The Romanian explorer with a film life, an emotional message after the Xenophob Incident in Bucharest: “It mattered”

Romanian explorer Radu Păltineanu, chosen “European adventurer of the year” in 2018 after a premiere performance for a Romanian, published an emotional message urging understanding and compassion, not hate, after a bangladesh delivery in Bucharest.

• In 2018, at the end of an expedition that lasted 3 years, Păltineanu became the first Romanian to cross the American bicycle continents. The success brought in 2018 the title of “European adventurer of the year”.
• According to his calculations, he pedaled 50,000 kilometers on 4 continents and traveled 2,500 kilometers in New Zealand and Australia.
• Romanian director Andrei Dăscălescu works on a documentary about Păltineanu's adventure along the Americans.

“Nobody asked me to prove my nationality”

The message of the Romanian explorer comes in the context in which a citizen from Bangladesh who was delivering a bicycle was hit by a young man on a street in Bucharest, at the end of August. The aggressor asked him to return to his country, claiming to be an “invader” and filming the aggression. He is also researched for fascist and legionary propaganda.

“It was the winter of winter somewhere in the rocky mountains in the United States, after a few months on the road, when a stranger on the motorcycle stopped and offered me $ 100. He simply felt that I needed money that day, which was true because I no longer had a saint in my pocket. Mexicans invited me to stop at the house and gave me to eat when they saw me tired and hungry.

He says that in the last ten years he has faced a blizzard and heat, endless rains, storms and snow, robberies, accidents and situations in which he saw his end close. “But at the end of each of these moments a good soul was. I never asked me to prove my nationality. No one asked me why religion I am or with whom I vote. I was a man among people, and it mattered.”

Radu Păltineanu states that he left the world with several hundred dollars in his pocket. “The little one ended quickly, and I was living from one day to the thought that every step takes me closer to my dream. Every time I knew the thought that I do not know how I would take this money without money, a stranger, a guardian angel, would help me.”

The explorer speaks of a “other reality” of hatred

“In another reality, a deputy recently urges Romanians to refuse the orders that are delivered by foreign couriers, exhorting with foreign workers physically agreed,” he wrote with reference to the message published on August 19 by the MP Dan Tanasa.

Radu Păltineanu states that the situation reminds him of the 1990s, “when the same hate rhetoric was directed against the Hungarians, of the Roma, of the Jews – anyone could be scapegoat for the frustration of a drift society.”

“Then, as now, unscrupulous politicians exploited poverty and fear to build their political capital,” he points out.

The explorer wonders how he could explain to a man who strikes an Asian delivery “that I, the Romanian, have been saved by hundreds of strangers? How to tell him that every hatred act that he commits rejuvenates the memory of all those good souls that helped me only because I was man?”.

Radu Păltineanu believes that in a country like Romania, in which foreign workers contribute tens of millions of euros to the budget, to instigate against them is not patriotism, but “a sick form of self-sabotage”.

“Let's not turn Romania into a country to be ashamed of us in the world”

“After tens of thousands of kilometers and ten years on the roads, beyond the geographical terminals we found the humanity we want to feel. And I discovered that it is everywhere: generous, open, ready to extend a hand. To sleep in it.

The Romanian explorer also notes in his message that the fear of foreigners comes only from ignorance, “and that the most beautiful thing you can do for your country is to be an ambassador of humanity, not hatred.”

His exhortation comes despite the fact that he himself had incidents during his travels, which he told over the years: in the American state Utah was threatened with a weapon by the Local Police; At the exit of Ciudad de Mexico, the phone was stolen by a motorcycle driver; In Cosad of Panama he was robbed with a knife and spent the night on the floor of the local police station; In the French Guyana he was attacked with a weapon by three teenagers.

He declares himself terrified by the positions expressed by some extremist politicians, stating that they can transform Romania “into a country to be ashamed of us”.

“True Romania does not hate”

“Because my Romania is not the country that closes the door in front or hits the one who comes to work honestly. My Romania is the country that knows that the good is returning, that humanity is paid with humanity, and that in a growing world, the only thing that really matters is to remain man.

Păltineanu believes that a person who felt at least once life in the hands of a good stranger cannot raise his hand on another. “I felt it hundreds of times. That's why I know that true Romania does not beat-it does not hate-it hugs. It does not close-it opens the world with big arms,” ​​he concludes.