EDITORIAL

The CNSAS (National Council for Research on the Communist Secret Service Archive) has finally decided that Tismaneanu did not collaborate with the Securitate until leaving Romania, which was in 1981. The well-known writer and journalist Vladimir Alexe expressed such suspicion in ZIUA. Until leaving the country, Tismaneanu was a theoretician of communism. This accusation is one premise in the "Protest" of the 18 intellectuals. As director of this daily, I think it is now time for me to apologize to the one whom President Traian Basescu chose to analyze and condemn communism in Romania. But Tiamaneanu's mission is so important that I can't refrain from expressing doubts and concern, before wishing him good luck and apologizing full heartily. Both doubts and concerns are obstacle which the professor in Maryland, coming back to Romania for mission, will have to overcome. Unless he does it, his entire work will be a failure. It started badly, with the scandal on dissident Paul Goma, to whom the Romanian State hasn't apologized yet, which is strange, and whose citizenship was really stolen. It will be a failure and it will end with fuelling those who have keep on artfully praising the great achievements of the Communist dictatorship. What I will write now might be taken as tough. But it is not to be taken as discourse against Tismaneanu.

The man heading the important institution which President Traian Basescu established will obviously have to overcome a lot of difficulties so that the conclusions of the authority he represents will enjoy enough credibility in the end. Some of these difficulties are of personal nature. Tismaneanu will have to prove he split from his own past. I am not elaborating on his family right now, although it can't normally be ignored. His family is sure to have contributed to the reign of communism in Romania. Just as Liviu Turca has disclosed it in Washington, the family had to do with the Soviet political police. If Vladimir doesn't mix things up and if he doesn't try to reinvent history for the sake of his family, it will be his honourable merit. Still I have no problem with invoking two circumstances. The first regards Vladimir Tismaneanu's life and experience in Romania. For a scientist such as he is, who will have to produce fair judgements and reach right verdicts on the real communism in Romania - and less on theoretical communism - the fact that he spent his childhood in a quarter such as Primaverii, together with the children of other nomenclature people inhabiting the most luxurious quarter in Romania, might have a negative effect. I admit that after his experience in the West and, except for the first four years after leaving Romania, in the United States, Tismaneanu could overcome the frame of mind typical of a spoiled youth. But he certainly could recuperate the experience of those who carried the Communist society burden on their shoulders in no way exactly because of leaving Romania. I am thinking about those many people who were no rulers, but the victims of a system explained and motivated for years on end by Vladimir Tismaneanu himself, among others. This will be a real handicap. If he realizes the suffering of those oppressed by the Communists or if the reading of literature on communism, together with a very fair interpretation of themes, can make up for it, then Tismaneanu's effort will be even more remarkable.

I hope he doesn't expect to get cheers as long as this effort lasts. On the contrary, apart from his numerous adepts, Tismaneanu is also facing some characters acting like relentless judges. I have recently received a complex material on it from Mr. Dan Muresan, introducing himself as the political adviser of a company working for the Republican Party in the US, a graduate of the London School of Economics and a MA in political sciences at George Washington University. We aren't going to publish it, but not because of wishing to prevent some people from expressing opinions freely. It is simply because we don't want to fuel the Tismaneanu case more, especially after ZIUA made a mistake and has just apologized for it. Still the text I am talking about offers enough details and information showing that some Romanians' objections against Tismaneanu coincide with those expressed by his numerous adversaries across the Ocean, whom Dan Mureasanu invokes. But let's say no one's a prophet in his country or among the Romanians who chose the West. Let's wish Vladimir good luck. Let's be patient and see how he will judge the dreadful history Romanians went through.

Articol disponibil la adresa http://www.ziua.net/display.php?id=202137&data=2006-06-22