ROMANIA
TEAM REPORTING PROJECT
Romania has a long, proud history extending to the days of the Roman Empire, and a culture which successfully assimilated Slavic invasions, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholic influences from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Romania's modern borders which encompass Transylvania, Walachia and Moldavia were consolidated in their present form after World War I. The expanded frontiers left Romania with significant minorities. By 1930, 30% of the population in Transylvania was composed of Hungarians who continued to speak their own language and 7.7% were German-speaking Saxons. 4.2% of the country's total population was Jewish. World War II and the subsequent domination of the country by the then Soviet Union and its Red Army turned Romania into a totalitarian police state until a spontaneous revolution overthrew the dictatorial regime of Nicolae Ceacescu in December 1989. Since Ceaucescu's demise, Romania has been struggling to create its own form of democracy while wrestling with a resurgence of nationalism that occasionally borders on the extreme and with a decimated post-Soviet era economy which has left significant segments of the population economically weakened.
These days, Bucharest is a bustling city filled with cafes and luxurious parks. Cell phones abound and everyone is up to speed on the latest movies. But modern Romanians still struggle to determine their own identity. In the current highly nationalist environment, ethnic minorities, ranging from the country's large Gypsy population to social fringe groups including homosexuals are searching for a place in the new Romanian context.
The team reporting project, a combined effort by Bucharest's Independent Media Institute and New York University's Center for War, Peace and the News Media assigned 8 Romanian reporters and editors to explore some of the most sensitive issues of diversity in an exercise that highlights the freedom of expression available to journalists in Romania today. The project, which was managed and edited by William Dowell and Andreea Demirgian, received support from the Bureau of Education and cultural Affairs of the U.S. State Department.
--William Dowell/wtd2@nyu.edu

The Gypsies on Strike at City Hall
Gabriela Vieru reports on a band of Romany Gypsies on hunger strike in front of Bucharest's City Hall. Their demands: decent housing in a district that has seen no new construction in nearly 15 years.
"... Viorel Zdreteanu had his hand cut off and sewed back while on the job. Today, he can longer work. The 32-year-old Rroma man from Bucharest has been living for the last three months under bridge in Carol Park with his wife and his two little girls who are eight and nine years old.
He took up residence on the lawn in front of the city hall for District 5, in the center of Bucharest, on the 3rd of October. For the last four days he has been in a hunger strike demanding a home..." [more]

Europe Under The Bridge
 Simona Lea investigates what it is like to work in Bucharest's Chinese Market
Five minutes. That’s all it took me to get a job at the "Europa" complex. "You start at 7 am and you finish your job at 5 pm. The wages are 2.5 million lei per month (roughly $80)." Without even asking for my ID card, the Chinese woman gasped in astonishment when I asked about an employment contract. "What’s that?" she asked. Meina, "the boss" as I was supposed to call her, barely speaks Romanian, although she has been living here for the last three years. She is highly suspicious and it took several hours dealing with customers before she started talking. "Romanians are really poor and they have no soul," she told me. "It is very difficult to make money in Romania. You must bribe everybody in order to be able to have your own business."[more]

"The Yellow Danger Has Been Driven Out of Romania"
Rares Beuran interviews the editor of Bucharests only newspaper in Chinese.
" After 1997, business went into a downhill slide in Romania. The recession has changed Li Jianhua’s enthusiasm. "What I really like about Romania," he says. "is the beautiful nature and clean air. There are not as many people as in China." But Li's vision of the future is dark...the biggest fear of many Chinese is that their resident visas may not be renewed. Any Chinese who is refused a visa has only 15 days to sell his merchendise and property. That can mean having to find a buyer for his shop, apartment, and even land. In the last 10 months more than 250 Chinese have been refused renewals for their visas and many have had to abandon their belongings. The task of disposing of these possessions is entrusted to Romanian lawyers, who are supposed to send the money to China. The uncertainty has led many Chinese to reconsider their investments in real estate. Cash is preferrable if you may need to leave the country in 15 days..." [more]

Investigating the Journalists
Anca Paduraru takes a look at how some Romanian publishers are using the media as part of a protection scheme
"... A year ago allegations that Bucharest based dailies blackmailed advertising companies and their multinational clients to get advertising contracts received a swift reaction from the business and advertising community yet spurred almost no significant soul-searching in the media industry. This year the problem moved to the provinces where economic survival is even harsher, and political pressures have started to mount. " [more]

 

Department Store at Bucharest's Uniri Plaza

A Preface: Seeing Romania in Perspective
Andreea Demirgian, the Team Reporting Project's co-editor offers her personal opinion of "reporting on diversity"
"Twenty years ago, my grandmother, who had survived World War II and its traumatic aftermath, told me, "We were waiting for the Americans to come. Instead, there came the Russian tanks and the Soviet Invasion."
They renamed our towns, they changed our history, they shot our horses, they took our land, they moved entire villages from their ancestor’s land in the deserted field of Baragan.
" ...The stories in this selection are part of an experiment. Bill Dowell told a few journalists : "Forget about your editors. Forget about other people. Write these stories, as you would write for yourselves. Tell me all you think about it. I want to know what’s behind your daily thoughts."
So they did. But without that context, you might think that Romania is a savage country where Jews are expecting a pogrom every day. You might think all orthodox priests are evil and are urging people to an orthodox jihad against homosexuals and Romany Gypsies. You might think that some people live here in terror. The truth is that there are lunatics in Romania as there are anywhere else. Villains exist on both sides. But bear in mind that these stories were written as a sort of a catharsis. If you come to Romania to see for yourself, you will find that there is no Jihad here. Romania is a beautiful country inhabited by some people who are very rich and some who are very poor. What is important is that Romania is at peace..." [more]

His Blood Upon Your Children
Daniela Humoreanu interviews Corneliu Vadim Tudor, Romania's leading ultra nationalist on antisemitism, and finds a wide gap between the political leaders words in conversation and the philosophy he publishes in his books.
 "...He is elegant and charming, and there is no question that he has a magnetic personality. In front of an audience of fellow party members, he smiled and told me that his opinions about Jews come from his study of the Bible. There are no less than four Bibles in his parents’ house. During our 50-minute conversation, Tudor’s attitude towards Jews seemed almost reasonable...When the interview is over... I accept the three books he has autographed for me with genuine gratitude. I feel like a young peasant girl, proud to have touched a leader. I can hardly wait to dip into their pages. That evening I leaf through "A Journal of the Revolution, from Christmas to Easter." A photograph of Tudor handing a book of his poetry to Pope John Paul II is on its cover. The Orthodox Romanian Patriarch, His BeatitudeTeoctist, stand next to the Pope. When I turn page 329, I get a shock. I quote Tudor’s words: "Everything that happens to me is because I dared to contradict the disolution politics of some of the Jews. I stuck my fist in Satan’s throat..." [more]

The Primitive Discrimination
Lucian Ursuletu & Eugene Tifin. After the American ambassador announced publicly that he was gay, sexual minorities in Romania took heart. Life is still far from easy.
"Queens Club is located on Strada Iuliu Baras, a dead-end street in a formerly Jewish neighborhood of Bucharest that is now inhabited mostly by gypsies. From the outside, there is nothing to indicate that a gay bar is operating in the basement. There is no neon sign, no advertisment to lure the public into this place. A bodyguard posted at the entrance tells us politely that the bar opens at 11 o’clock. We walk through a passage covered by a canvas awning and lit along the cement with a string of red lights. The entrance looks like an office..." [more]

Taking on the New Constitution
Daniel Ganga looks at the controversy over Romania's recent constitutional reforms which promised ethnic moinorities a degree of communications with the government in their own languages...
"Wake up, Romanians! Administrative clerks and those who work in the Justice Department cannot be forced to speak in the Romany Gypsy
language."That warning first appeared on the "Orthodox –Advice" web-site as a letter entitled "No Changes to the Constitution." It was signed by 12 different cultural and political non-governmental organizations. The twelve organizations who backed the letter included the Christian Forum of the New Right, the League for Anti-Romanian Fight, the Ladder Group, the Vatra Romaneasca Union, the Union of War Veterans and of the Successors of War veterans, and the Association of Christian Orthodox Romanian Students (ASCOR).
The Ladder group stands out for the vehemence of its attacks...(Despite the opposition, the government did carry the referendum)[more]