Friday Mar. 21 the Romanian border police at Calafat denied entry to the country to six German citizens because they were carrying posters, manifestos, t-shirts and badges with “anti-NATO” and “anti-globalization” messages.
Archive for March, 2008
Goodbye, Mr. Post-Socialism?
March 15, 2008by Vassil Genchev
It is tempting, for neo-liberal enthusiasts and ‘progressive moderates’ (whatever these two terms might mean) alike, to think of Bulgaria as a modernising new EU member state, embracing the advantages of ‘late-comers’ in economic growth and moving firmly into the pattern of a liberal democratic free-market society. Yet, this pattern is nothing but the shared dream of unlikely bed fellows. And much like in the supposedly shared dreams of couples nested under a common blanket, the dream-like vision of modern Bulgaria can mean different things to different parties. Read the rest of this entry ?
Transition in Romania: This Is Not Buying In, This Is Selling Out
March 15, 2008by Claudia Ciobanu
Ceausescu must be turning in his grave now. This is what I thought after a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, located in the “House of the People”, the former dictator’s mammoth project for a presidential residence in Romania’s capital. The backyard of the huge building, which one has to cross in order to reach the museum, looks like a graveyard, populated only by stray dogs and crows. Inside the exhibition, naturally, none of the socialist realist art that used to be promoted by the old regime; rather, numerous examples of conceptual art, cartoons playing with Walt Disney motifs, and uncountable “subversive” messages.
charlie wilson
March 2, 2008Minor admissions of guilt in a pile of… the usual US self-aggrandizing…
