Governmental control is doubled by monopolistic behavior in the area of communication. Nowhere has it been more clearly seen how aberrant it is to have the public space of expression completely privatized. Good Monday, Facebook practically hid news, opinions about what is happening in Gaza. Just as he discouraged views that were out of line about Ukraine.
Our politicians, as well as European or American politicians, have overwhelmingly taken a hard line of affirming support and point. In the case of Ukraine, we stick with the invaders, in the case of Gaza, we stick with the invaders. Obviously there is no morality in this, it is alliance politics. So whoever takes you with moral arguments, like some represent “the good”, is dubious from the start.
Both in Romania and in the West, there were voices criticizing Israel’s disproportionate response from the beginning. After a horrific attack by Hamas – there is no doubt here, I do not accept any form of relativization of what happened on October 7 last year – the offensive in Gaza left more than 35,000 dead, more than 70% of them women and children. The biggest mistake is to sit and compare crimes. No, there is comparison between horrible and horrible.
But there is a comparison between the attitudes that the West and our allies have in different situations. You can compare how Putin is immediately accused of war crimes, while with Netanyahu, all our leaders huddled together to pose. Of course the two wars are as different as can be, but here we are talking about the moral judgments with which we are asphyxiated daily – it is not enough to support a side, you need some kind of divine-military justification to have an opinion.
A comparison can be made, despite the differences: these leaders, both Netanyahu and Putin, encourage everything that means far right in Europe, while accusing opponents of “fascism”. Many leftists, recognized precisely for their criticism of fascist slippages, are now accused of anti-Semitism and fascism. The perversion doesn’t stop there. Because any unpopular opinion (in Romania and if you ask for an increase in the minimum wage, you are a Putinist) is instantly lumped together as being against Romania-NATO-EU etc.
Students at dozens of American universities (with some extensions into Western Europe) are protesting war crimes in Gaza. Their move was essential, because it brought the very popular media out of conformist silence.
Intellectual debates have also started in Romania, in these weeks. A correct article by Vladimir Borțun called for a clear position in the face of the horrors happening in Gaza. A line by Florin Poenaru raises enough uncomfortable questions that you have to answer even if you support the Palestinian cause.
What should not be done is to start a moralistic game again: be with us or you are a criminal or why are you silent?, you are guilty! In Romania, silence is often confused or disinterested. Even well-informed intellectuals began to debate when “the go-ahead” was given in the mainstream press – when newspapers such as The Guardian or Le Monde began to have clear opinions against Israel’s behavior. The same thing happened in the case of Ukraine, where for months we were sold fairy tales with a brave tailor standing alone against the ogre.
And in the war in Ukraine, and in the one after October 7, it was specifically confused from here, from the periphery. Romania was on the edge of the brink, the only policy was not to budge and bear the costs. The weakness of Europe caught in a game over its head, the weakness of pacifist voices, the militaristic and bellicose hysteria of some liberal, social-democratic or environmentalist leaders, in fact, presented us with a hard truth: we are in an insufficiently sovereign European Union. And Romania is on the edge of this Europe put in a painfully true light: lack of relevance in the new struggle to restore some poles of power, the USA vs the rest of the world.
We have European elections, a few leaders (Sanchez in Spain, notably) are trying to stop a sort of European shrug, but generally these matters do not matter to the general public. Even supporting Ukraine – without real compensatory measures for the social crises generated in the poor or middle classes – no longer makes any sense to the general public.
Returning to Gaza, we must not forget the Israeli behavior in the West Bank, which should have been strongly condemned internationally for a very long time. And now, yes, no political leader should put forward the discourse of “strategic allies” without considering the strong arguments against Israel, which is officially accused of genocide in Gaza.
What are the dangers? They are obvious and come precisely from major ideological confusions. Out of hatred for Arabs, far-right formations in Europe and the US have become very pro-Israel, even though they have a horrible history of anti-Semitic provocation. Even in Romania, the AUR was in a way certified as an acceptable formation (although it is full of legionnaire worshipers, at least on the intellectual side) after the meeting at the Israeli Embassy. So yes, the bottom line is that Netanyahu’s policies in Europe and the US are allying themselves with right-wing extremists and accusing leftists of “anti-Semitism”!
The liberal capitalist contract sounded something like this: I get the harshest economic treatment, but at least I’m allowed to say whatever I want. The realities of war remind us of something else: that those economic crises doubled by war close your mouth to not seeing yourself. Now also with the help of digital moguls.
European elections without a bit of debate
We have some European elections that have been completely obscured by the shenanigans of the local elections. Any debate about what we want as Europeans has been destroyed. Two big parties from different families, PSD and PNL, propose us common lists. And von der Leyen has already started showing signs of friendship to the leader of the ultraconservatives, Giorgia Meloni, just to get her elected. So you can go vote anti-right and you get the most right-wing combination as a result. It is obvious that the aberration is maximum and it is produced precisely by the need for a counter and a pre-electoral arrangement.
(The fact that left and right have become so confused shows some that ideological separations have become irrelevant. No, they are important, that is why differences are undermined, they are the results of decades of trivializing differences. The left is paying for neglecting the mission of redistribution and class negotiation. And the extreme right takes advantage of the neoliberal historical stupidity of being obsessed with the destruction of the left, of which insular progressive remains are visible and that’s it.)
Gaza is a red flag that we are “too on the edge” to have any more opinions. The feeling of weakness transmitted is maximum. The subject of Gaza or the subject of Ukraine was a good opportunity to discuss not sovereignty over national households, but a certain European sovereignty, a renegotiation of the position towards what is called the Global South (all those states that are slowly but surely forming into a alternative pole to American dominance).
Any awkward discussion is avoided. And this results in nothing but sad anti-witch campaigns on social media. You’re with Gaza, you’re against it, you’re a sexo-marxist, you’re against it, and all kinds of other nonsense that divides the world into a kind of more stupid conspiratorial people and a people more “connected” to Western values. The impotence now does not come from not being connected, but from a provincial ultra-connectedness – we say nothing without approval!
Saying that what is happening in Gaza is abnormal, criticizing Netanyahu as well as Putin, criticizing Ukraine’s corrupt forms of militaristic support, all this should be normal, not evidence of “dubious civic behavior”. Indeed, in some places in the West they have reached direct accusations of “supporting terrorism” or anti-Semitism for protesters who support the most correct thing: stop the killing! We have completely lost the political compass if we forget that all these wars produce, above all, thousands of innocent victims. Here, it rained with strategists who no longer look at the victims, look for heroes and demons, battles between good and evil, Zelenski vs Putin, etc.
However irrelevant one or another voice from Romania might be, to say that a massacre like the one in Gaza must be stopped urgently is necessary at least for the civic balance here.
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