The Secret of Dr. Honigberger - Mircea Eliade

Imola's Other Translations

''What was scaring me more in this discovery of mine – that I was awake whiles asleep – was the feeling that the world next/ around me was completely changing, and that it no longer resembled, in any way, that of the daily consciousness. It is very hard for me to depict the way that I was feeling/ perceiving this change, because my mind I had projected as a whole, like one fascicle/ bundle only on the fire, and my senses were asleep. Yet, it was as if I were in a different space where there was no need top watch in order to see, and I was seeing the room I was in, the objects, the shapes, the colours, gradually changing. All that happened then is above all explanation; however, I shall attempt to describe it as well as I can/ do my best to describe it, as no one, as far as I know, ever dared to reveal through writing such an experience. I was ceaselessly watching the fire, not as a pretext for hypnotic trance, as I had long enough studied hypnotism to know its technique and effects. Whiles watching, thinking over the fire, I was assimilating it, entering with my mind my own body, identifying all its types of combustion within. Therefore, it was no jammed thinking, only a thinking that was one, to put it otherwise, it was not broken down into more than one direction, it was not demanded by more than one object, it was distracted by no outside stimulus ore by no piece of recollection projected as an éclat from the subconscious.

This thinking, unique, had in fire only its prop; still, with this thinking I would enter anywhere I had to identify fire. Thus, hypnosis was completely out ruled; moreover, since I was incessantly lucid; I knew who I was, why I was in such a position, why I was making my breathing be rhythmic, what was the purpose of my meditating on fire.

And, all these considered, I would realize, at the same time, that I was in some other space, in some other world. I could no longer feel my head; only the uncertain warmth of my head, warmth which, in time, disappeared as well.  Thing looked as if they were continuously flowing, nonetheless without their profile altering too much. At first, one could have said that you were seeing everything as if through a stream of water in continuous movement, yet the comparison was anything but accurate. Things were actually flowing: some slower, some very fast. Still, one could not say where they were flowing towards, and by what miraculous process their substance never ran dry due to such overflow beyond their natural casing. Although, to try to give a more precise account on my vision, it was not a brimming over the casing of the object, rather it was its covering that was spilling over endlessly.''

Midsummer Night / The Forbidden Forest - Mircea Eliade

Imola's Other Translations

''Part I

He opened the door as slowly as he could and turned on the light. The room was warm; it smelled like dust; The shades on the windows were lowered. Aside the bed there was a large wooden table burdened with books, almost all of which were new, some leaves uncut yet. On the other wall leaned a flimsy bookcase, as if made by an amateur, it too filled with books.

-What would you like to become? he heard the voice of the woman in the neighbouring room. Would you like to become an M.P.?...

”He is with Arethia”, he said to himself and headed, tiptoe, towards the bed. Since Spiridon Vădasţra had moved next door, he would enter nervously in his hotel room. Almost every night Vădastra had visitors. The walls were made of framework/half-timber and conversations could be fully overheard. In a few weeks, he had found out much about Vădastra. He had found out that he had recently obtained his Ph.D in Law and that he was director of a newspaper, The Student’s Momentum, which was being subsidized by The Police District Attorney. He found out that his associate and the administrator/ manager of the newspaper, a “nobody” called Voinea, had run away to Iaşi with the entire subsidy for the fallowing issue: 50 000 lei. He had known about Miss Arethia previously; he had caught a glance at them both a few times. Spiridon Vădastra was a meagre young man, black monocle, thorny hair and arrogant walk, of a man sure of himself; he was exactly as Ştefan had imagined him whiles listening to him. Arethia seemed ageless: she was lean, had colourless hair, cheek bones pronouncedly make-up and thin lips. When she smiled, she would close her eyes out of coquetry. Each time Ştefan met her on the stairs, he would catch her pulling down her blouse so as to contour her meagre chest.

-Who?! Me?! Vădastra raised his voice. Anyone can become an M.P. Even a man like Voinea can become an M.P…

-Then, secretary of state?! Arethia snapped.

MIRCEA ELIADE 6 

- Maybe, Spiridon answered after a short wavering. Yet, what does it mean to be secretary of state?! One is here today, in the graveyard tomorrow. Later you go to the opposition and who knows when your turn will come again…Yes, it is good to be secretary of state, he added. I might become one…Yet, at any rate, what matters if one is secretary of state when there are so many other things?!...

- What other things?!

-Great things! Spiridon exclaimed, strange exclamation in voice. Things that cannot be done by anyone. To discover the North Pole, for instance! Had it not been discovered yet, I would have set out on an expedition, alone, and after years of struggle, I would have discovered it!...This, indeed! All newspapers would have written about me, all kings would have invited me at their courts; I would have become member of academies all round the world! And many more!

“His regrets are getting the best of him” Stefan had understood listening to the elongated silence from next door. It was just as it had been that evening when he had told about his defeat in high school: he told how the curtain was lowered unexpectedly whiles he was playing the Sonata Pathétique on the National Theatre stage because the History teacher’s conference had lasted for too long and the programme needed be reduced by half an hour.

“But why should they reduce precisely my performance?! Vădastra had cried out. Why did I have to be precisely the one whose performance had to be reduced, I who was a prize winning student and a “somebody”?!...I had wanted to make them a surprise. Nobody knew that I had taken up playing the piano. Only Mrs. Zissu knew, as I would practice at her place, for three, four hours a day and I would pay her fifteen lei an hour. Yet all were envious of me. It did not suit them that I had learned this also: to play the piano. I was the best at Writing and Latin, and now I had even learned to play the piano!...”

That night, Ştefan was still to find out that Vădastra had a glass eye and was missing two of his fingers on his right hand. It was only few days ago that he had mentioned the accident: the son of a colonel had shot him by mistake whiles playing with a rifle. Back then, the colonel had given him a large amount of money. Even since he was in hospital, Vădastra had decided on the way he was going to avenge himself: he was going to take up playing the piano, to show the others the little he cared about “the accident”. For a man like him, there were no such things as obstacles. It was then, whiles searching for a piano to rent by the hour, that he had met Mrs. Zissu…

-Fine, but what can you do from this point on?! Arethia finally asked him.

-What?! What can I do?! If one truly wants something, if one wants it with all ones might, one succeeds. And there is no need to stay in Romania. What matters Romania?! It is a small country. However, fancy being in America and accomplishing something great! Something no one had done before, something only you can do! Just imagine, to discover something like Radium, something a thousand times more important than Radium!...I would become the most famous man in the world, and the strongest, and the richest, all at once. What would someone like Edison mean when compared to me?!   

7 MIDSUMMER NIGHT

-All would tremble at the sound of my name! I could do as I pleased with the entire world; change even kings, if I wanted.

-…It’s a pity it has already been discovered, Arethia whispered after a pause. Radium, I mean; it’s a pity that it has already been discovered, she repeated with somewhat more courage.

-What does that have to do with it?! Spiridon exclaimed. How many more things can there still be discovered/ There are many more things to be discovered yet! And, besides this, how many more great things are there left to be done?! But, not just like that, a whatever invention, as others do. Something extraordinary, something unique, something that everyone would talk about. To discover, for instance, a new continent or something else! Look, for example, to discover a substance by means of which all one touches would turn into gold!...

-It cannot be! This is the story of that king who…You know what I mean…,yet it cannot be.

-But why should it not be possible?! Spiridon answered more stirred up. Chemistry can do anything. It is a matter of atoms. All one has to do is to change the number of the atoms. And, one day, someone will discover it as many other have been discovered…But what is this to me?! It would have been beautiful should I have discovered it!...A substance that turns to gold all it touches. For instance, I now touch this chair and it would turn to gold! Do you realize what this would mean?! I would become master of the world! I could buy anything, all palaces, all museums. I would buy the Louvre and bring it into my home! And many more! All would tremor at the thought of I! I would pass by on the street and, should it seem to me that someone did not salut me with sufficient respect, I would call a sergeant and order him to arrest him immediately! What could anyone do to me? Should I want, I could even hill him! Yet I would not kill anyone. I am only telling you this for you to see what power I would have and how everyone would fear me. They would know, then, how to treat me. They would know who Spiridon Vădastra is. It would be enough for someone to speak my name so that all turn their heads. When I would enter some place or another, a restaurant, I mean, all would rise to their feet...and many more...

Silence was set once more, abruptly. Only a night moth awoke all of a sudden and began spinning round the light bulb. Whiles searching for a piano to rent by the hour, it was that he had met Mrs. Zissu. Vădastra should have been 15-16 years old back then; Mrs Zissu may have been his first love. He would always talk about her, but he had never described her, he had not alluded to her age, he had not even said wether she was beautiful. He realized that his door was being knocked at, but he did not answer. “It is a mistake, he said to himself; the light on the corridor might have burnt and someone must have mistaken the number of the room.”

-It seems that someone is knocking on the door, he heard Arethia say.

-The knocking is not here, Vădastra said. It is next door…the knocking was heard once more, more powerful.

-Come in, Ştefan shouted.

MIRCEA ELIADE 8 

I was the door attendant. He rested in the doorway, politely, almost absent, looking nowhere, and handed in a pair of gloves.

-The chauffeur brought them just now. He said that they belong to the lady you were with and that he had returned from the Brătianu statue to bring them. I gave him a hundred lei…Ştefan took the gloves and stared at them, concentrated, frowning.

-Why will you not open the window? The door attendant spoke again. You will get sick. It is very warm here, in your room…

-What lady? Ştefan asked. Yet that instant he remembered and brightened up.

-Oh, yes, I know, he said. Wait…he sought in his wallet and handed him a bill.

-Might you give me a book to read as well, the door attendant said after having thanked him whiles carefully folding the bill. Ştefan had set towards the wall bookcase and randomly glanced at the shelves.

-But is he even sure that the gloves are hers? he suddenly asked.

-He said that he had returned from the statue of the Brătianu to bring them. He said that they belong to the lady you were with…I would like a beautiful novel, he added in lowered voice, smiling.

After the door attendant left, book under arm, infinite care, almost fright, Ştefan remained in the centre of the room, listening. There were no more voices coming from the neighbouring room. He came near the window and opened it wide. A smell of freshly watered garden came to great him.

“I still have time left, he said to himself leaning on the window. It is not midnight yet…”

…The girl had shrouded her shoulders and smiled. In the moonlight, her cheek seemed even more burnt by the sun and her hair had gained a dim shine, like that of old metal.

-I do not understand you, she said. I cannot tell wether you are joking or you truly believe…

Stealthily, above them, the sky had diminished its brightness. A star rises, lonely, on crown of the woods.  

-All types of miracles could occur, he continued without looking at her. Nevertheless, someone must teach you how to look on them so as to know that they are miracles. Otherwise, you will not even see them. You pass them by and do not know that they are miracles. You do not see them…

-I am sorry that I cannot fallow you, she spoke eventually. I would have liked to understand you…

-Some say that this night, at midnight exactly, the skies open up. I do not understand how they could open up, but that is what it is said: that on Midsummer Night the skies open up.

9 MIDSUMMER NIGHT

-Yet, it may be that they open up only for whom has knowledge on how to watch them…

-I do not understand anything, she said. I do not understand…

He flinched and emotionally broke away from the window. The gloves were still on the bed, as he had left them. He brought them near her nostrils. It seems as if they were not hers, he said to himself, bemused. It seems not to be her perfume…

When he had kindled his lighter to light his cigarette, he noticed that her eyes were not green, as he had thought them to be; they seemed so because her cheek was sunburnt, but the colour of her eyes was more of a light green, gold embedded. Her too red mouth and her too white teeth, shining, unveiled by the shyest smile, would light up her face even more.

-I have been listening to you speak all evening long, Ileana began distractedly playing with the lighter, and I do not understand why are you prolonging this joke. Why did you not tell me that you are a writer and that your name is Ciru Partenie?...

He looked at her confusedly, forcing himself to answer her smile with the same smile.

-I could not tell you this because I am no writer and my name is Ştefan Viziru. To be exact: Ştefan I. Viziru, as my father’s name was Ioan...

Short gesture, Ileana bent her forehead. That moment, Stefan remembered, all of a sudden, effortless, what he had been stiffing to remember all those past days: where had he seen before that strange hair colour, which was neither black, nor blue, nor silvery? Now he knew: it was the colour of a rare species of pansy, which he had admired, enchanted, when, as a child, his family had just arrived in the Capital, and he was first taken to Cişmigiu Park. This discovery brightened him up.

-I have only been in Bucharest for a few months now, Ileana spoke again. I know almost no one. And I have read nothing signed by Ciru Partenie. I had barely heard anything about him. However, when I entered the restaurant, I saw someone eyeing you: “There’ Partenie, too, he said. I am surprised to see him coming around here. He may be having a date!...” And all evening long I noticed how so many curious eyes were seeking the sight of you. You were recognized, my dear master! It is useless to keep hiding!...

Ştefan settled himself with silently watching her.

-Are you really upset? Ilaena continued. I heard this when I was entering, near the door; it was beyond my will. And I felt quite intimidated during the entire evening…

-I assure you that I am not Ciru Partenie, he calmly interrupted her, almost gravely. Look, if you need my offering you a proof...

He began searching both pockets at once. He found an envelope and handed it to her. Yet he swiftly took it back and handed her a passport.

-It also has a photograph, he said. It is the best proof of my identity...

She opened it and read the name aloud:

MIRCEA ELIADE 10

- Ştefan Viziru. Thirty-four years old? You do not look your age...

He had approached her without saying who he was or what his name was.

-Look, he began, pointing to the woods, there used to be ponds around these places.

She suddenly turned her head and shuddered to see him so close to her. She had not felt him drawing near. She had heard no footsteps fallowing her. He was a tall man, stoutly built, yet slender, almost tender, and the brightness of his smile had intimidated her.

-...instead of these woods, there used to be ponds. Here is where I used to come with the fellows when I was a child...

He was always talking. Talking about the ponds around Bucharest, about the trees he had seen being planted. He would mostly talk about his childhood.

-...in high school, I had a hedgehog I had grown friends with. When I would come to see him, he would sense me from afar and would come out to meat me half way...

He stopped and suddenly turned his head away. Then he brushed his hand through his hair and looked at her furtively, shy smile, bemused.

-It is curious, he added, but I cannot tell what it is. You have a strange accent, almost foreign...

-I grew up away from my home county and I learned Romanian later in my life. But I learned it on the estate, alongside peasants...

-I once read a book, he continued as if he had not been listening to her, a book about a youth who was searching for snakes and who was talking to them. I am certain that these things are possible. Yet someone must teach you...My hedgehog, for instance, would roll over in front of me, would hide away his spikes and would let me caress him on his stomach. I am sure that I could have learned much from him, but I did not know how to talk to him...

The sun had set. A smell of freshly harvested hay had started to reach all the way to them.

-If you want to, we could stay here for a little while, he said to her.

Both sat down on the grass, face towards the woods.

-I am sorry for this, he started talking, late, but I have to ask you something...

He stopped for a moment, muddled, and looked at her. He felt his looks going beyond her, further away, without seeing her.

-You probably have no car. You might have come all the way to Jianu highway by tram or by bus.

She started laughing.

-By bus, she said. Should have I come by car?

-I suspected this, he whispered. I suspected you have no car...

He had risen to his knees, in the grass, and had drawn near her. He no longer seemed that young, yet he seemed more handsome this way; his straight brow, pale and smooth, bare temples, his large mouth, calm, contrasting with the heat of his looks and the clear shine of his teeth.[...]''

The Lustration Law in Post-communist Romania. Where the Idea Came from. What it achieved

Defined as social and political cleansing, lustration aims at eliminating members of the former Communist political police (Securitatea) from any public office. Thus, according to the intent spread out in all former Communist countries after the 1989 revolutions, no one who had been involved with the secret police, either as member or informer, was allowed to participate in the justice or political system (these were the main fields, yet others were taken into consideration, as, say, the University). The problem, however, is whether this is even remotely possible. In order to see just which are the chances of such  a project to be truly, and not simply apparently, set into motion, in Romania, we shall look into what the process itself involved, the various stages of the Lustration Law,from its prime idea as early as 1989 until the year 2010.

To begin, we must bear in mind Gabriel Liiceeanu’s „Aple către lichele“ (Liiceanu 1-2) We shall use this text as one standing for all of similar origin and function of the time. And from it, we shall see what was the attitude of the Romanian intelligentsia after December 1989, what was the purpose of their discourses, the aim of their rhetoric, and, of course, the possible (or impossible) outcome.

Therefore, Liiceanu’s December 30^th 1989 text advices those who know to have been part of the Communist regime, part of the Securitate, to withdraw from the public sphere for a while, to let the blood spilt in the Revolution drain, dry, and only then, with unbearable shame, dare look up, bearing their stigmata. Do so, and you shall be loved is the message sent to those fallen in disgrace. In other words, time shall bring forgetting and, with it, forgiving. We may easily assign more than one meaning to these words: as a promise of salvation in the long run, or as a social freeing on the short term. If obeyed, it would have managed to enact lustration itself, a lustration born of morality (minima moralia), and not imposed by law, even if only for a limited period of time. As such, it would have eliminated naturally those who no longer deserved to be part of the leading class, disregarding their function or domain of activity. In fact, the quilt ones would have acted as their own fair judges, would have seen their crimes and self-imposed punishment. However, this would imply to admit to oneself one’s guilt, to have the lucidity, the honesty, and the morality to claim one’s shortcomings and culpability.

Thus, society would no longer be fenced by the old regime, yet free to develop genuinely, while the accountable ones would patiently await their forgiveness. In keeping their distance, they would expiate their blame, they would purge their sins. Or at least this seems to be Liiceanu’s message. One thing to be take into consideration here is the immense number of the intellectuals who, after the Revolution (as much as it was one, shortly turned into a coup d’état, and also a imagined and directed revolution – see Barbu, 1997, 64-75), openly admitted to be anticommunist, turning the opposition to Communism into a fashionable and compulsory attitude (Barbu, 2004 108).   However, it is only through confession that this can be achieved, for a mistake admitted is half forgotten whereas nowadays anticommunists tend to seek out the eliminating of the very memory of the past (Barbu, 2004 111), and not the remembering, as if to move forward is only to leave the past behind.

Thought of as social and moral purging, lustration aims at building a new political and economic order by eliminating the old one, considered perilous – as seen by Dragoș Petrescu, in „Dilemas of Transitional Justice in Post-1989 Romania“ (Dvorakova, Milardovic 127). Once Communism ended, it was mandatory to change the very roots of Romanian society so as to prevent the past from returning, to give the country a chance at a fresh start, one not smudged by the old regime. In a way, this was what Liiceanu was suggesting, that the old leaders be set aside and new ones be allowed to surface, some who had not been part and supporters of the old doctrine. After a totalitarian regime, drastic measures needed to be taken to ensure a genuine democratic system. One of these measures had to be the eliminating from the social structures of those highly involved with the old rule, the political police, the Securitatea.

However, we find that, years after the Revolution, the lustration has remained a mere project, a chimera meant to enchant and give a false sense of security and liberty. And its effects and possibility to better the evolution of the Romanian society at this point can be easily contested. It might just come too late to bring any difference. [1] The deed is done.

As such, the idea of a Lustration Law began to actually take shape as late as 2005, and even then, on a small scale. Meant to commemorate the dead and propose a moral attitude towards the horrors of the old government, the lustration is still struggling to be turned to reality. The lustrati are only a handful on politicians, generals, etc, out of which many appealed and most were acquitted. As recently as march-august 2010, the condemning of the Communist regime is still to take shape. Sixteen years after the Timișoara Proclamation, Communism is still allowed. On March 11^th 1990, a formal version of Liiceanu’s „Apel către lichele“ had been written down in the form of the Timișoara proclamation. The greatest issue on the Proclamation’s agenda, and the one considered to be unacceptable, though never admitted as such, was the infamous 8^th order of business: the lustration of public institutions of former Communist militants, in an attempt to achieve a moral cleansing. Yet, it was only on December the 18^th 2006 that Romanian’s President officially condemned Communism.

If the 187/1999 Law was never truly put to use, the 2006 Lustration Law was confronted with numerous obstacles as well. It was only in March 2010 that it was first accepted, and even then, shortly after, declared as unconstitutional. The flaw of this later law, besides the fact it comes too late (it was meant to take effect immediately, and keep party members from ruling the country still, yet now many have already retired - It also seems to carefully select those who should be threatened, and those who should be kept afloat, masterfully carving out along precise lines to mould guilt and punishment) was that, unlike its predecessor, it aimed at punishing collective guilt, not simply sanctioning individual responsibility. (Dvorakova, Milardovic 148). However, what Romania chooses to obnubilate, was that lustration, as limitation of individual freedom, is constitutional when in the general best interest. A marvellous example, in this case, is that of Check Republic, where the lustration process not only began shortly after the Revolution, yet it was, and is up to this day, one of the most drastic, imposing that anyone born before 1971, prior to applying for any public office, is to be investigated.

On a moral level, when discussing the implementation of the lustration law, we must keep present the possibility that the guilty be pardoned. Is it possible to love those who have wronged to such an extent? Can Liiceanu’s promise of forgiveness be believed and accomplished? Was is truthful, or mere words cast in the wind? Or is it that, like Oedipus, they have no forgiveness and no punishment is enough? As we have mentioned when first discussing „Apel către lichele,“ forgiveness looks as if possible. That is, the message might be interpreted as: stay low for a while and we shall love you once again. The same can be said about the lustration. The Law forbade those found guilty to candidate for office for three mandates. After that, the imprisonment, understood as a form of restriction of an individual’s freedom is over, they are free to carry on with their lives. How can this be seen as unconstitutional when the same happens in the case of common convicts who have their liberty restricted, confined? In the one case, the guilty is confined outside candidature and office, in the other, outside society. And all because the general wellbeing of society surpasses personal good. Besides, a crime is punishable through law: how can it be unconstitutional? From this perspective, the Nurnberg process was as horrible (or even the more) as the Holocaust itself! And this is the same view that makes the Lustration Law unconstitutional. And to think that, unlike the Nurnberg process, the lustration process condemns no one, neither to incarceration, nor to death. 

Eventually, the obsession is, as is in the case of any horror, that the events never be forgotten, that the memory prevails, so as to prevent it from happening once more, history from repeating itself: „information opposes disorder, communication is the remedy for the entropy that brings torment into the world [...] modern communication ideologies prosper on this historical background, invoking memory (evidently forgotten by today’s actors)  of the secret  that stood at the origin of the shoah and the necessity to never let silence cover the world. [...] In this context, the sin is to communicate poorly; even the more condemnable, impossible to be forgiven even, is to be quiet“ (le Breton 14-15).

Interestingly enough, in 2010, the issue of condemning Communism, as was Nazism, is still unresolved. One argument, at one point, was a statistical one: 10 million people were killed world wide in the name of Nazism, and it had been banned; in comparison, 100 million died on account of Communism, and yet there exists a great level of hesitation in banning it. „What is, yet, the use of these somewhat cynical calculations, when an elementary moral tells us that it would not take millions of victims for a political regime to discredit itself permanently. Eventually – and in the order of discourse, not political responsibility – it shall never be possible for the counting of the victims shall to be precise and, in the end, it is relevant only for the place that these numbers occupy in the Post-Communist imagination. It is not as much the number of those eliminated and persecuted that may qualify a political regime, yet the repressive processes. […] The death of a single innocent should trial conscience with as much force as the extermination of thousands of innocent people“ (Barbu, 2004 98). Following the mathematical consideration, there should about ten times as many reasons to reject Communism. Therefore, why the hesitation? Why is Communism still not on the back list, and why is the lustration process still inefficient? Could it be that the disgraced (lichelele) think themselves forgiven?

And yet, in some cases, lustration seems to take from the rich, and give to the poor, to take the advantages of the old privileged, and give them to the victims. What it does, is to reverse the wheel, and maintain the initial discrimination. And here we may see the similarities with the positive discrimination process imposes by political correctness in an attempt to right the wrongs of the past. However, what it fails to understand is that in so doing it only perpetuates the social fragmentation that first led to hatred and discrimination, instead of helping integrate minorities and achieve social unity. Another attitude was to be found, for instance, in Hungary, where those in guilt could be pardoned and allowed to maintain their function on condition that they openly accept the past. In a way, the idea was present in Romania under the name of self-lustration. The principles behind it are two: on the one hand, an error admitted as such is half forgiven and, on the other hand, since the public is informed about a person’s past, it can taken decision starting from there. Indirectly, this would also help preserve the memory of the past regime, of its downfalls and abuses.

One could just say, in the light of Liiceanu’s text, that what was being asked from the former Communist supporters was to willingly lower themselves in a limbo, and there await their revival, the chance that the newly freed Romanian society would undoubtedly offer them to re-emerge and be loved.

There are two issues to be taken in consideration, though: the matter of guilt and that of the possibility of forgiveness. On the one hand „can one claim that, when freedom is missing the denial to participate in the rites of serfdom, the responsibility for one’s own acts and the solidarity with the victims of repression are also, necessarily, absent?“ (Barbu, 2004 109).  In a different context, Jaspers sees quilt in accepting the merging with the crowd, in losing one’s individuality and sense of responsibility in the mob. And yet, he mentions, one can only be morally forced to act against the general flow if, and only if, the result would be favourable, and not mere self-mutilation (Jaspers 64-65). In the end, when authority seems to be coming out of the barrel of a gun (Arendt 141), to revolt seems hardly at hand, and hardly wise. Eventually, „the graves quilt, the one that cannot be annulled by no transition, was not the collaborationism – outspoken or confidential – of a number of people, yet the state of moral immigration in which, for five decades, the greatest part of the Romanian society hid. [...] After December ’89, it seemed that the entire society had just returned from exile, voided of its memory, without heroes and scoundrels, without victims and guilt. Unlike the Germans and Italians after the war [...], the Romanians – like other East-Europeans for that matter – seem to be the bearers of no collective trauma. I have only done my duty.“ (Barbu, 1997 66). The problem of guilt, duty and blind obedience surfaces in the case of Romanian Communism as it did in the case of the Holocaust. In both cases, the torturer could claim that duty prevailed above all, above family, friendship, morality. From an outsider’s view, this can be easily challenged, yet studies have shown it possible. It is no longer see as an anomaly for an individual to obey orders when the responsibility is taken over by a superior. Such an experiment was held in the U.S.A. by Philip Zimbardo, who later published the results in his work, The Lucifer Effect. Understanding How Good People Turn Bad.[2]

The second would be whether forgiveness is truly possible. What is preferable, to let the dust settle, the past rest in peace, or stir it up, dig it out, punish the guilty? Some voices see the latter attitude as unacceptable, and, let it be said, immoral.

Nonetheless, the issue of lustration remains. We have seen in the case of the Check Republic how drastic, and how prompt it can be. And we have seen in the case of Romania how late it becomes reality. Truth be said, given the current state of affairs, time needs still to pass before the lustration process takes effect. As long as this law shall be brought to trial and declared unconstitutional, whiles in a number of countries even tougher versions function, and while even the European Court for Human Rights found it that it was in the state’s right to limit individual freedom, in any form, if in the best interest of the state and its citizens, the Lustration Law will be a mere joke.

Bibliography

Hannah Arendt. Crizele republicii. București: Humanitas, 1999

Daniel Barbu. Șapte teme de politică românească. București: Antet, 1997

Daniel Barbu. Republica absentă. București : Nemira, 2004

David le Breton. Despre tăcere. București: All, 2001

Karl Jaspers. The Question of German Guilt. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000

Vladimira Dvorakova, Andelko Milardovic [eds.]. Lustration and Consolidation of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Central and Eastern Europe. Zagreb: Political Sciece Research Center, 2007

Gabriel Liiceanu. Apel către lichele. București: Humanitas, 1996

Philip Zimbardo. The Lucifer Effect. Understanding How Good People Turn Bad. New York: Random House, 2007

Brochure

Ne împăcăm cu comunismul? Legea lustrației în dezbatere publică. Institutul de investigare a crimelor comunismului, 2007

Articles (in Romanian)

http://www.ziare.com/ccr/stiri-ccr/senatorii-juristi-au-dat-raport-negativ-legii-lustratiei-1042122

www.sojust.ro/uploaded/sojust%20lustratie.doc

15 Aprilie 2005, Observatorul cultural, http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-arhiva-1232065-posibila-lustratie.htm

Lavinia Stan, „Modele de lustrație“ 8 September 2006, Revista 22,  http://www.revista22.ro/modele-de-lustratie-3036.html

Victor Babiuc, „Ne trebuie o lege a lustrației?“ 12 July 2007, Jurnalul, http://www.jurnalul.ro/stiri/politica/ne-trebuie-o-lege-a-lustratiei-print-97021.html.

Anca Simina, „Lustraţie la picior de lemn: nimeni nu se simte în pericol“ 30 Aprilie 2010, Evenimentul Zilei, http://www.evz.ro/detalii/stiri/lustratie-la-picior-de-lemn-nimeni-nu-se-simte-in-pericol-893637.html

Andreea Nicolae, Elena Vijulie, „Cine se opune Legii Lustraţiei?“ 30 Aprilie 2010, România Liberă, http://www.romanialibera.ro/actualitate/politica/cine-se-opune-legii-lustratiei-185045.html

Dan Alexe, „Despre lustrație, avem oare dreptul să uităm?“ 27 May 2010, România Liberă, http://www.romanialibera.ro/opinii/comentarii/despre-lustratie-sau-avem-oare-dreptul-sa-uitam-187855.html

Viorel Padima, „Dacă s-a interzis fascizmu’, de ce nu s-a interzice și comunismu’?“ 14 July 2010, http://viorelpadina.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/daca-s-a-interzis-fascizmu-de-ce-nu-s-ar-interzice-si-comunizmu-idea/

---

[1] Victor Babiuc, „Ne trebuie o lege a lustrației?“ http://www.jurnalul.ro/stiri/politica/ne-trebuie-o-lege-a-lustratiei-print-97021.html.

[2] Philip Zimbardo. The Lucifer Effect. Understanding How Good People Turn Bad. New York: Random House, 2007. See especially pp. 269-272, 284-285, 299-300, where he presents the statistics, both predicted and real.

If You Seek for El Dorado

[Imola: if you seek the impossible, do so until the end of time, let nothing stop, not even the awareness of your own death, and of the futility of your search - for all you know, you might just find what you are in search for...call it a means to illusion yourself for nothing, to lie to yourself so as not to give up, or the key to success...it makes little difference]

Edgar Allan Poe's El Dorado

Gaily bedight,
A gallant night
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of El Dorado.

But he grew old --
This knight so bold --
And -- o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like El Dorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow --
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be --
This land of El Dorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied --
"If you seek for El Dorado."

Silence

[Imola's Lines]

Since there is no meaning to words,

Since words equal void,

Can there be any words for thoughts

If thoughts are not void?

Assuming words might mean,

Thought may be words,

Were ears be deaf

Would there be any words?

Were ears able to hear,

And words to express,

And were thoughts not void

Would there be any words of mutes?

*

The Ear hears, the Mouth speaks,

The Words mean, Thought is –

Or so we proudly assume and claim –

Yet there is no mind to grasp them.

*

Can there be any words for Thought?

Urban Readings or Book Clubs

There is a new way to claim that you are reading: you form a harem on a social site and all, as if lead by the nose, like an army aligning for battle, set out to read. Let is be serious about it, has not the pathetic nature of our actions reached ineluctable peaks already? Could there be any need for more? Do we truly need to gather ourselves up on the streets, in the park, in some cottage and read? Read? Evidently, those who shepherd the sheep do gain a drop of image and publicity, as they lead away obedient toy soldiers. First of all, someone who truly reads needs not to be hold by the hand in order to read, needs not to be set on the tracks, to be prepared and initiated in any way, to be set in attack positions.

All packs attack out of weakness, not out of strength and shiver, a perfect reader never reads under two half-wits uselessly beating about the bush, lost between two sheets of paper. Culture is not born on the streets, even if it does, yet not moulded, stimulated, yet on its own strength, naturally, from the simple fact of being is accordance with the wish of wanting to learn something. This is how the principle should be cultivated, the two cent rule of clean culture. Culture is not represented by masses, people brought and set into positions, puppies drooling with indolence; the herd can only amplify and monumentalize - as Gustave le Bon wisely said - stupidity and a rush after the bombastic.

  

The original here.

On Being Always Right

[Imola's Quotes]


The way of a fool is always right in his own eyes! (Ter Ellingson)

Promisses

In the cradle of lies you shall find my promise, your promise, our promise as well. I do not believe in promises, and this is not because I might be distrustful of people, as one might say at first sight, but because man distrusts even himself, what he shall do the following day, or the day after. Thus, let us come back down to earth, to our real world, cold and beautiful, if we want to go beyond illusion. If someone does not know what they want, if they have no chance of knowing themselves, why would I trust their uncertainty, why would I start from the premiss that everything is settled, why would I let myself carried away by the wave of a pocket of air? Promises are made to be broken, for it could be no other way. Promises do not help you, they set you on a road led by someone else, by some-other who might lead you by the nose, tempt you with sugar or with salt. Why will we not make our own promises, to find a plan and a solution in the space of our causality? Why do we chase after what lets itself most easily hunted down? Commodity is good, sweet, yet it is also hollow.  It gives short lived miracles, and long term damage. Let us not be humble any more, try to break ourself completely from precarious constructs, and if we do, let us try to see that everything has an end, including our beloved life full of promises.

The original post here.      

You Get What You Deserve and Nothing More

Any tear meant to fade away is destined for monster-faced people. Strong men, those who have wide shoulders and firm fists, those who indicate time by the mere tip of a pencil, are prisoners of their own elasticity, of their supreme potency to place everything against them. They can do so much, and yet so little. In potency, Aristotelian speaking, any individual goes beyond their fault. In fact, any individual only oils himself with a dead potency. There is no land and afterglow to be trodden on, no matter how much we might like to believe there is. We are small, even if we are great, we have needs and and disputes, and we even (ful)fill with significance any smear greedy for an answer. Yet we cannot move mountains out of their roots, we cannot erupt like a vengeance seeking volcano. We have a limit stabbed in our chest, in the bundle of bones that break and scream within us.

The original post here.

What Do Men Want from Women?

Men want few things, and are usually satisfied by little. Let us blame it all on a lack of ingenuity. Let us say that their creativity is not that evolved. In theory, no one should look for something precise in someone else, to wander about after some mask that he himself has rapaciously drawn. Narcissus, as he came to the surface of the water, and could see his reflection, immediately fell in love with it, which, in the end, lead him to his death. But of course! If you seek in a person a particular chimera, all that you do is, like Narcissus, to dive in your own puddle of lies, to cut the very branch on which you are sited. Narcissus would run of all that would cross his path, nothing could touch him, nothing would suffice him, everything would precariously masturbate in his sharp eyes. He had never been ready to love the truth of our banal things. He was a mortal with a godlike face, and thought, he would procure for himself a world drawn in pencil and colours, gathered through thoughts and imagination, an abyssal and ideal world, one that could never come into being on earth. We do the same, as we fight against the projection of our thoughts, we get upset on the person next to us, we run away from him because he does not meet the heights of the standards that we have imposed, the peeks of our fixations with perfection, precisely because he is not ideal, torn from any possible mundane smudge, because he is rooted in this dying, ugly mundane, in the ideal-falsifying world, as Plato would say. Narcissus left us a flower. Maybe we should give ourselves a flower, tell ourselves that its smell comes from here exactly, yet that it could take you there also, beyond and broken from any mundane idea. Maybe we should set means aside and not look for anything else, take everything as it is, and thus drawn ourselves in the ship ripped from the ideal. Were we to understand that life is not the ideal copy of our thought, we would truly reach our needs; maybe in this manner we would write any human moment in blood, and not in ink.

The original post here.

The Task of a Translator

Imola's

Benjamin’s essay aims at defining the task of the translator, what distinguishes a good translation, from a poor one. In doing so, he starts by discussing concepts like fidelity and freedom when attempting to render a literary text in a different language. In fact, he looks for a description of the translator’s duty, in relation to obligation and rights.

Actually, what makes a bad translation? Theories and theorists have claimed that a good translation should aim at retaining the meaning in detriment of syntax. Word by word translation has long been banned. Claims on the relation between the literary / poetic capability and the translation capability of an individual have shifted from one extreme to the other. Some consider that only a great poet shall find the means of trans-lating (as in mathematics, moving a given image at another location, at a 1:1 scale), others that a poet’s talent shall come in the way of fidelity. Which of these bears even the slightest shade of truth in it? To see just this, Benjamin starts his discussion from the very status of the work of art.

Stating that no work of art is meant for the receiver [„No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener“ (15)], he dismisses the older theory that the translator must bear in mind the characteristic of the public for his translation: „If the original does not exist for the reader’s sake, how could the translation be understood on the basis of this premise?“ (16). Moreover, we generally (and lightly) regard as the essential substance of a literary work that which is „in addition to information, the unfathomable, the mysterious, the „poetic,“ something that a translator can reproduce only if he is also a poet (my underlining)“ (15).

Basically leaving aside any prior claim, Benjamin states that, what is important in any translation is the possibility of the original to be translated – its translatability. And what could this consist of? A priori, a literary work has this potential, deeply embedded in its very fibber, and it is the task of the translator not only to see it, yet to understand it, along with its implications. In an attempt to explain this, Benjamin mentions the true language, a universal language, in fact, one that goes beyond language barriers, for it lies underneath language itself, as a lining, linking languages into kingship: „languages are interrelated in what they want to express“ (17).

To translate, thus, is to burrow all the way down to this hidden layer of significance, to conquer it, and bring it back to the surface of language, in yet another tongue. Thus, concepts like loyalty and freedom are brought about in a different light. One is free to stray from meaning, as long as the translation is made to mean the same as the original, as long as it brings about the same fragment of the true language; in other words, one is allowed (and obligated!) „to deviate from the letter of the text in order to render its spirit“ (25).

Walter Benjamin, „The Task of a Translator“, in The Translation Studies Reader, Lawrence Venuti [ed.], Routledge, London and New York, 2000. 

Reminder: One Year Ago

http://nevermore-offshore.blogspot.com/2010/02/wish.html

For those who remember the very first post, and for those who do not...

What is Disillusionment?

There are people who know how to play with your heart and your fire; these puppeteers mix together the human with the thinnest layer of nothingness, the know how to make you cry even when your world is still unripe, humble, meant to win. They are the illustrious puppeteers, men of hidden times, that insist on bringing even the humblest lie in the space of your causality. They suffocate you as they know best, they adore you and they love with their perfid tear, and avid for pain. I can no longer win this fight against them, they are much too cunning, too fast, driven by my fury to kill with authenticity. It may be that in the madness with which I have armed myself, that is to say with the helmet filled with true illusions, I have come to actually support them, to offer them the torch with fire and oceans. Camus said that the absurd is to be found on the meeting ground of man and life, and the world, and the ocean of society. I say it is absurd to cry after tears, to want to love like a fool, like the last sinner run over by the greatest lie, by one of the greatest and most beautiful lie that there is. And, come to think of, what if it is absurd? Does it matter? Whether we try to unveil the world with metaphysical momentum, phenomenological or hermeneutical, whether we thirstily say that everything is absurd, it makes no difference, there is no point in deceiving ourselves with doctrines and epistemic illusions, it only makes sense to lie to ourselves, we anyway do so daily...  

The original article here.