On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the declaration of Moldova’s Independence, IPN News Agency decided to depict the portrait of the current Republic of Moldova. For the purpose, it provoked a number of people, including state officials, politicians, businessmen, civil rights activists and persons without posts and titles, but who have what to say. The generic picture is entitled “Thoughts about and for Moldova”.
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Mariana Onceanu-Hadarca, a member of the Broadcasting Coordination Council: Independence can be compared with a tree or an orchard that can be nice and can yield fruit despite the unfavorable weather conditions and can grow in the middle of a desert and on a rocky island if there are intelligent and hardworking people who are determined to look after it.
Independence influenced her career and radically changed her life, and not only hers, as she said. Everyone was marked. Even if from financial viewpoint and the viewpoint of the social status, she believes that both she and her parents had to lose something, she does not regret the change. Despite the failures and chances missed at country level, she would never return to the ‘ideological cage of the past’. Returning to the old model is the biggest nightmare that she can image.
According to her, the biggest accomplishments in the period include the children and young people who are able to learn, develop the mind and free character without restrictions and ideological prejudice and, especially, the fact that they have the chance to go and study at any school or university in the world. It is a big victory compared with the real, geographical and, particularly, the spiritual limits of the Soviet period. She fills with joy and hope when she hears how some of the contemporary young people think and speak about their prospects.
Freedom – the freedom to choose is another big accomplishment: the fact that the people can travel freely in the world and can decide by themselves the fate by choosing to work for a budget-funded institution or a private company and by trying to develop an own business – to sell greens at the farmers market or ...to leave the country”.
Mariana Onceanu-Hadarca: “I know all the objections that will appear to these assertions, but those who lived in the Soviet epoch should remember how it is not to be able to choose, while the younger ones probably cannot imagine this: if you didn’t agree with the party line or simply fell into the disgrace of a party leader, you got negative job characteristics or, worse, you remained without party card or comsomole card and you thus stopped to have chances, at least a slim one! Neither to study at a university or to find an appropriate job. You weren’t employed at least to kill rats (typical example described in Marin Pread’s novel “The Earth’s Most Beloved Son”)”.
Mariana Onceanu-Hadarca, who is also a university teacher, said that in the past, the access to higher education was limited by the state plan and very few managed to become enrolled without giving bribe or without support. After completing the studies, the young people had very slim chances to return to their native place to work there because they were to go and work where the state assigned them tasks.
She lived together with her family in a semi-basement in a dorm in Chisinau almost until 1990 because the intellectuals’ access to dwellings in the city was limited. Her father was a lecturer at the University of Medicine, while her mother was a teacher of math. One could not get an apartment with money or without it, but the bribe worked miracles then too.
Mariana Onceanu-Hadarca: “I will not describe another chronic state of that period, the deficit of particular products, but the most terrible moment was when you needed particular medicine and could not get them and the bribe not always helped here because some of the drugs could not be found in drugstores and were brought from abroad in secret and you faced criminal punishment if you were caught. I gave this example in order to be more precise in explaining what freedom means and what a great victory it is, but we don’t realize it.”
Among the biggest failures of the independence period are, according to her, the children and young people, that part of them that does not have access to education and training and does not have the possibility of developing, having a job and finding oneself. A huge precipice appeared between the trained and informed young people and those who didn’t enjoy opportunities to study. The cause derives from another big failure, namely the inability of the people in the Republic of Moldova to correctly manage and to profit from freedom and the inability, especially of those who had been in power, to build a real state with the rule of law. The third big failure is the discrediting of values and significance of the notions of ‘democracy and European standards’. According to her, on the 25th anniversary of its Independence, the Republic of Moldova is not enough independent, is weak and harassed by evil interests.
Her answer to a child that will ask her why he should be proud of being a citizen of the Republic of Moldova would be that the pride of the country is as the pride of a child – before being proud, you must offer him a lot of love and this means effort and permanent care, education, training and offering of a rod to him for teaching him to catch fish. Only afterward do you have the moral right to demand that he should make you proud of him. “I would also tell him that I don’t know why, but the children in our country, when they grow up, forget what love, kindness and generosity and the wish to do good things are,” stated Mariana Onceanu Hadarca.
She didn’t choose Moldova to be a home, but remained here even if she had several chances of leaving because she always hoped that Moldova can be a small Switzerland and still hopes. According to her, the Moldovans are good, hospitable and sensible people who yet often take decisions under the influence of emotions and are not used to make plans and then act. This makes them often look disorganized. Many Moldovans are very creative and ingenious.
Mariana Onceanu-Hadarca: “I wish us all an administration of European model and ability to organize our affairs so as to have a high level of welfare and social human relations. We should not look for heaven elsewhere and should have the power and will to build it and actually to grow our orchard here, at home.”
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From 2001 to 2012, Mariana Onceanu-Hadarca taught at the Department of Universal and Compared Literature of the State University of Moldova. Meanwhile, she also worked as a journalist, TV producer, presenter and translator of films and documentaries. In 2011, she was chosen as a member of the Broadcasting Coordination Council.
Elena Nistor, IPN
The articles of the series “Thoughts about and for Moldova” started to be published on July 18. Among the protagonists are: Dumitru Alaiba, Iurie Ciocan, Ana-Maria Tulea, Ion Manole,Olga Gagauz, Stella Ciobanu, Iurie Leanca, Victor Parlicov, Doru Curoşu, Igor Meriacre, Valeria Seican, Ciprian Raetski, Andrei Nastase Ghenadie Gilca, Arcadie Barbarosie,Valeriu Matei, Eugen Doga, Dumitru Postovan, Petru Macovei, Tatiana Negrus, Maia Sandu, Viorel Soltan, Valentin Gutan, Gheorghe Erizanu, Nicolae Botgros, Igor Dodon, Iulia Iabanji, Mariana Onceanu Hadarca, Aureliu Batranac, Viorel Cibotaru, Eugen Bendilic, Petru Bodarev, Sergiu Prodan, Gheorghe Erizanu etc. When contacted, Nicolae Timofti, Andrian Candu, Pavel Filip, Marian Lupu, Vladimir Voronin, Mihai Ghimpu, Renato Usatyi, Valeriu Turea and others also agreed to give interviews.
