Were the last 35 years old have been the best in Romania's history? Cristian Pîrvulescu: “Romanians compare with Western Europe, not with their past”
A simple post on Reddit, who claimed that “the last 35 years were the best in Romania's history,” a heated debate on what progress means. Between the figures that show growth and the collective feeling of stagnation, the political analyst Cristian Pîrvulescu explains for the truth why the social perception remains following the economic data.
Cristian Pîrvulescu
“Statistical and economic, Romania crosses the best period in its history. But the perception cheats: people judge the present through personal experience, not by indicators. Progress is real, but not equal” “says Cristian Pîrvulescu.
He explains that, although the economic data shows a constant growth, social perception remains split: “The expectations increase faster than the income. The transition has changed the landmarks: today, the Romanians compare to Western Europe, not with their past.”
In his opinion, this dissonance between figures and reality reflects a crisis of representation of progress. “Economic data no longer convince without a daily experience of normality. Progress becomes credible only when it is seen in everyday life ”, complete it.
About increasing comparisons with the communist period, Pîrvulescu specifies that: “It is not nostalgia, but a memory of stability. The past offers a simple, easy to understand image, while the present is complex and changing.”
Generations look at the last 35 years differently. “Those who lived the transition associate freedom with chaos, young people take it as a given and report critically to institutions”, adds Cristian Pîrvulescu.
When it comes to economic benefits, the analyst draws attention to regional gaps: “Romania has grown unequally. The big cities have developed, but the regional gaps have deepened. It feeds the distrust in democracy”.
And this mistrust, he says, has direct consequences on the system legitimacy: “When the rules seem to work only for some, people question the legitimacy of the system.”
Finally, Cristian Pîrvulescu sees in the debate on Reddit a sign of the transformation of the public space. “It is the sign of a new digital public opinion: spontaneous, ironic, but alive. The Internet becomes the agor of a generation that has no patience with the traditional political discourse”he signals.
Between figures and perception
“I noticed an invasion of new accounts on Reddit that repeats the mantra with the” 35 years “of horror in the history of Romania. However, it was endlessly repeated on other social networks by the boot farms last November and in fact much before.began to dialogue a user in a Reddit post.
Were addressed, he added: “Entrance to NATO, EU, accession to Schengen worse than the national-ceausist dictatorship, Stalinist occupation, Antonescu's dictatorship, royal dictatorship? This is the conclusion of the mantra with the “35 years” and anyone who repeats it implicitly argues that previous regimes of terror or tyranny were preferable to the liberal democracy in post -December Romania with all its problems. “
Another user intervened by saying that: “Probably the best 35 years since Romania as a country. Especially economically. I have left salaries about 20 times lower than those in Germany and I have reached only 2, 3 times lower. Progress incredible!”
Another commentator continued the discussion: “I would say” the best 25 “, respectively the last 25. The 90s were stupid, so stupid that they can be compared unfavorable with other periods in the history of Romania, including the 70s and the 30s for example. In 1992 I had a GDP per capita so small that even in 1980 it was higher and in 1980 the graphs I consulted.”
Someone else replicated: “On the paper it sounds good, you forget to say that the prices have arrived as in Germany, not the purchasing power, especially if we look at the disappearance between the classes, or between the urban and the rural.
Another user wrote: “The best period in our history. From all points of view. That it could be more? Obviously it could.
“It is a mixed network of organized boots and disorganized fools who have taken over the messages of the former. What I think is bizarre is how so many people are educated up to ridiculing some opinions that they arbitrarily received from others on the net, which I know, when I started the war, and no one, Information, war economy and the role of Nicușor's panties in the pandemic conspiracy that was made in the Wuhan laboratory to pave the infrastructure of distrust and misinformation that Russia and China later use to take over the world …? “another user continued.
Someone intervened: “The evolution produced despite the leadership of Romania, not because of them. It was not necessary to pass so long until NATO and the EU. There was no need for a whole generation of workers to be thrown in the garbage in '90. It was not necessary for the industry to be destroyed for real estate. I was 10 years old at the Revolution, now I have 45. While a neoliberal politician was doing bygbyznis.
Another one answered him: “Except for the EU and NATO phase, where we probably went into the Hungarians and Poles a few years earlier, all the symptoms you say happened throughout the eastern block. Some have done better, but now they are struggling with much more rooted underground (see the elections in the Czech Republic), which have been more and more. Ukraine, Albania) or woke up with war (Yugoslavia).
Finally, the online debate on “the best 35 years” brings to the surface a paradoxical reality: Romania has grown, but not for all at the same rate. The figures show progress, but the perception remains fractured between those who “feel” the change and those who see it only in statistics.
