GABRIEL ANDREESCU RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN ROMANIA ETHNOCULTURAL DiVERSITY IN ROMANIA COLLECTION GABRIEL ANDREESCU RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN ROMANIA CENTRUL DE ETHNOCULTURAL RESURSE PENTRU DiVERSITY DiVERSITATE RESOURCE ETNOCULTURALÃ CENTER CLUJ, 2003 RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN ROMANIA Cluj-Napoca: Fundaþia CRDE, 2003 128 p.; 16x23,5 cm ISBN: 973–86239–0–1 I. Andreescu Gabriel ©ETHNOCULTURAL DiVERSITY RESOURCE CENTER Cluj-Napoca, 2003 Series: SYNTHESES Coordinated by Gábor Ádám and Levente Salat Volume 4: RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN ROMANIA Referenced by Lucian Nastasã Translated by Mária Kovács Proofreading by Michael Tchudi and Monica Robotin Index by Monica Robotin Layout by Elemér Könczey Cover and series design by Elemér Könczey TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements.........................................................................................7 I. The Meaning of ”Extremism”......................................................................9 II. Extremist Discourses, Ideologies, and Allegiances.................................13 Extreme Right Movements. The Legionnaire Background Revisionism and the Cult of Marshall Antonescu The Cult of Marshall Antonescu The National Written Press and ”High Culture” in the Promotion of Vi- olent Anti-Minority, Anti-Multicultural Anti-Modern and Xenophobe Discourse III. The Main Extremist Actors: the Romanian Hearth, the Party for the Natio- nal Unity of Romanians (PUNR), and the Greater Romania Party (PRM).........29 The Greater Romania Party The 1999 Tentative Coup IV. Extremist Tendencies within the Romanian Orthodox Church.............35 The Romanian Orthodox Church as a Medium for Extremism /Funda- mentalism The Romanian Orthodox Church and the Contestation of the Rule of Law Submission of the Political Class to the Orthodox Pressure Historical Connections to the Legionnaire Movement The Army and the Orthodox Church V. Laws and Official Bodies for Combating Extremism...............................47 Anti-Extremist Norms Laws for the Protection of National Minorities The Anti-Discrimination System The Ratification of Relevant International Legislation The Enforcement of Available Laws and Norms VI. Factors that Encourage Extremism.........................................................55 1. Romania as a ”Weak State” 1.1. The Romanian Intelligence service and the Weakness of the Democratic State 1.2. The Limits of Central Power at Local Level 2. Mistrust of the Population in the Institutions of Democracy 3. Lack of Transparency 4. Poverty 5 5. Corruption 5.1 Structural Corruption 6. Connection between Poverty, Corruption and Extremism VII. Actors Opposing Extremism in Romania..............................................71 Internal Political Forces Romania's Participation in International Life, as a Major Factor of Limi- ting Extremism Synergy VIII. Conclusions...........................................................................................79 Legislative Measures Measures Concerning the Rule of Law Public Policy Measures The Attitude of the International Community Annexes Annex I ........................................................................................................85 The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) - an Institution that Promotes Ultranationalism SRI Reports The Anti-Hungarian Challenge in the Fall of 2001 Evaluation of the Report of the SRI Control Commission Conclusions Annex II ........................................................................................................99 Emergency Ordinance no. 31 Regarding the Prohibition of Fascist, Racist and Xenophobe Organizations and Symbols Comparison with Other Legal Norms The Cult of Guilty Personalities and Regulations of the Public Space Hate Speech and Distinctions / Non-Distinctions of Emergency Ordi- nance no. 31 Negationism Negationism in an Ex-Communist Country Is It Necessary to Adopt an Anti-Negationist Law? Conclusions Index............................................................................................................117 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The present volume is an elaborate version of the report that I pre- pared within a regional project initiated by the Open Society Institute (Budapest), titled “Monitoring and Combating Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe”. The project was coordinated by Nils Muiznieks, Director of the Latvian Center for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies. The version that was submitted for publication benefited from the comments made by Renate Weber. Preparation of the volume was done with professionalism and a lot of enthusiasm by Lucian Nastasã. The major references in the field of extremism in Romania were the works of Michael Shafir and William Totok. I am grateful to Cas Mudde, co-chair of the European Consortium for Political Research Standing group on Extremism and Democracy (University of Edinburgh), with whom I discussed the national reports. His dedication to the liberal approach of extremism reassured me of my own attitude. 7 I. THE MEANING OF ”EXTREMISM” In his Report prepared for the Political Affairs Committee regarding the threat posed to democracy by the extremist parties and movements in Europe¾1, Rapporteur Henning Gjellerod (Denmark, Socialist Group) distinguished between five categories, depending on the ideologies they represent: I. Extreme left-wing terrorist movements that aim to overthrow the lawful constitutional order by violent means; II. Armed nationalist or independence movements and anti-inde- pendence movements, seeking either to bring about or to prevent seces- sion by particular provinces or ethnic groups; III. Armed Muslim fundamentalist movements and the European branches of fundamentalist parties from the Maghreb region of North Africa and the Middle East; IV. Unreformed communist parties, mainly confined to Central and Eastern Europe, which are opposed to any compromise with the institu- tions established under the democratization process; V. Extreme right-wing parties and movements, which propagate mis- trust of democracy combined with racism and xenophobia and anti- Semitism and revisionism, all to varying degrees. The Rapporteur noted the variety of evolutions and manifestations associated with extremism today in the countries of the Council of Europe; the spectacular growth of the number of nationalist-populist countries in the ‘90s; the importance of “talented demagogues”; the fact that populism and xenophobia are basic weapons of the extremists, unit- ed by their hostility against European integration; their anti-American character, given their anti-liberalism and aversion against anything that is cosmopolitan. 1 Of January 3rd, 2000, cf. http://starts.coe.int/ 9 Gabriel Andreescu: Right-wing extremism in Romania This complex reality suggests that when we choose one particular “conception of extremism”, we should have in mind first and foremost the usefulness of that conception, i.e. its ability to cover the most debil- itating tendencies in one particular country. In the case of Romania, these tendencies are racist, chauvinistic, xenophobic attitudes and their political manifestations. As a consequence, the subject matter of the fol- lowing pages shall be those attitudes that are close to what has been called “hyper-nationalism”¾2 or “ultra-nationalism”. In the case of Roma- nia, the most substantial, effective and dangerous form of extremism has taken the shape of hyper- or ultra-nationalism, i.e., “the belief that other nations or nation-states are both inferior and threatening and must there- fore be dealt with harshly”.¾3 One of the standard questions pertaining to the issue of extremism is whether we are dealing with right-wing or left-wing extremism. This question is doubly relevant in the case of Romania. During its last decades, Romanian communism put on the coat of national-commu- nism, in which anti-Hungarian sentiment played a crucial part. After 1990, ultra-nationalism was spread by communist elites and the most compromised part of the old Securitate forces, as a strategy of re-legiti- mating themselves.¾4 From the point of view of traditional categories, racism, chauvinism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism are considered right-wing attitudes.¾5 The fact that this analysis will look at right-wing attitudes can also be 2 In the sense given to it by John Mearsheimer, “The belief that other nations or nation states are simultaneously inferior and threatening, and therefore must be treated harshly.” (John Mearsheimer: “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War”, International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1, Summer 1990, pp. 55-56. 3 Although present in Romanian literature, the term “hyper-nationalism” is not as common as the “ultra-nationalism” variant. See Valentin Stan, “Nationalism and European Security: Romania’s Euro-Atlantic Integration”, International Studies, Bucharest, No. 1, pp. 27-48; Gabriel Andreescu, Renate Weber, “Nationalism and Its Impact upon the Rule of Law in Romania”, in International Studies, Bucharest, No. 1, pp. 49-64. In his extensive study of Romanian nationalism (Democracy and Nationalism in Romania, 1989–1998, Bucharest, All, 1999) Tom Gallagher refers to ultra-nationalism, as does another reputed analyst of Romanian extremism, Michael Shafir (see his Reports on Eastern Europe and East European Perspectives: www.rferl.org/eepreport/). 4 See Gabriel Andreescu, Ruleta. Români ºi maghiari, 1990–2000, Polirom, Iaºi, 2001. 5 See the definition of one of the European experts on right-wing extremism: “The term ‘extreme-right parties’ refers to political parties