Bury me standing. Not.

Not until we dare to regard ourselves as a nation, not until we respect ourselves, can we gain the esteem of others, or rather only then will it come of its own accord. (Albert Einstein)

Romanians are obsessed with death. Mioritza, the anonymous national ballad which encounters some 900 versions, is taught in schools at frail ages. The subject proposes a magic “ewe that discloses the plot to her master, whose two fellow shepherds plan to kill by the time of sunset, looting his larger and worthy flock”. Now, instead of allowing his natural surviving instinct to kick in and think of an escaping plan, the shepherd indeed praises the imminent death, and “transfigures it into a grandiose, cosmic marriage”. “”Lamb, my little ewe/If this omen’s true/If I’m doomed to death/On this tract of heath/Tell the Vrancean/And Transylvanian/To let my bones lie/Somewhere here close by/By the sheepfold here”.

What is wrong with us? The poem basically tells children that the Romanian way to cope with a foretold plan is to simply accept it, as there is no use to fight destiny, thus annihilating the idea of free-will. In a wider perspective, this was transposed in a collective conscience of submission to various powers more or less real: destiny, political ideologies or despotic rulers. Romanians are the exact opposite of what Emiliano Zapata said: "It is better to die standing up than to live on your knees”.

Romanians prefer to live on their knees but moreover they assume no responsibility for their destiny, preferring to either accuse others for their misfortune and imminent doom or to just kneel and humbly bow their heads. I know, I know, right now a bunch of patriots are ready to swear, crossing their hearts, praising and backing with historic documents the Romanians’ courage and bravery in front of blah, blah, blah, and blah some more. To be read: external forces; international plots; Yalta, Malta and other Alta; enemies who wanted to fracture, rip, pillage and tear the voluptuous body of our motherland; about the devilish Islamic destructive forces of the Ottomans who tried to conquer us for hundreds of years; the Germans and the Hungarians who require Transylvania back; the Moldavians who want their independent enclave; the Ukrainians who want the Island of the Snakes and all the oil under. Have I left anyone out? In case I have, I apologize for not including you on the list of real or imaginary enemies that Romanians had during centuries and I let this fragment of the Romanian National Anthem to speak for itself:

"Didn't we have enough of the yatagan of the barbaric crescent
Whose fatal wounds even today we still feel?
Now the knout is intruding our ancestral homes,
But we give witness before the Lord that alive, we do not accept it
(…)
Romanians from the four corners, now or never
Unite in thought, unite in feeling
Proclaim to the wide world that the Danube is stolen
Through intrigue and coercion, sly machinations."

I am not apologetic for underlining the obvious but Romanians are not brave. They are neither feisty nor courageous. At times they have outbursts of unjustified rage based on their national and individual feeling of helplessness that all small and cocktailed nations have, all wrapped up in an inferiority complex of living half a century under an atrocious communism that impoverished them culturally and materially and which emotionally and spiritually mutilated their souls.

Romanians are not a proud nation. They are humble and sometimes perfunctory gregarious trying hard to please the mightier and richer. They never fought wars because they were valiant. They fought because they had no other choice. They didn’t have ideals or cravings to enlarge their territory. When they were attacked, they defended themselves the best they could, sometimes cheating, lying and concocting devious plans or selling themselves out and short. Their national proverb is “sa moara capra vecinului”, which can be vaguely translated by “if I go down, I will take you with me” as the literary translation would be hard to understand for the Anglo-Saxon culture: “I wish my neighbor’s goat to die” with its modern corollary “I will kill my neighbor and take his goat”.

Romanians are half-breeds: not civilized enough to join the exclusive and elitist club of Western Europe, but also not original enough to join the oriental, exotic of Eastern Europe. They are happy and noisy like the Italians and Spaniards, but not Latin enough to join the brotherhood of Latinity. Smart but not genial. Hard-working but not conscientious, looking for easy ways out, mostly cheating. Open and extraverted but neurotic and disagreeable, wanting to permanently change the system but not willing to change themselves.

These are Romanians. And this is who I am. And at times, I feel inferior without my consent.