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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781462044740 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 10/03/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 456 KB |
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Dust in the Wind
The UprisingBy C. Nick Potcovaru
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 C. Nick PotcovaruAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-4473-3
Chapter One
It has been almost twenty years from the events that I'm about to write on for the first time. These events have altered the course of history, not only for a nation or a group of nations, but by implication, one could say, for the rest of humanity, in one way or another; these events have also altered and shaped irremediably the course of my destiny and the direction my life was going to take.Looking back now after so many years, and through the prism of so many things that have happened, I wonder sometimes if I would have known everything that was going to happen, would I have changed anything. It is hard to answer that question, and believe me I have asked myself that question many times....
The answer is not always the same, but overall I believe that probably these things and events had to flow in a certain way. One can suggest that perhaps there is a pre-destined order of things that inexorably flows in a certain way, just like a river, surely pouring down, towards an unknown ever-changing end.
Little did I know on that cold December day in 1989, when I was walking down the street with my friend Ike that in fact, I was experiencing the last stroll in a very long time to come.
We were walking down the Bank Street, which runs parallel with Main Street in Alexandria City, Romania. The wind was blowing mercilessly over our faces; our hands were dug deeply in our pockets, and the skimpy jackets we were wearing—out of vanity of course—did very little to attenuate the cold air attacks.
We had our photo cameras with us and were hoping to find some business perhaps. Maybe we would stumble on someone that needed a picture taken. With all the weddings over at that time of the year, the only thing you could have hoped for was for someone to be looking for an outside portrait, one that could be used probably for the holidays, as a gift.
We were walking in silence, keeping our heads down to avoid a direct hit in the face from that nasty, cold wind.
"How much money do you have?" asked Ike.
"Not much," I responded grumpily "about ten Lei or less maybe...." (That was worth about ten U.S. dollars at that time.)
"That's not much. Maybe we can get a coffee at Hotel Park?"
"Yeah, I guess so," I responded without any enthusiasm.
"Are you sure you are O.K.?" He lifted an eyebrow in question.
"I'm O.K., just cold," I responded with the same lack of enthusiasm.
We continued walking down the street not saying much of anything, when all of a sudden we noticed a car parked at the curb with the doors open.
We could hear the radio blasting, but we couldn't quite make out what it was saying. That in itself was quite unusual, due to the fact that we were at the height of the Communist tyranny, where every single thing was monitored, supervised, and investigated very tightly.
To understand and make sense of some of the conditions that are going to appear further down in the story, I think this is a good time to give you a preamble of the unfortunate economic conditions, as well as some of the mentality and ideology, that existed in Romania at that time.
Bear with me for a moment, dear reader; these explanations are absolutely necessary in order to achieve a clear picture of the state of fact and the human condition of my countrymen at that point in time.
Towards the last few years of the 1980s, everything was rationed in Romania. We were allowed only two hours out of twenty-four of electricity. Each household was allowed only two hours per week of hot water; regular cold water was running only one hour a day, thirty minutes before 6:00 a.m. and thirty minutes sometime in the evening between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.
As far as heat went, the Communists in Romania devised an extremely diabolical system of control. You see, the majority of the population resided in urban areas, specifically in high-rise buildings—if you could call them that—generally between four and ten levels high.
Those architectural atrocities, generally of gray color, or sometimes a pale shade of whitish/yellowish, in addition to being an eyesore, violated every sense of aesthetics, and no matter how hard you were trying to find one, it was almost an insurmountable task.
So, all these buildings were being heated from a central location. Each district had a building named "central heating and thermofication building." From that building, miles and miles of pipes carrying hot water spread in every direction underground, connecting with each and every high-rise building in that district.
Each apartment in every high-rise building had forced hot water radiators to warm it up, so in order to function, it needed the precious "heating agent," a.k.a. hot water, which was distributed and controlled from the above-mentioned location to each and every apartment.
At the height of winter, on top of the aforementioned rations, each apartment was "allowed" only two hours of heat a day: one hour between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. and one hour between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. This last hour was timed to coincide with the two hours of broadcasting of the one channel of television—black and white only—which Romania possessed at that time. Now remember, it was 1989, and 98 percent of the population had never seen a color TV ... incredible, huh?
Therefore, to state that the control was tight, is an extremely poor understatement.
You see, the dictator and his thugs remembered and applied very well the Romanian proverb that stated with bitterness and emphasis that "every philosophy goes through the stomach first!" That's the tragedy of it.
The Communist system, like every totalitarian system, seeks total and absolute control over the society, and most of all over the individual.
The word Communist is the exact opposite of individual, so the goal of Communist ideology is to completely erase every trace of individuality and self-esteem, to bring every individual to a common denominator, to erase their uniqueness—as individuals—and to bring the human society to a utopian uniformity, where no individual is unique or special or—God forbid—smarter or different in any way, shape, or form from anybody else. And so together "they will work towards a common goal, the construction of Communism, where no one owns anything, no one is different in any way; where we are all equal at every level and each person is a productive member of society. That of course is the golden dream of humanity."
For those of you who are Star Trek fans, the closest example of what the Communists envisioned is the Borg. Remember seven of nine? When s/he was asked of his/her identity s/he responded, "We are Borg. We are seven of nine." The word "I" did not exist in their vocabulary, in their concept. That is perhaps a close approximation of how the misguided and diseased brains of the Communist ideologues envisioned the future of society. But meanwhile there was still a lot of work to be done in order to achieve these "noble" ideals!
You see, people, "those ungrateful creatures!" have these pesky habits of not wanting to give up their personality, their individuality. Imagine that!
People don't want to become robots!—Gee I wonder why?—people actually believed that they were unique; people actually believed that if they gave 100 percent of effort at their work, and somebody else gave 20 percent of effort at the same work, then that person should be paid only 20 percent ...! The nerve of them—unbelievable! Didn't they know that the person giving only 20 percent of effort for the same job was the brother or sister or the friend of a pro-eminent Communist member? So ... as you can see, the hypocrisy was enormous. And that is an obvious and gross understatement!
In a sense it is normal to be so. Human beings are not robots, we are not machines, we are individuals, and we strive to exist as such.
From that struggle, progress is born. We compete against each other in order to preserve the strongest, the brightest, the most compassionate who will be able to perpetuate the well-being of our species.
Uniformity, then, not only is alien to the human species, but, if implemented somehow, will cause the destruction of human society.
Our individuality and our struggle for existence, that continuing fight to exist, that race called living or being alive—there is a difference—where each human being is a competitor equipped with a different set of skills, talents, and abilities in order to stay alive/succeed, is the engine that fuels the progress in human development.
When you take away the incentive from any human being in any society and political system; when you tell individuals there is nothing unique about them as individuals, that the power of one is irrelevant in itself, that a person who is talented and applies himself and tries to discover new ways to improve the human condition by improving his condition can't reap the benefits of his/her own work, but instead has to share the fruits of that work with each and every lazy, untalented, insipid member of society who has contributed absolutely nothing to the project; then you are taking away the hope that drives, the motivation that fuels, human progress. That, in turn, spells entropy, involution; the opposite of progress, societal death, the return to the caves.
So the Communist Party in Romania decided that the best way to indoctrinate the population 100 percent with the Communist ideology was to control every basic need that any human being requires to exist: namely electricity, cold water, as well as hot water, heat, and food. I forgot to mention that food was also heavily rationed—where each person had to present a card when shopping for food—because you were allowed only a certain amount of food per month. So many grams of meat, so many grams of milk, so many eggs, that much cooking oil, that many grams of sugar, etc., etc., and all was done, of course, for a noble ideal, all in the name of caring for the citizen, for his/her well-being.
Therefore, you have mass starvation on top of hypothermia in the winter, and the almost complete lack of sanitary conditions for having only limited time to use the facilities or to take a bath. But those were conditions reserved for the majority of the population, of course.
The oligarchy—eminent members of Communist Party and their families and friends—in every city lived in a completely different district. There was very little chance a stranger wouldn't be able to find that district in any city, especially at night. That was the only district in any city that was shining brilliantly. Enveloping lights covered luxury villas with well-manicured lawns. No high-rise buildings there ... oh no sir, or should I say Comrade? Each had its own system of heating and air conditioning, which by the way, was a completely alien concept for the majority of the populace.
But we are all equal.... Right? Oh the hypocrisy of it ... is overwhelming!
Well, this social experiment that has caused so much suffering, so much bloodshed, so many tears, and agony was going on for about forty-seven years at that point in time, when we stopped in front of that car parked at the curb, with the doors open and the radio blasting some sort of classical funereal music.
As we approached, the music suddenly stopped and a very grave voice could be heard stating:
"Do not move away from your radio. A very important communiqué for the country will be issued shortly. It is absolutely imperative that you don't move away from the radio. A crucial announcement will be made shortly."
Ike looked at me with apprehension as we approached the car.
"Do you think it has something to do with Timisoara?" he asked.
We heard some rumors in the days before that some sort of revolt was taking place in Timisoara, a city in Transylvania, a northwest region of Romania.
We heard from Radio Free Europe, as well as from the Voice of America, that a certain Hungarian Catholic priest had refused a direct order to leave his congregation and had barricaded himself in a certain church, and the faithful had formed a human wall outside ready to give their lives to protect his.
We also heard that the Government had dispatched an entire brigade of Securitate—the Romanian version of KGB—in order to control the situation, but things had degenerated badly, and the revolt was spreading in the entire region of Transylvania coming down southward towards us.
Of course we didn't quite believe everything, because we didn't dare to hope. Too many times we heard rumors of revolts and revolutions and thought, maybe "this is the one" that will overthrow the "pigs," causing the entire enchilada to collapse once and for all.
We knew that something was up because the dictator, Ceausescu, left Romania a couple of days earlier on an official visit to Iran.
Also, for the first time during his presidency and I believe also for the first time during the Communist dictatorship, they actually acknowledged something was going on in Transylvania.
The Communists were notorious for covering up the truth about the events that may appear in the slightest bit unfavorable to them.
So, censorship was not only part of their ideology, it was and is embedded in their DNA! They constantly lied, changed, and modified the reality in order to suit their own purposes. So for them to acknowledge that any anti-governmental incident was taking place was a historic event.
Naturally, they diluted everything in typical Communist fashion.
Their version of the events was that "some rowdy hooligans had created some disturbance in Timisoara."
As we were standing there waiting, some more people gathered around. The person who owned the car sat in the driver's seat with a glazed expression on his face, which I assume is how we must have all been looking.
I felt overwhelmed with wave after wave of emotions: hope, anxiety, and a sense of expectation.
Then suddenly that classical funereal music stopped, and the same grave voice of the announcer came on.
"The dictator Ceausescu left the Central Committee Palace together with his wife Elena. The Communist Party had fallen, together with the Communist dictatorship. We are free! We are free at last! Any citizen who hates communists, and the dictator, any citizen who loves freedom, democracy, and free-market should help us gain control of the infrastructure of this country. Please go to your local Central Committee of the Communist Party, and arrest the local Communist state secretary and his or her staff. Also go to the local police stations and Securitate (the local KGB) and arrest every single staff member you encounter. Every citizen is being deputized in order to perform a citizen's arrest. Please find a TV and watch for updates. This is a revolution against the dictatorship of the Communist Party. A few ex-dissidents and intellectuals are gathering together as we speak in order to form a temporary government that will administer the country. In addition, they will not stop until they capture and punish the criminal communists, betrayers of the Romanian people for more than forty-seven years. Go to your local branch of the Communist Party and take it over. Wait for instructions; we will update you as we know more."
"The dictator Ceausescu left the Central Committee Palace...."
We looked at each other with incredulity and fear, we looked at each other with tears in our eyes, with hopes and expectations, with regrets for our parents and grandparents, and for all our friends and acquaintances who had died over the years, and never lost the tenacity and determination and hope that The Evil ... one day would be defeated.
The Evil was dying!—Or so we thought—Regardless, that was a moment to be savored!
For a few seconds, time ceased to exist. It was an incredible feeling, almost impossible to describe. Imagine someone giving you the news with absolute certainty that you have won a billion dollars, payable all in one payment, and tax-free! And by the way ...! As an added bonus you will receive an injection that will prolong your life with 1000 years, disease-free ... and it will lock you at the age you are in that moment ...
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dust in the Wind by C. Nick Potcovaru Copyright © 2011 by C. Nick Potcovaru. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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