far more thorough this time. Until then, however, I definitely should at least partially catch up on the “protest reports” and the plan is to try writing another by the end of the week. I have no idea how far I’ll get and I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to say about what happened since the end of the period covered in the previous one, but I’ll see what I can do now that the main reason why I’ve been viciously at odds with this movement and most known activists and protesters over the past few weeks is behind us.

Managed to make it this far without a Sunday update this year, though I admittedly did even worse once, but now I’ll need to resort to one to get a second post this week. It will be a quick one, since it’s election day and I’ll be looking for some exit polls and conclusions as soon as the voting will end and I’m also keeping an eye on the event the United We Save movement decided to organize today, if only to be able to attack this whole idiocy even better.
In fact, the reason why I waited until Sunday to write something is that I kept meaning to get to work on the next protest update, going all the way to May 24, just to say I got to that point and allow myself to completely break away from this movement as of today, seeing as they did nothing but push even more firmly for a boycott of the elections, saying all politicians are the same and there’s nobody worth voting for despite the fact that 15 parties and eight independent candidates entered, two of those parties had their top candidates sign pledges to support the main environmental causes backed by this movement and one added pledges to support individual rights and liberties on top of that as well. Not to mention that there were at least a few others that may have been acceptable at least as ways to clearly vote against all parties that had a hand in the current situation.

The problem here is that the court date for contesting that fine is Thursday and there are seven of us set to appear in front of that judge that day, which probably means I will have a rather hard time, seeing as I’ve been very actively arguing against the known activists and anyone who takes their side for the past couple of weeks. As if I needed additional reasons to shit myself at the mere thought of that day, which I still can’t imagine going through under any circumstances. And, of course, I still have no idea what to do with my witness, what he could be useful for, nor do I know anything about any procedures or methods which may improve my chances.

At least my back seems to finally be getting better, because it started bothering me after I did something to it Tuesday and then, after also stretching to get the charger for my phone from under the desk later that day, the pain became terrible and I could hardly move at all. Tuesday evening and all of Wednesday were dreadful, to an extent I probably didn’t experience in years, and that also meant I didn’t quite remember what to do or how to best deal with the third day, when the pain greatly lessens but I must still act almost as if it’s still there if I don’t want it to return. As such, I guess I didn’t take it easy enough and lost myself two days, as Friday was bad again and yesterday I got sort of a second chance at a third day, which I at least made far better use of, so today the problem finally seems almost gone.

Otherwise, I’ll quickly add that, after getting to level 36 of The Lost Vikings shortly after writing the previous personal post, I made no further progress. Actually, after getting to the third phase of that level on the first attempt and then making a stupid mistake, I only even got as far as the second with all of them alive twice over the next 40 or so attempts, and never again to the third, so I pretty much gave up trying, at least for a while. And I didn’t even try to play anything else, so there has been no progress whatsoever on that front.
No progress when it comes to reading or writing either, as I still didn’t even start Time of Contempt, didn’t add any more of those books I wanted to add on Goodreads and didn’t go over any more of the finished sections in my own story. My writing is ten pages ahead of my checking at the moment and I have no idea how I’ll go over those, as I average about one hour per page when I do get around to it and usually tend to be crushed after two or so at a time, so each day that passes makes the very thought of trying to tackle the task more and more disheartening.

The European elections will take place between May 22 and 25, the exact date being chosen by each member state, and past experience teaches us that the interest and turnout will unfortunately be low in most cases. Under these circumstances, I thought I’d briefly state my arguments in favor of voting, especially considering the fact that I already did so a fair number of times these days, while arguing against the campaign against casting a valid vote led by the United We Save movement and various other known activists over here in Romania. Please note that, while I can also advocate in favor of choosing the lesser evil if absolutely no other options exist, these arguments are mainly intended for those who feel they’re not represented by any of those who are likely to obtain any seats, but at the same time would have other options this time around, as in other parties or independent candidates taking part in the elections despite being highly unlikely to obtain the required number of votes for a seat.

I must begin by stating that voting is the first and the simplest way in which citizens can get involved in the decision-making process. Of course, it’s far from the only such method that exists, not to mention that some other ways which currently aren’t usually available should be, but this is the most basic and, in my opinion, the first that one needs to use before asking for others. I mean, why would a person who refuses to make this small effort, to accept this small responsibility, be offered the chance to take on a greater one and have more of a say in any major decision?
In addition, these elections are for the European Parliament, so different principles apply. They are less about the parties and candidates from your own country, less about any national or local issues, and more about the European parties that said parties or candidates are or may become members of, and about choosing the power balance between these parties that must represent over 500 million European citizens and make decisions on major issues that will affect the entire European Union. And, this time around, they’re also about choosing the next President of the European Commission, out of the five candidates.
On the other hand, the European elections are similar to any other elections in the sense that the seats that need to be filled will be filled according to the valid votes cast, as those are the only ones that matter and their total number is irrelevant. That won’t change even if everyone except the candidates themselves would refuse to vote or cast invalid votes, as in that scenario the number of seats obtained by each of the top parties will simply be proportional to the number of candidates on their lists. The turnout and the number of invalid votes are mere statistics that are quickly forgotten.

As such, and knowing that the electoral laws are usually aimed at keeping a few major parties in power, possibly by rotation, and limiting the potential impact of other voices as much as possible, not casting a valid vote is perhaps the best way to show that you support the current system. It means that you don’t necessarily care which major party ends up having the upper hand, but are willing to accept whatever outcome, believe that the system itself needs to remain as it is and do not think that smaller parties, independent candidates or regular citizens like yourself need to be given more of a voice.
It’s saddening and disheartening to see how well this system works when so many people who’re more informed and possibly also more rational than average, and therefore more difficult to manipulate and/or bribe, decide not to get involved in politics, starting by not voting. It’s even worse when many of those people are young and would tend to have different views anyway. Whenever this happens, it only makes it less likely that anything significant will change in the foreseeable future, and I can only imagine those who have every interest in keeping things as they are rubbing their hands and grinning from ear to ear because of it.
If you are unhappy with the current state of affairs, there are many things you can and should do in between elections, but once the campaign period starts the rules aren’t going to change anymore, so your only realistic option is to look through the list of parties and candidates and determine which ones may be different, which ones may also want to change the system, or at least which ones may bother those who want to keep things as they are the most. Then, on election day, the first thing you should do is vote for whichever one of them you find most acceptable, or least unacceptable, as the case may be. It’s not a problem if said party or independent candidate doesn’t stand the slightest chance; in fact, it’s preferable.

In order to decide who to vote for, you should ask yourself these questions:
1. Is there an option that I actually support and has some chances as well, therefore also representing a useful vote?
2. If not, is there any option that I support, even if it has no chances?
3. If not, is there any option that I may vote for in order to express a symbolic support for an ideology, even if not necessarily for the way in which the party or candidate in question currently understands to implement it? Note that, considering the specifics of the European elections, this is a particularly relevant and important question at the moment. In case of local or national elections, on the other hand, you may want to only consider those who shouldn’t have the slightest chance, in order to avoid voting in somebody likely to give the ideology you actually support a bad name.
4. If not, is there, among those with no chance of obtaining seats, any option that I don’t vehemently oppose, and which I may vote for simply in order to make it obvious that none of those who will end up being elected will represent me?
5. If not, which one of those that have decent chances is the lesser evil?
As I said in the first paragraph, I can and I will advocate in favor of going all the way down to this final question if no other options exist, even if simply because not doing so supports this rotten system itself even more. However, if you can find even the slightest reason to answer “yes” to the fourth or, especially considering the fact that we’re talking about European elections, third question, then you have all the more reason to make your choice and vote. I’m obviously not going to say much about the situation in which you have any reason to answer “yes” to any of the first two questions, since in that case you’re almost certainly already determined to vote anyway.

It also needs to be noted that the five European parties that have candidates for the position of President of the European Commission are the European People’s Party, Party of European Socialists, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, European Green Party and the Party of the European Left, and that the first three of those are the major parties at the European level, which can all be blamed for the situation we currently find ourselves in. Because of this, if you got all the way to question four on the above list and simply want to send a message to the European Parliament that you want things to change, the best way to do it is to vote for a party or independent candidate that is a member of one of the last two. If this option is not available to you, or if you can’t tolerate either ideology in the least, then you can of course start looking through the others, but always keep in mind that we’re talking about European elections, so consider the message your vote will send to the European Parliament and make sure you won’t accidentally support a group you’d actually want to oppose.

I will say again that what matters is to cast a valid vote and it is not a problem if it will appear lost, in the sense that it will not result in any seats for the party or independent candidate you voted for. In fact, if the message you mean to send is that the system itself needs changing, it’s actually better that way, because if a significant number of seats will be redistributed to parties which shouldn’t have actually obtained them, it will make it perfectly obvious, at a European level, that the current rules are unfair and undemocratic.
Those who do not cast valid votes do not matter and there is no way to actually know whether they even care, but those who do vote in favor of parties or independent candidates that will not obtain any seats, those who will find their support being forcefully transferred to those they specifically opposed, have every reason to complain and the hard data to back said complaints. A low turnout may not even be particularly noticed and an even higher than usual percentage of valid votes going towards the major parties will only strengthen their position, but seeing that the current rules help said major parties directly steal a significant number of seats that were rightfully earned by those who clearly oppose their policies and ideologies is an entirely different matter, so this is what you should be aiming for if you mean to turn election day into a protest against the current electoral laws.