The people with initiative spirit are those who move things on in a society. “Created in Moldova” is the new title of an IPN campaign about people who distinguished themselves in 2018 through different accomplishments, creations, technologies or actions.
“The protest movement Occupy Guguță was founded in the summer of 2018 to permanently protest alongside those who recognized the democratic blacklining in the country,” said one of the organization’s activists Vitalie Sprînceană. Occupy Guguță is about Guguță Café, but not only.
“The case of Guguță Café is not specific, singular or unique. We witnessed several hundred cases of privatization of public heritage facilities. On the other hand, successive attempts were made by different oligarchs and groups affiliated to the oligarchs to build different facilities in varied places in the Public Garden. In front of Guguță Café, where there is now Europe Square, an attempt was made to build a pizzeria, for example. We can also remember the Islands on Calea Ieșilor St, different fragments of museums, plots, buildings in parks. In a way, Guguță brings these all together”. They thus tried to build a community around the Café so as to speak about it, about the Public Garden....That community was created gradually and Guguță became a public issue.
Occupy Guguță does not consider correct the logic to justify all the actions related to the sale of heritage facilities through the angle of the profit these bring. “Churches bring profit only to priests, but they bring something else to the faithful, in principle. The schools have education as a profit, while hospitals should not bring profit. They bring health that we all enjoy… It is the same about the cultural infrastructure: cinemas, libraries... They should not be profitable. Their goal and efficiency are measured in feelings, experiences and emotions,” stated the activist.
According to Vitalie Sprînceană, the protest movement appeared also because the Chisinau mayoral elections weren’t recognized. Occupy Guguță started then to make common cause with other groups of people so as to protest against the small pays of teachers, expulsion of Turkish citizens, the corrupt government... Occupy Guguță appeared out of a feeling that we called permanent protest and we want this permanent protest to be generalized so that any citizen who sees an injustice shares his feelings and knows that he is not alone and we can help him”.
The activist noted the movement does not associate itself with the extraparliamentary parties PAS and PPPDA, as it is alleged, and does not support them somehow in the election campaign. The circumstances did so that namely these parties protested this summer against the vote stolen in the local elections, when Andrei Năstase was elected mayor and was then deprived of his constitutional rights to hold the mayoralty and the voters were deprived of the right to elect. “The parties can actually support who they want. They are civil society, as we are. The PAS and PPPDA are parties with their owns agenda. If other parties were interested in the same case, we would protest together with them too,” stated Vitalie Sprînceană.
Occupy Guguță applies different forms of protest. “Music is a form of protest, for the young people, as humor is. We do not intend to appear different, but understood that there is a kind of predictability of protests. The power understands that the goal of protests is to bring the people together so that they could shout angrily and that’s all. We do not want to follow this logic. We want to bite the power from where it hurts and make it somehow be afraid, by exerting pressure, and here we want to surprise it,” noted the activist.
The permanent protest exists due to the protest and effort of the members of the protest movement. Everyone allots own time. “The movement members are people with jobs and different occupations. Occupy Guguță was the result of our free time. We do not need anything for this. We have our jobs that ensure our living”. On the other hand, there are costs related to particular things that cannot be done in a different way. For example, money is needed to print the movement’s newspaper, to purchase musical instruments, materials for placards, etc. The necessary money is collected through specialized crowdfunding platforms.
The replacement of the government would not mean the end of the permanent protest. “I don’t know what changes the replacement of the power can bring about. The permanent protest is the opposition of any government. Any government needs watchdogs. We consider a permanent protest is needed even when the government is the most democratic and open one so as to keep it as such,” stated Vitalie Sprînceană.
Sabina Rebeja, IPN
