PressOne is a quarterly
English-language magazine which bears the strapline ‘Cherishing Romania’ and
articles are devoted both to social justice and reporting positive stories
about the country. It is published in Cincinnati,
United States. The major theme of issue
5, the most recent at the time of writing, is the way children are treated in
the country, and the cover has a photograph of a young child tied down in a cot
with the legend ‘The tragedy of Romanian children’. Underneath are stark statistics: 63% are
victims of domestic violence; 51% live in poverty; 42% of 15 year olds are
functionally illiterate; there have been only 769 adoptions while 57,026
children live in state care (or custody as the caption puts it), which by my
calculation is a mere 1.3%.
After the 1989 revolution there were
many horror stories in the British press about Romanian orphanages, but on this
evidence, despite the opening up of the country, the situation for many
children has not improved dramatically in the last thirty years. As the introduction by Don Lothrop points
out, the cover photograph is not from 1990, it is from 2017. Romanian children are still being kept in
appalling conditions. Further statistics
presented indicate that Romania is the only country where child poverty has
increased since achieving EU membership and it has the highest infant mortality
and child abandonment rates in Europe.
Part of the problem, the editorial continues, is the corruption found
within the Department of Child Protection, and the prevalence of dehumanising
domestic violence. Romanian practices
contravene both international and domestic laws, and Lothrop sees these
attitudes as having deep roots in the old communist culture.
The first two articles amplify the bald
statistics by examining domestic violence and child neglect in more detail,
with case studies which show just how women and children are being failed by
the judicial system. When prosecutions do
occur, penalties tend to be light, with abuse considered more of a private
domestic matter than one for the courts, and the process of bringing abusers to
justice can be protracted and opaque.
The article on the failure to protect vulnerable children within the
care system notes that given the history of child institutions, Romania should
have the best system in the world, yet the dire situation persists.
The result is not only suffering in the
present, but long-term developmental harm for the children. A policy decision to foster children rather
than place them in orphanages has not been implemented, and there still 70
‘traditional’ institutions in existence.
Such confinement up to the age of 2 can cause lowered IQ, attachment
difficulties and lack of control of emotions.
These articles are the heart of the issue, while those following are
lighter in tone and while enjoyable, mostly amount to filler.
As a change to a more cheerful subject,
the following article is about a rural funeral, that of Dumitru Şomlea. There was nothing particularly noteworthy
about the death of Dumitru, who had died at the age of 103, except that he was
a veteran who fought in the Romanian army for six years during the Second World
War. His sacrifice was acknowledged by
those around him, but still he was forced to live on a paltry pension despite
the sterling service he had given to his country. The feeling of those left behind, as is
universal when such individuals die, is that they don’t make them like that any
more.
The next article concerns a Romanian
visiting a fellow countryman now permanently resident in Canada. He left Romania in 1985, aged 30, using
salami as a bribe to get to Yugoslavia with his wife, but leaving their young
daughter behind. Now he works as an
estate agent and has only been back to the old country once, in 1991. He has no desire to return, and discourages
his son, born in Canada, from making the journey. During a visit to the local cemetery he shows
his visitor a number of gravestones marking the last resting place of
Romanians. ‘This is my village’, he
says. It transpires that there is a
significant Romanian presence in the area.
A wake for one is a chance for the expats to gather, though the deceased
did not much care for Canada and his body is shipped back to his native
land. Most of the Romanians in the area
fall somewhere in between the two poles, happy to live in Canada but keen to
maintain links with their roots, even while acknowledging problems in Romania.
The next stop is Cluj and a profile of a
man who was wearing himself out in sales switching to cooking and becoming much
happier as a result, with a renewed zest for life. Then an historical article traces the lives
of two brothers, Dinu Lipatti, born in 1917, and Valentin, born in 1923. Dinu was disabled and often ill, but he was a
musical prodigy, and Valentin grew up in his shadow. The family was wealthy and Dinu was able to
study the piano in Paris until their return to Romania in 1939, where he
established himself as an important concert pianist. Dinu moved to Switzerland in 1944 but died of
Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1950. Valentin
took an entirely different path, becoming a member of the Romanian Communist
Party in 1947 and a successful international diplomat for the country, dying in
1999.
A contrast is a feature about a Romanian
long-distance runner, his achievement all the more remarkable as he nearly
didn’t reach his first birthday. He has
a fundraising campaign, ‘The arc over the Carpathians’, to raise money for a
new children’s hospital. He ran 1,300km
along mountain ridges, beautiful but full of dangerous animals, in 22
days. Then PressOne co-founderVoicu
Bojan, claiming to be a gentleman of mature years though looking well preserved
in his photo, attends a large four-day music festival. This is Electric Castle 2017, at Bánffy
Castle in Bonţida, a small town near Cluj where the festival has replaced pig
farms as the major revenue generator.
While the piece is titled ‘No castle for old men’, the author finds it
an enjoyable if sometimes perplexing experience. The issue concludes with a photo spread of
Poiana Aleu in Western Romania, looking very attractive.
Source: Issuu
(This was first published on The Joy of Mere Words, 14 January 2018)
