Read a story from Esquire #4
For those who have never read Esquire Romania and are curious how things are written, we’ve put a story from our latest issue online. It’s available on HotNews.ro and it’s about the generation of children born after communism. We sometimes refer to them as the Children of the Revolution.
December 5th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Oh as if, I was about 6 months old when the Revolution was happening and yes, my only memories of it were what my parents told me, the same glaring-at-your-tv-screen-in-your-home thing as we were supposedly “upper-middle-class” hence not going out in the streets. I’ve no memories of those days whatsoever, only of the false, artificial attempts of trying to create ‘democracy’ in schools and such.
They were still preserving a whole lot of values from the communist era when I started school (That was in 1995) and the only downside to it was that we were indeed lab rats for some strange educational reforms. We were always told we’d be the “last to do…” this and that. Last to have exams from 8th to 9th grade, last to attempt the European baccalaureate as it is (it was indeed different in the respect that we only had 6 exams corresponding to 5 classes instead of one exam for each class). We never were the last so it was just a lie we had to go with every time something new was introduced solely for the purpose of destroying whatever the previous leading party was doing. You should know what I mean.
History classes concerning communism are indeed crammed at the end of the term, sometimes forgotten, sometimes just mentioned because of the debate they could stir. In the same “world of rights and privileges” we have, I know for a fact a few people have complained to school principals that history teachers were being biased when talking about it, hence they’re avoiding the subject to avoid controversy.
What I found most annoying was that financial ‘sponsorship’ came from the nouveau-riche kind of kids whose parents told them that it’s their God-given right to protest against anything their teachers say and they don’t understand or like, for that matter. If you’re not happy with it, do complain, it’s your right to complain and no one can take it from you. “You should complain even if there’s nothing wrong with it because we couldn’t” is something I’ve heard one too many times. Sure, one would argue that you can complain only to make it better or improve its quality (of, say, a class). This misunderstood complaining thing has haunted me 12 years till I finished high school. Don’t get me wrong, I do complain when I feel like I’m being cheated on or not given value for money but these ‘donors’ have scared some of our teachers into only avoiding those particular chapters covering communism. Pupils complained they were being biased. They were indeed sometimes but it’s completely put them off from even teaching the subject as money and its power are of a greater importance to the school than all the chapters about communism are. Instant gratification, that is. Sponsorship and ‘kind donations’ have been a recurring pattern in school all these years and that’s my only memory of it, really.
We’re nothing special, really, think about the fact that in a few years we’ll be returning to the mean and everything will be slightly normal. There’s a lot to be said but the article was pretty good. You just need to stop victimising them or turning them into our “new heroes” like oh my, they’ll be shaping the future. Why yes, we will be (pardon, they might be if you want to talk about Romania) but just a few odd cases don’t make a case study for how we’ll shape the future, which is what the article is trying to tell me, but they do make an interesting case study. Ask someone born in ’89 to write it and they’ll be less likely to find someone they think is extraordinary or representative because in the end we’re all the same. There’s nothing special to us, there’s something special to the times 🙂
December 8th, 2007 at 5:40 am
Deea, thanks for the wonderful comment. I’ve passed it on to our writer. And thanks for the letter to the editor; it’s always nice to receive those.