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Romania's 2017 Anti-Corruption Protests #REZIST ROMANIA’S 2017 ANTI-CORRUPTION PROTESTS: CAUSES, DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLICATIONS edited by: Ana Adi and Darren G. Lilleker #rezist – Romania’s 2017 anti-corruption protests: causes, development and implications PUBLISHED BY: Quadriga University of Applied Sciences Quadriga Hochschule Berlin GmbH Cover: www.quadriga-university.com © Adrian Câtu, 2017 documentaria.ro CITATION OF THIS PUBLICATION (APA STYLE): Adi, A., & Lilleker, D.G. (2017). #rezist – Romania’s 2017 anti-corruption protests: causes, development and implications. Berlin: Quadriga University of Applied Sciences. www.romanianprotests.info Short quotation to be used in legends (charts/graphics): Source: #rezist: Romania’s 2017 protests. July 2017. www.romanianprotests.info The text of and illustrations in this document are licensed by Quadriga University of Applied Sciences under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommericial_Share Alike 4.0 Unported license (“CC BY-NC-SA 4.0”). The logos of Quadriga University of Applied Sciences, Quadriga Media GmbH, Bournemouth University and the Center for Public Communication Research are trademarks of each organisation mentioned above, registered in the countries they operate (i.e. Germany, UK). The images included in each chapter of this report are not covered by the current license. Their ownership/copyright/license status is as per the information included in their captions and references included in the endnotes/media links of each chapter. This publication also includes two reprints. The license does not apply to these chapters either - their ownership/copyright is included in the chapter’s endnotes. ISBN 978-3-942263-48-1 doi.org/10.23774/QUAS.RP2017.00 Quadriga Media Berlin GmbH Werderscher Markt 13 D-10117 Berlin Coordination: Ana Adi Design: Jeferson Brito Andrade, Leonie Münch CONTACT: Please contact Ana Adi [email protected] or Darren G. Lilleker [email protected] if you are interested in presentations, workshops, interviews, or further analyses of the insights enclosed in this report. 3 Table of contents 4 #rezist: Lessons from the Romanian 2017 protests Darren G. Lilleker and Ana Adi 12 Particracy against democracy Antonio Momoc 18 Ideological meaning in the 2017 Romanian protests Dumitru Borțun and Bianca Cheregi 24 Romania’s corruption: a short overview Victor Alistar, Irina Lonean and Ruxandra Soare 29_ Romania’s anti-corruption fight: a brief history Victor Alistar, Irina Lonean and Ruxandra Soare 35 The “Revolution of Light” came from darkness Eliza Rogalski 39_ In the name of the law Ramona Ursu 43 The unexpected Romanians: fighting civic apathy with civic energy Cosmin Pojoranu 51 Protester profiles Ana Adi 58 #rezist: February in the Streets – Snapshots of the largest-ever Romanian protest Decat O Revista 63 A new geography of protest in Bucharest Cristian Ciobanu and Duncan Light 68 A tribute to the people and a slap to the politicians who trade justice and Romania.People, keep going! Monica Macovei 73 Fake News claims: a communication strategy Maria Corina Barbaros 78 #Resist on TV. Three Romanian news channels: two different perspectives on the anti-corruption rallies Rodica Melinda Şuțu 84 Here, there and everywhere: how space and images shaped the Romanian #rezist protests Ana Adi 9_0 Romanian protests: Piața Victoriei TV, the civil society‘s voice Adrian Cristian Ionescu and Diana Carmen Ciudin 9_5 Active Facebook Groups during the January – February Movements Ruxandra Boicu 103 Humor as a form of symbolic communication during the February 2017 protests in Romania Brîndușa Armanca 111 Romanian civil society abroad – perspectives from Berlin Alexandra Ioan and Monica Boța-Moisin 116 Some populist discursive aspects of the #Rezist movement Adriana Ștefănel 123 Save Our News (S.O.N) or why is Fake News War everybody’s war Raluca Feher 130 The story of a coup d’etat against the rule of law Tiberiu Pfiszter 138 Beyond #Rezist: the surreal challenges facing Romania’s new civic MPs Dinu-Gabriel Munteanu 145 Romania’s ongoing fight against corruption: growing civil society attempts to wake up all Romanians Peter Gross 152 Resist? Resist! Why and How? Immanuel Wallerstein Romanian protests 2017 Authors: Darren G. Lilleker and Ana Adi 4 #rezist: Lessons from the Romanian 2017 Protests doi.org/10.23774/QUAS.RP2017.01 #rezist: Lessons from the Romanian 2017 Protests Darren G. Lilleker and Ana Adi Protests occur all the time. Most nations of the world leaders of Soviet satellite states, the unwillingness of witness periodic protests. Some are dealt with using state powers to act against the people, the obvious repressive measures. Some are dismissed as representing crumbling of the authority of a state all contribute to a minority views. Some lead to political change. Some go positive outcome. But people have to act. largely ignored. The latter is, perhaps, the least likely The fall of the communist regime in Romania is scenario. It is hard to ignore large, loud crowds acting an example of how a simple act of repression can act as a in unison for common cause. Petitions, the peaceful trigger. Ceaușescu’s pseudo-fascistic regimes’ combination equivalent, are signed one by one, increasingly online, of personality cult, iconography and brutality is well and delivered to a government quietly. Protests are documented (Sweeney, 19_9_1) as well as the extraordinary noisy, vibrant, they are a spectacle. They provide the control he exerted over the nation he ruled (Behr, 19_9_1). images that people want to see, they are picked up by Yet it was not a broadly-held feeling of dissatisfaction media, by passers-by, they are hard to ignore. When with his autocratic rule that triggered a revolt. Rather it facing a protest a government has a choice, send in riot was his government’s attempt to evict a priest, Hungarian police or troops, attempt to play down the significance László Tőkés, part of a state crackdown on the Hungarian in numbers or support, or to listen and act. Acting may minority in Timișoara, that led to protests: firstly to protect be more about amelioration than submission, but a the priest, then to call for his reinstatement. Faced with protest can have the power to exact change. indifference by the evening of 16th of December 19_89_ the mood of the Hungarians grew ugly, this was met with The #rezist protests in historical perspective repression by the state and tensions mounted. Defiant Over the course of the last thirty years protests protestors sang the pre-communist anthem2 “Awaken and protest movements have grown in prominence. thee, Romanian!”. But this was all largely contained within French President Francois Mitterand observed, in a Timișoara, the state media failed to report any of these speech1 at the international summit meeting in Paris in events. It was only when fireworks or gunfire interrupted November 19_9_0, a meeting including the then leaders a speech by Ceaușescu, an attempt to calm the people of the European Community members who laid the of Timișoara which was met by jeers and boos, and the foundations for the Charter of Paris for a New Europe: bangs were mistakenly assumed to be troops firing on “for the first time in history we witness a change in the the crowd that had gathered did the protests spread European landscape which is not the outcome of a war to other cities. The repression of individual dissidents or a bloody revolution”. He was of course referring to was a natural state of affairs, firing indiscriminately into the events that led to the fall of the Soviet Union and the crowds while a television audience of millions watched Communist empire. While there are debates regarding was deemed unacceptable. The repressed seized their the agency which led to the collapse, and the extent that moment and the regime collapsed. elites’ machinations were the key determining factor, a role was played by civil society (Daniels, 2000). The revolution might be televised… it might be It is easy to overplay the peaceful aspects, as Facebooked well as the agency of civil society within those revolutions Media provide the crucial oxygen for protest and many subsequent and similar events from Moldova movements. The publicity given that would spark the to Georgia, Tunisia to Egypt (McDermott & Stibbe, 2016). 19_89_ revolution was accidental, Ceaușescu attempted However when masses unify with a common aim, to ameliorate the concerns of the people of Timișoara, and that aim is to provide a visible indication of their who proved harder than expected to pacify, someone desire for change, there is a likelihood that political attempted to quieten the crowd by firing a gun, the crowd consequences will follow. The ineptitude of latter days reacted in fear and the audience took to the streets. The Romanian protests 2017 Authors: Darren G. Lilleker and Ana Adi 5 #rezist: Lessons from the Romanian 2017 Protests doi.org/10.23774/QUAS.RP2017.01 squares of the major cities of Romania were occupied, (Beraldo & Galan–Paez, 2013). Occupy also brought a the rest is history. Media was also crucial during the carnivalesque character to protesting (Tancons, 2011), uprising in Tunisia. 2008-2010 saw growing unrest protesting moved away from violent confrontation to a over high unemployment, food prices, corruption, the developing a party atmosphere. But at the heart of the lack of political freedoms and poor living conditions. Occupy protests was the notion that protesters should The self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi was the occupy everywhere. As protesters were evicted from trigger. Bouazizi was a 27 year old unemployed man one public space they occupied another, at the same who turned to selling fruit by the curb to survive, he was time occupying online spaces linking the idea of seizing beaten and had his cart seized for illegal street vending. control of a public space to one of seizing attention On release from custody he returned to the curb from from media, supporters and those against whom they where he sold his fruit, doused himself in petrol and set protested (Juris, 2012).
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