The division of society is not a process or a state that appears independently. It is a result of the activity of political players who are also called political entrepreneurs that do business on the political market. They produce particular ideas, messages that are sold as merchandise, while the followed direction – to the East or the West – is a distinct element, Mark Mazureanu, specialist in compared policies ad international relations, stated in a public debate staged by IPN.
As the people have an internal system for adjusting the values and mentality to their own ego, they start to believe the promoted values for which they vote. “If I start to vote pro-West, I start to believe the Western idea and to detach myself from the Eastern idea and vice versa. When the political entrepreneur starts to sell merchandise, the ordinary people set another priority. The population’s priorities depend on the actions/messages of political entrepreneurs/political parties that imbed the message. It is not something that comes from down,” stated the expert.
As to the way in which the current government explains its actions, the excerpt said the major problem is the lack of national identity and this persisted in time. “We here have a kind of state without nation. They speak about the Romanian, Moldovan-Romanian, Moldovan identity. Different politicians who came up with pro-Western or pro-Eastern or pro-national, pro-Romanian ideas tried to launch political and cultural projects so as to constitute an identity idea. As a result, society generally remained more confused. The project based on the Moldovan language failed. The project based on the “history bargain”, with pro-Russian, pro-Romanian, pro-Moldovan, pro-European books printed every two years also failed. Emphasis on culture, dances, skirts didn’t work either as didn’t that on food,” said Mark Mazureanu, noting the preferred economic partners are also different.
He noted that the joint group interest is a national interest accomplishment. In our country, the people, instead of focusing on the group interest that would prioritize all and everyone separately, look for the own interest within the group.
The expert said the central authorities can create a national identity concept that should be based not on culture, language, history, but on the financial-economic interest of everyone. For example, Romania, instead of laying emphasis on poets and writers, gave passports. Many Russian speakers became Romanians by obtaining a passport and they realized that it is “ok” to be Romanian, including from economic viewpoint. This can be a model for creating the Moldovan’s identity.
The public debate “Chromatic scale of Moldovan-Russian and Moldovan-Romanian relations: affinities, dissimilarities, motives, processes, solutions” is the 215th installment of the series of debates “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates”. The project is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
