De Craciun, ne-am luat ratia de libertate!
This was written in the center of the town during the last days of 1989. It means: this Christmas we got our freedom ration. It's a most eloquent phrase. There are two key words in this phrase: ration and freedom.
I can't stop thinking of the revolution these days, as it all started on December 16th in Timisoara. I must shamefully admit I knew nothing until the 22nd, when the big bubble burst. Things were very much covered, nobody was allowed to talk about the revolt at work (and everyone was afraid to) and I was not one of those who spent the nights furtively listening to Radio Free Europe, the ear stuck to the radio. I had other things on my mind: a baby, a very ill mother, a hard commute, a husband working at the other end of the map and above all, the biggest worry we (almost) all had: to get the bare necessities covered, day in day out.
Remember the word "ration"? Mostly everything was rationalized, from hot water to food, even bread- for the small communities. Since Bucharest is a big town, they could not provide the rations for everyone- so here it was the survival of the fittest. The stores were most of the time completely empty. The joy to be able, after long hours of queing, to buy flour, or tooth paste, or cotton wool, or eggs!
The second word was "freedom". What people longed for, maybe even more than food, was free speach, free opinion, the absence of fear. There were two sentences circulating- only among those who really trusted each others. A militant one: "we can't go on living like rats"; and a hopeless one: "polenta will never explode". Well, it did.
We have food in stores now, and the freedom to speak our mind. Things are not exactly what we have dreamed of, but there is hope.
I will be in Timisoara for the next days, I will humbly put a flower and a candle on the steps of the Cathedral, where those kids were shot. Many of their bodies were never found or identified. May they rest in peace, wherever they are.
6 comments:
Rations are for edible, tngible items. Concepts, felings, emotions can't be split. They are mass nouns, they are rights. No way to make a freedom cake to be cut into rations.
Fighting is never easy, but it is always worth.
The fight for freedom, equality, peace is a legal right we should be taught at school.
Perhaps, in this case, our dictators would learn.
I think that "our freedom ration" meant the freedom we were entitled to. Just as yo say, what was rightfully ours.
The dictators had teachers, too. Do you suppose that education could prevent more dictators from appearing? Or are some people born for that, immune to any kind of civic "inoculation"?
I think we have a paradox here: it would take a very free society for the young people to be really and systematically taught to fight for their freedom. At that moment,they would have no reason to fight. I'm probably not making any sense. These things are hard to understand. We were not brought up like that, we were taught to submit.
Fight is not only for freedom, what about discrimination, peace, work possibilities? Here, young people could have a good battle field.
If injustice was to be a major issue, young people would have lots of reasons to fight for.
There's always a fight. Even, in our innest being.
Right. Someone should teach us, the older people, too. We could use it. I'm not sure we know our rights, either, or how to fight. If real democracy would be taught, all the stumbling that took place these years and still is would not have happened. It's much easier to change the way people live than the way they think.
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