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What Happens When Clowns Are Running The Show

The last few weeks leading up to this retarded referendum have got me down a bit. I don't like to see people riled up when they don't need to be. It's as if lately, I forgot why I love feeling like a tourist in my own country.

When I came back, in April 2011, you could've told me that this very referendum was about to take place and I would've laughed. I had no idea who was who, what they stood for, or what they were planning to do. What I did know was that they were a gang of corrupt hyenas playing at politics and paying lip service to the EU whenever it suited them. I couldn't believe the shit I was hearing every time a politician here opened his mouth, it was always so ridiculous it was funny. I maintained a casual detachment because quite simply, I couldn't take these guys seriously.

This attitude lasted about a year, but little by little I learned who was who and what they're about and made the mistake of paying attention. I forgot that these buffoons existed for my entertainment and started taking them seriously. And I started getting pissed off.
Why is an ex-communist the president of my country? How can a socialist left-wing party form an alliance with a right-wing party that is their ideological opposite? Why are hundreds of millions of Euros being spent on highways that don't exist? Where is this country really going?

The questions are never ending and the problem is that no one politician in this country can give a straight answer to any of them. It's not because they don't know. It's because most of them are not interested enough to and they don't care about what's going on in the country. The political class here is basically a bunch of kids dressed as adults playing Lord of The Flies with laws instead of spears. But I'm being unfair to Golding who created some characters that have real leadership qualities, here we just got clowns.

I don't need the press telling me what's happening, it's still ridiculous and funny to any casual observer who's ever had a taste of real democracy. The press just happens to make it funnier by posting freeze-frame shots like this for front page news:

The thing is, nobody really takes any of it seriously. Deep down, they don't. There is a lot of passion (makes for more hilarity, most times) but it's all still a joke to everybody. Politicians joke about each other, joke about the accusations they face, and about their constituents. The citizens make jokes about the politicians of course, and then about each other, and then about the country.

When you're not taking anything seriously, you don't care. I know because since I don't care about many things, I tend to joke around a lot. What's disconcerting though is that when the one thing that's the biggest joke in this country is the country, I know we must be in for the long haul. Imagine that after a life of laughing at clowns, you have to take them seriously overnight. They go to real jobs still dressed as clowns but they're not allowed to be laughed at and they may sue you for clown-ism if you don't respect them. Of course it wouldn't work! You can't repair the reputation of a buffoon overnight. You can't laugh uproariously at a joke and then keep a straight face the next day.

It's not worth getting into political discussions here, not as long as clowns are running the show. The change won't come from within the monkey house anyway, it'll have to come from within each one of us. It's going to have to start with our families, neighbours, colleagues, and fellow citizens.  I'll do my part and I hope you do yours (not just when you need to stamp a ballot). I'll know that the clowns have left the building when, instead of derision, the smiles around me finally denote pride and accomplishment.
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Comments

  1. JAugust 01, 2012

    Clowns will continue to run the show so long as talented, professional, educated Romanians continue to leave the country. Brain drain reversal would help significantly. As much as we can accomplish from within, we absolutely need a boost from the outside.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MattAugust 03, 2012

    Absolutely agree here, and that they leave is not the problem in itself, the problem is that they don't come back.

    ReplyDelete
  3. north of 60August 08, 2012

    You have to go to the very roots of the Romanians’ spirit and nature to understand the “buffoon effect” they are using on daily basis everywhere and for everything in their life.

    Most of the dedicated, hard working, well educated Romanians have left long time ago. In fact they were forced to leave the country. Whoever had had the hopes and dreams that the country will magically change overnight after the communism had failed (it did?) back in the faithful December 1989 was deadly wrong. I was one of them.

    You see, the Romanians have a long history of national disappointments, cyclical betrays, partitions, radical political regimes shifts to name very few of the boulders that constitute the national foundation. Even the country itself was created by merging three distinct provinces. Cultural differences were so great that today the effects are very much visible. The very history of this country made the populous skeptic and untruthful to the spirit of the law because throughout the history of this country the law was always against the citizens. The Romanians have learned to evade, to twist the reality the way it suited them and to wait for the next regime to take up the steering wheel.

    The clownish spirit and attitude the political class is displaying in Romania is nothing than the fogged mirror image reflecting the very nature of the country. Nothing is being taken seriously although serious matter usually negatively influences the wellbeing of the country. Do they care? Nope. Why would they? Being a politician is a business: a very profitable business that has nothing to do with the very concept of politics.

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