Since 1990, we have been experiencing a political and social dynamic that has been and remains difficult for many to metabolize, as it requires the citizen to be efficient and competitive, otherwise he will be left behind; the repressive but paternalistic state was overthrown by revolution, though not immediately or completely.

A recent poll (see here) clearly shows that half of the Romanian population is nostalgic for the paternalistic state created by the communist dictatorship. The director of the organization, Remus Štefureak, summarizes the interpretation of the data by the institution that conducted the measurements (ten years after the previous one):

Objective reality and absolutely all data clearly indicate that today’s standard of living, national wealth, rights and freedoms are clearly higher than the situation before 1989. However, public perception is different, but there are certain explanations, some partially objective, others partially. subjective, which fuel this acute sense of nostalgia. (…) All this led to the mythologising of the benefits of communism for ever wider sections of the population, fueling unsuccessful political choices against the background of collective memory atrophy.. (…) I think that before 1989 life was better compared to the current situation, especially: people with primary education, inactive potentially active, residents of the countryside and southern or eastern regions, low-income.

I am not satisfied with the results of the survey, but I am also not surprised by the trend and the measured values. However, I am surprised by the fact that – in contrast to the 19th century – a large part of the intelligentsia and state institutions no longer play the role of a locomotive in society, but, on the contrary, allow themselves to be dragged into the mire. and mediocrity: blind criticism, and they are the weapons of shame they carry, they cannot find solutions to almost anything because underachievement is encouraged and orderliness is preferred in a mystical and populist march to nothingness. Smugglers would turn over in their graves if they saw it.

When and especially how did this curse come to us? It seems that somewhere before the 2010s, we were a little more alive, more dynamic – we still had something to fight for. After integration into the European Union, society began to demobilize as if it were a sin; although we entered a select club and the challenge was to earn a place of honor among the member states, our elites missed the challenge. Moreover, they are disturbed by the competition they feel in the union concert and have subtly transmitted this helplessness to the whole society.

Then, at that very moment, we began to see as clearly as possible the post-revolutionary consequences of 45 years of communism, the destruction of the interwar elites, ideological re-education for the formation of a new person. the destruction of the national fiber, first due to Soviet pressure, and then due to the pressure of the national Chaushi cult. Many people who understood, who knew that they were effective, but would not be able to evaluate themselves, tried their luck in emigration.

There was another interval, the period of 2017-2018, when an illiberal episode organized by Liviu Dragnia and his associates (+ admirers) from the PSD, many of whom are still in power or disguised as the opposition, received a moderate public response through widespread street protests. But this energy is gone. An emanation of this energy, parties such as USR or REPER almost collapsed in mediocrity and infighting.

Instead, retrograde and restorative platforms clustered around new, nationalist, orthodox projects enraptured by messianism flourish, contributing heavily to the economic crisis of 2008-2010, the inefficiency and corruption of the parties that have traditionally succeeded each other in government. , like PSD, PNL and UDMR, the pandemic crisis and, more recently, Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Their assault began with the creation of the AUR from the forge of the “Coalition for the Family”, continued with the creation of the “Sovereign Pole”, as well as the consolidation in the laboratory of the Russian Embassy in Bucharest of the project of the party “SOS Romania”, entrusted to a lawyer, forever put on the map, for some reason a senator Diana Ivanovych Shoshoake – is in full swing and, as we have seen from the polls, has a critical mass at her disposal for success in acquiring the appropriate power, most likely in a coalition with the eternal SDP.

And now about institutions, starting with a very specific case: the criminal case initiated by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate against the former prime minister, two former ministers of health and the former state secretary of the same ministry.

To begin with, I would like to clarify my position on the episode of the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences, as an introduction to the analysis that I am opening, which helps me to understand as clearly as possible that I can be subjective both here and there. at the same time, I do not propose objectivity, but an approach that aims at the truth and strives for justice.

The virus called Covid-19 has not disappeared, even if since March 7, 2022, when the state of emergency was no longer extended in Romania, everyone thought that that was it, we escaped. Well, I firmly believe that we have not escaped this virus, that although the idea of ​​contracting Covid-19 is disgusting, the phenomenon continues to manifest itself.

In 2021, if I remember correctly, I had the first and second doses of the vaccine (AstraZeneca) against the virus that gave rise to SARS-CoV2 in February and April, and the third dose (BioNTech-Pfizer) in October. The first time I got sick with Covid was in October 2020 and lasted about ten days, but without hospitalization, luckily. I got sick, as written in the book, because for about three days I just slept and slept like a vegetable. Then I found that I lost my taste and smell for almost two weeks.

The last time such a disease developed was in November; even though the family doctor didn’t quite agree with me, he still put me on heavy treatment with anti-virals and medication to stop me and the nasty episode of diarrhea that came with the illness. This time it took three days, but he put me to bed again without a right of appeal, and exactly a week later he did the same to my wife.

After October 2021, although I wanted to, I had nowhere to get vaccinated against Covid. The family doctor shrugged. Our state simply abandoned the idea of ​​preventive vaccination against Covid-19. I thought and hoped that in April 2022 I would be able to do the fourth dose of the vaccine. But by April 2022, the vaccination center was disbanded.

The Chuke government, appointed in November 2021, was no longer interested in continuing the Covid vaccination campaign and I suspect the lack of interest was either suggested or inspired (as the case may be) by the Minister of Health (then as now) Alexandra Rafila .

I think I was still struggling with the consequences of Covid-19 when, on November 23 of this year, DNA announced that it was demanding the removal of parliamentary immunity from (and I quote the press release of this prosecutor’s office): Violation of criminal proceedings against three persons, regarding the commission of crimes of abuse of official position, which caused particularly serious consequences, the form of participation in the crime is authorship and, accordingly, complicity.. From the same statement, we learn what the “three people” were accused of:

In this case, in the context mentioned above, aspects related to how, between January and May 2021, individuals from the Romanian government, in violation of the provisions of the law and in the absence of any documents/analyses confirming Due to the need for procurement a much larger number of vaccine doses were purchased (Pfizer and Moderna), given that the number of people eligible for vaccination reported by the Romanian state to the European Commission was 10.7 million. Specifically, although the vaccine doses contracted by January 1, 2021 (37,588,366 doses) would be sufficient to vaccinate more than 23 million people, two of the three individuals requested to be prosecuted using the assistance of a third party would have performed the surgery and ordered to pay the additional purchase of 52,805,690 doses of vaccine for the total amount of 1,005,498,687 euros, to which VAT is added, the amount that constitutes the damage caused to the state budget.

At first I didn’t pay enough attention to either the initial DNA press release or the debate in the press, but I remember being disturbed by the following idea that started creeping into marathons with guests from some news channels: Big Pharma and Brussels shoved down our throats, with the complicity of some of our politicians, vaccines that we didn’t need and for which 1 billion lei was misused!

Whence and whither the conclusion, how did you arrive at this false syllogism? What does DNA do in this? I was surprised and am surprised. And based on my own experience, I said to myself: I should have been vaccinated against Covid after the first three doses at least four times: in April and October 2022, and then again in April and October 2023, if the Ministry of Health I took into account the recommendations of WHO and vaccine manufacturers.

So: 7 doses of the vaccine, multiplied by 10.7 million citizens who are eligible for it, equals 74.9 million doses. We subtract the 74.8 million purchased vaccines from the total, and we are left with 15.4 million doses that could have been purchased additionally, or 20%. Why did not reach the consumption of 70 million doses, but only 17 million doses? Well, only here we find ourselves in front of a real criminal question.

Why after October 2021 did I no longer have the decision to vaccinate myself against Covid, if I had so many tens of millions of doses of the vaccine in storage? The question that the DNA avoided, as far as I can see, is to unnaturally turn things around and formulate a completely different question, something like this: why did you purchase another 50 million doses of vaccine in the first half of 2021, if only 17 million doses of vaccine were used at the end of 2021? Well, the question is unnatural! The idea was to use those vaccine doses! But they were not!

Why the purchased doses of the vaccine were not used is a question that hurts us, DNA prosecutors! Why after October 2021, like other Romanians, there was no place to get vaccinated against Covid, although there were vaccines, this is the question of DNA prosecutors! Did you ask Mr. Alexander Rafila why, gentlemen from DNA? Are you going to ask him?

I won’t go on, I think I’ve been clear enough. I do not defend the accused on the basis of DNA, they can also defend themselves (see here, for example). Questioning the appropriateness of a strategic healthcare decision during a pandemic, that’s what DNA in the open file is doing, and it’s a completely unnatural approach.

I suspect that in the future there will be prosecutors who will begin investigating, for example, the purchase of arms during a war on our borders, framing charges something like this: considering that the peace in Ukraine has ended, the purchased weapons are not justified and cause harm… etc., etc..

What DNA is doing now is serving the cause of anti-vaccinationists, a political platform built on people’s ignorance, nostalgia, and their fears, supported minute by minute by well-directed messages from trolls of all kinds. Read the whole article and comment on contributors.ro