Ghimpu decree: unformulated national cause. Info-Prim Neo analysis, part I

.... One of the leaders of the Alliance for European Integration (AEI) related long ago how he met with the late Alghirdas Brazauskas, the first President and two times Prime Minister of the independent Lithuania and the last first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Lithuania. Asked how Lithuania managed to reach that point, Brazauskas reportedly said: “We also have many politicians and parties in our country and we also struggle with each other to achieve out political aims. But we know to overcome the disagreements when our national cause is at stake”. According to the Lithuanian leader, one of such causes was the univocal rupture with the Soviet past and the orientation to the EU and NATO. We can presume that Acting President Mihai Ghimpu thought about the same national cause when he signed the decree to institute the Soviet Occupation Day to commemorate the victims of the Communist regime on June 28. Probably, he and many other supporters of this act feel uneasy that Moldova has made no progress during about 20 years of independence and the people see practically no changes to the better, unlike the people of the Baltic countries that started from the same point. Why then the presidential decree provoked disturbance at practically all the levels possible? [The unformulated cause is nonexistent] This national cause of the former Baltic countries had two sides: de-Sovietization and the European integration. “Ghimpu’s decree referred only to de-Sovietization that was transformed into a goal. The moderator of a TV channel tried in vain to find out from Mihai Ghimpu why the decree had to be issued now. Ghimpu only said that during 20 years there had been no place where he could lay flowers in memory of the victims of the Communist regime. It seems that it is not simply an omission as neither Mihai Ghimpu nor other political leaders in Moldova formulated for themselves and for others the interdependence between de-Sovietization and European integration. This interdependence exists and should be taken into account, promoted, implemented. Moreover, the European integration is the main element of the two. It is the goal. The de-Sovietization is one of the forms that facilitate the achievement of this objective. In Ghimpu’s decree, the de-Sovietization was a goal. If the cause had been the same as for the Baltic countries, things would have been clearer for the political class and the society in general. The people would have better understood the purpose of the decree if it had explained that we all can be protected by the European democratic systems only if we abandon the systems of the past that mean violence, atrocity, inequity, totalitarianism, intolerance, etc. These are mainly manifestations of the Soviet regime that was introduced in this region by the Soviet Union, by force. This is clear and even stimulatory for a large part of the Moldovan society that has many special features compared with the Baltic countries. Two features are more evident: the political class is not formed and the nation is in the process of formation. [Unformed political class] Now, we have an unformed political class. The political class in general and every political organization in particular admit it and show it by feverishly looking for their identity, messages, leaders, political configuration, etc. In these searches, the parties and their leaders often swing from one extreme to another, sell and buy what seemed to them impossible to sell and buy not long ago. The Moldovan politicians do not know how to live in harmony with the opponents and with the partners. So far, the government coalition’s attempts have failed. But the collapse of the AEI would be more painful as it would place Moldova in a history drawer, for conservation, where it might stay for decades or even centuries. Perhaps Mihai Ghimpu had to take this feature and this danger into account. From this perspective, it seems that if put on a scale, the fate of the AEI is heavier than the decree. The maintenance of the Alliance is not a goal in itself. The important thing is to maintain the strategic European integration course pursued by the Alliance, accompanied by the de-Sovietization chance promoted by Ghimpu’s decree. Mihai Ghimpu was right when he said the decree wouldn’t have existed if he had consulted with the AEI partners first. But he missed the chance of checking it or even confirming this thing at practical level. He also missed the chance of offering his coalition partners the possibility of taking into account and shaping the reaction of their voters, if the decree had been approved collectively. The decree appeared unexpectedly on June 24, but in a broader context. It was known that the Parliament on June 28 was to discuss the report of the commission for studying and assessing the totalitarian Communist regime in Moldova. The draft decision on the report was very close in essence to the examined decree. In a way, Ghimpu and his company used the tactic “everything at once” in the de-Sovietization issue, but obtained the effect of the formula “everything or nothing”. The effect could have been different if the Parliament’s decision had been adopted by consensus and then strengthened by a presidential decree if need be. It looks as if somebody did not want this to happen. Maybe the aim was to dissolve the Alliance. Everyone has the right to form opinions. There is no national case of one party. We had in the past parties that claimed they know how to make the country prosperous. The experience of the Baltic countries shows such causes need broad political and social support. The Moldovan political class is imperfect, but it perfectly represents the modern Moldovan society, the Moldovan nation in the process of formation. [About the national cause and nation] The term ‘national’ in this analysis is used in the meaning of ‘all the people of a country’, with rights, obligations and responsibilities for the country and their own fate, not as ‘ethnic group’. Thus, ‘national cause’ embraces all the citizens. Such an approach would have been useful to the authors of the decree for weighing the aim, target group, opportunity and content of the document and its effects inside and outside the country. It was repeatedly said that our society/nation is now extremely non-uniform, divided according to linguistic, ethnic, ideological, mentality, education and other criteria. The political parties often make use of these differences in their political goals. At the same time, we have a society/nation that is extremely tolerant and does not accept aggressiveness, sudden moves, tough positions, insincerity. This means that the society/nation developed immunity to the political class that has tried along history to impose certain values that turned out to be foreign and were promoted for narrow, political purposes. This refers both to the political messages promoted by the PCRM while in power and the several-decade-old messages of the Soviet Communist Party. Maybe the Moldovan society/nation should have been prepared for the assimilation of the Ghimpu decree if it was designed to help. The divisions existing inside the society and the general ‘immunity’ were to be taken account of in this preparation. Or the consequences that were to be suffered by the politicians and the society/nation were not anticipated? The Baltic countries suffered the effects of their national causes not only because they had fewer ties with the Soviet system (a shorter historical period, another Church than the Orthodox one, etc), but also because the people were asked, convinced, encouraged, involved. All these things are valid if the authors of the Ghimpu decree thought about a national cause when they drafted it, not about an electoral cause or other less national interests. Anyway, the decree to institute the Soviet Occupation Day on June 28 has a historical value even if is seems to be ‘disposable’. This topic will be developed in the next part of the analysis “Ghimpu decree: unformulated national cause”. [Valeriu Vasilica, Info-Prim Neo]