English
Romanian televisions get a serious case of patriotism whenever December 1st gets near. It"s not a bad thing in itself, even though that "symptom" doesn"t last long.
As we watch, with the remote in our hands, we are told that things aren"t that bad, when it comes to our chances of making it in life. Several channels, intended for general audiences and for specialized audiences alike, advise us to be proud of ourselves and our country, we are told that many of our compatriots fully succeeded in their actions and have achieved international recognition. We are told that, "yes, we can". Doctors, constructors, musicians, writers, honest workers, are paraded before our eyes. The soldier who found the marshal"s cane in his worn bag has many faces. If you work hard and have a steely resolve it almost doesn"t matter who"s running the country. The whole story reaches a dizzying crescendo. Just when we think we"ve reached the height of patriotic happiness, the life stories of our compatriots who made it start. And at that moment, the whole thing falls apart, piece by piece.
Most of the time, the people in question are successful in another country, or, in the happiest cases, they lived outside Romania for quite some time, where they returned with a completely different mentality and with well padded accounts.
The same people, who are urging us to stay in Romania, to do our part, to show resolve and to keep fighting, actually show us, with video and sound, that all the stories with happy end are usually set thousands of kilometers away from the Carpathians.
It"s enough to make you feel like nothing makes sense, like you"ve been lured into a trap laid out by the business moguls and the politicians, people who made it here, but whose success stories are never fully told. Luckily, on December 2nd, things return to normal, we are no longer bombarded with so many happy examples of those who made it in life. We can then quietly wait for a Christmas miracle.
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