Yes, it was good to be part of it. It still feels good, I still feel very, very, very good about it. But let me tell you, at that time it was not a good happening, either an easy process. It was fearsome, with a continuous shadow of intimidation, hindered by a never ending rightful suspicion of betrayal, horrified by terror and the very real (although denied, unofficially whispered) news about all those who disappeared and never made it through to live the day on which the regime fell. Nevertheless, my soul rejoices today about being part of RESISTANCE, and my dreams are easier.
I am reading today about the Cuban Women in White, the wives and mothers of political prisoners. Yesterday I read about the May Mothers, the Madres de Mayo, the women of political resistance in Argentina. I read also about Aung San Suu Kyi, and I could have read about many other known and less known movements and people who ARE, feel, do against unjust regimes, violence, fundamentalism, repression of their rights and political oppression, all over the world from Central America to Iran, from China to Belorussia, from Ukraine to Myanmar and from Pakistan to Sudan...
The people, the women I read and think about don’t read this blog, they don’t read any blog as they have no Internet access, no computers, they speak no English and some of them cannot even read. They don’t have the means, the time, the interest and the motivation to read blogs of European white Christian female self-designed authors. However,
I am asking you, who may read me one day: if you have a friend’s friend, or any acquaintance who has a connection to THEM through the human web of friendship, travellers , dissidents and their relatives staying at home, please, let them know this little message. It is good to be part of it. Even if it may take twenty years to realise how good it is to have been part of the movement. It is a gift to your soul to remember that you were on the side of those who opposed to injustice, dictatorship and the entire vile apparatus of any political or fundamentalist force.
Oh yes, it may take twenty, thirty, fifty years, God alone knows how many. You may die before it ends. But your children and their children will one day be remembering you as an avant-garde establishing their state of freedom and human rights. It is then, that it feels really great to have a clean consciousness. And an ‘unhappy past’ :-), which will be the name of your present days.
My country’s dictatorship lasted from the end of the Second World War till the end of 1989. Then it ended in six days. After four decades of secret resistance we got six days of open courage, violence, union, brotherhood, blood-shedding, mass revolts, media manipulation – all you want for a moving eighteenth life-year of a student. I was eighteen and I had already faced the quite well-based fear of the state security forces who had a file on me, had my schoolmates report about me secretly and waited perhaps only for the moment I make a mistake and can be easily caught. Some of my schoolmates did indeed report regularly, but there was one who actually reported this to me, to warn me. I bet, she also feels good about it now, twenty years after our ordeal in Romania, in Transsylvania had ended. Oh yes, the point is that every rule ends one day. Every, I repeat EVERY dictatorship has an END, just like every winter ends one day. If you forget the rest of my message (“it feels good about being part of it – you will know this in your older days”), this is enough to transmit my silent support and encouragement: 'it will come to an end. For sure'.
My fight, our fight was no big resistance, it involved no proper fight until finally –after years of silently suffering under the communist Ceausescu’s dictatorship – a manifestation broke out 500 kilometres away and its winds hit my provincial minority town. It involved not much from people, everybody was too much afraid and we were ALWAYS surrounded by watchful traitors who spoke our language and reported our unfavourable statements any moment. You could have the secret armed police by your door, oh no, actually inside your house next day. It rather involved articles I could almost never publish, participation to secret meetings, information-gleaning from abroad, behind the closed borders, whispers to the few trustful neighbours and friends, photographs taken on the last day of manifestation, and conscious keeping of memories still waiting to be told. It involved not fighting openly, it rather involved refusing to collaborate. Refusing to report, to spy on those who dared a little more. Refusing to sell – out of fear – my soul, my conscience and the calm nights of twenty years later. It was not much then, but it was the maximum I could do with my eighteen years. You cannot imagine how grateful I am now to that teenager I was then. Having stayed pure only added to the release I could feel, when the regime collapsed. You will also know this feeling, be sure. I am with you, all and I wish you courage to stay honest to your purpose regardless of how few means you may be left with. It will be a great feeling in the decades to come.
