VIDEO Like any other form of racial contempt, anti-Semitism does not end with threats. We know how it ends

Today, the Conservative Movement announced a protest. AUR, the main opposition party, was also announced, according to the “join and face them” principle. The title of the protest is “Eminescu to judge us”. But what if he actually takes the time to judge us?

• The reason for the protest is the Vexler Law, a deputy of Jewish origin in the Romanian Parliament. The initiators of the protest claim that cultural or historical figures will be erased from history. But the law initiated by Vexler does not turn into a crime what happens in the interest of art, science, education or in the sense of public debates.

Today's action is organized by Claudiu Tîrziu, former co-president of the AUR party, who, after resigning from the party, launched his own political platform, the Conservative Action.

Later he became a competitor of Simion, for now only in the Parliament and in the sphere of ideological clarifications. Not at the polls. But, as he also acts in the party, where he does not tolerate personalities who compete with him in popularity (see the case of Piperea and Tîrziu's centrifugations), Simion took advantage of the opportunity.

Against

AUR publicly called supporters to take to the streets in the name of Eminescu and against the law initiated by deputy Silviu Vexler, representative of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania and initiator of several legislative projects on combating anti-Semitism.

However, the law does not invent anything fundamentally new, but modifies and nuances an existing legislation from 2002, regarding the prohibition of organizations, symbols and facts of a fascist, racist or xenophobic nature. Law which, amended in 2015, also included the legionary character. Of course, with lesser punishments, ignored for years, during which the apologia of legionnaires became unhindered.

Why has it now become a pretext for street protest? Maybe also out of fear that, finally, it could be applied.

What bothers them?

“A liberticidal law and directed against the national culture, our values ​​that define us as a nation, against the Romanian identity. This law is made in such a way that it can send you to prison for a simple post on Facebook if that post is interpreted abusively by a magistrate. This law aims to remove from the public circuit significant figures of the national culture and history of the Romanians”, says MEP Claudiu Tîrziu in a clip posted on his Facebook profile. It sounds serious.

However, the protest is announced by the public display of the names and faces of some characters about whom the organizers say, at the same time, that they would not be allowed to speak. Which is not true. Evidence that they are being used to promote the protest.

The Vexler Act says that it is not a crime to engage in art, science, education, or public debate

The Vexler law brings several novelties.

1. What does legionnaire mean? It is the concept that President Nicuşor Dan claims is insufficiently explained. But, while the Legionnaire Movement was only mentioned in the previous law as a generic organization, without detailed historical specifications, the present text is more explicit: “The Legionnaire Movement” is the fascist organization in Romania active in the period 1927-1941 under the names Archangel Michael Legion, Iron Guard and All Party for the Country. Legionary means a member of these movements. Maybe it's not enough, but it's a little clearer.

Moreover, the law says that it is also forbidden to promote in public, including on the Internet, legionary ideas, conceptions or doctrines.

However, the text retains this important provision: it does not constitute a crime if the act is committed in the interest of art, science, education or for public debate. It is about article 4, paragraph 3 – a detail systematically ignored by critics of the law.

Not only organizations but also fascist works become illegal

2. The law no longer only targets organizations and symbols, but also fascist, legionary, racist or xenophobic materials. These are explicitly defined: “images, text messages, audio-video content, books, articles, other documents and propaganda materials, as well as other such representations that convey fascist, legionary, racist or xenophobic ideas, concepts or doctrines”.

Their distribution is punishable by imprisonment from 1 to 5 years. This is one of the substantive changes brought by the law.

Concrete? Publications such as “Certitudinea”, printed under the samizdat regime by the senator from Iasi and vice president of SOS, Dumitru Manea (alias Miron Manega), risk falling under the law. As well as the online posts that make, like the newspaper published in samizdat, the apologia of legionary ideas.

Holocaust

3. In the definition of “person guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes”, members of the leadership of fascist, legionary, racist or xenophobic organizations are now explicitly included.

An example frequently cited in the debate is Mircea Vulcănescu, considered by neologians to be one of the great philosophers of the nation. Vulcănescu was undersecretary of state in the Ministry of Finance in the Ion Antonescu government, between 1941 and 1944, part of the administration responsible for Romanian state policy during the war. That is, the administration responsible including for the Holocaust in Romania.

Another example: “There were times when poets were sentenced to hard prison or even death for a poem. They seem to be coming back,” Tîrziu writes. The supposedly subtle reference in this sentence is to Radu Gyr, another legionnaire leader, whose biography is truncated by radical propaganda by dubbing him the “poet of prisons”.

4. The holocaust. The law introduces a distinctly formulated criminal offense for denying, justifying or minimizing the Holocaust on Romanian territory, with clearly established penalties: between 6 months and 3 years in prison and up to 5 years if the act is committed online.

What do all these things have to do with Eminescu?

“Eminescu to judge us” is not a cultural slogan, but a screen. Because yes, Mihai Eminescu wrote deeply anti-Semitic texts at the end of the 19th century. For example: “A tribe that earns all the rights without sacrifices and work is the Jewish one… […] They are everywhere the sure sign, the symptom of a social disease, of a crisis in the life of the people. […] Through what work or sacrifices did he earn the right to aspire to equality with the citizens of the Romanian state?”

These are moments of bitter history. But they do not prohibit Eminescu from studying, proof that the law has provisions that exclude the area of ​​art. But because society has decided that equality between people is not negotiable. The law does not sanction the study, citation or contextualization of these texts. It sanctions their transformation into an active ideology, an instrument of hatred and political mobilization.

What is happening to Radu Gyr?

Just as no one forbids any discussion about Radu Gyr. We can say that he was a poet, legionary leader, convicted for political activity, selectively presented as a “prison poet”, where he really suffered.

That he lived, after his release from the communist prison, in an apartment in the center of Bucharest, made available by the Securitate as a reward for his collaboration with the regime, which began even in detention, in the Aiud penitentiary. The historian Mihai Demetriade, from CNSAS, also says it.

Saying these things is not a crime. But to make Gyr a “prison saint”, a national hero, to recite poems written by him, such as “Holy Legionary Youth”, ignoring what he stood for, well, that may be a crime.

Of course, anyone is free to believe that Gyr was an exemplary historical figure, anyone can remain seduced by “Judeo-Marxist” conspiracies. But only as long as his ignorance does not affect others.

The world to “fear”

No one forbids us to think freely, read, know and interpret the past. But society has the right – and the obligation – to draw a line when the memory of characters or ideas that produced violence, discrimination and death are turned into a cult.

And if some of those who want to lead us are so scared of this limit, maybe the problem is not the law. But the way in which they build their present from a past that history – not Eminescu – has already judged.

Because these ideas never come alone, but bring with them the behaviors that supported them. Hate, violence, crimes. And to combat this, not only laws are needed. But also their application.

Because, when the prosecutors and judges look the other way, the admiration for Valeriu Gafencu, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu or Ion Antonescu ends up producing leaders and political projects that promise a world in which you fear just because you are of a different ethnicity.

Like any other form of racial hatred, anti-Semitism does not end with threats. We know how it ends.