By Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy,\u00a0Miami University, Ohio<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Courtesy of Save Rosia Montana<\/p><\/div>\n
In a September 3rd<\/sup> piece<\/a> for the online issue of CBC News, Canadian analyst Dan Murray mused on the grim future of Eastern Europe shaken by mass protests over the past year: \u201cIt has been less than a quarter-century since these countries cast off the Communist yoke. But whether it’s the centralization of all power\u2026 or the dead hand of corrupt elites, the ways learned in the days of Soviet domination persist. The Wild East still thrives.\u201d A closer look at the story behind the Romanian protests during the fall of 2013 contradicts these glum predictions, and illuminates the paradigm shift slowly taking place in the region; one where Soviet-style ways of doing things are intersecting with the lessons of the Arab spring and of the Occupy movement, with unexpected results. The \u201cRomanian Fall\u201d comes alive in the striking images that circulated via the social media networks within and without the territorial boundaries of the country, energizing street protests that had concrete political consequences.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Daniel Vrabioiu<\/p><\/div>\n On September 1, 2013, thousands of Romanians took to the streets throughout the country protesting the open-pit gold and silver mine that the Canadian corporation Gabriel Resources (operating locally as Ro\u0219ia Montana Gold Corporation) is planning to open on a 2,400-hectare site in the Apuseni Mountains in Western Romania. The long story of Gabriel Resources\u2019 involvement with the Romanian government is an all-too-common story of government corruption and global corporate depredation in the new \u201cWild East,\u201d as one article in Der Spiegel chronicles here. Incidentally, it is also a tale of a civil society (re)born and of a creative and persuasive visual campaign carried out mainly in social media. Behind the street protests and political entanglements lies a sophisticated PR campaign that illuminates the crucial role of images in the new forms of democratic activism taking shape in Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n \u00a9Daniel Vrabioiu<\/p><\/div>\n For the past ten years, resistance to the mining project has been going on strong, but stayed roughly under the radar of public opinion, only to explode in vibrant street protests in September last year. While the ethical, cultural, and constitutional arguments against the mining plans have not changed, it is the environmental dimension of the story that has galvanized public opinion, beginning in 2013. The first protests on September 1st were followed by a sustained wave of activism that swept the internet and the streets of Romania spurred by a creative visual campaign; every Sunday since then (although smaller in size since December), sit-ins and flash mobs have been taking place at key symbolic locations, from Bucharest to Toronto to New York, Paris, or London. The protesters focused their energies on the social media networks. The result has been a flow of images whose visceral immediacy engages readers in a personal way, pushing for an emotional reaction, as well as for political mobilization, in a civil society notoriously apathetic over the past two decades. Many of the movement\u2019s striking posters were created by the artists behind the Mindbomb project, an advertising collective barely a decade old, whose avowed political goal is to \u201chack into the dominant discourse of mainstream politics, mass-media and the advertising industry\u201d in an effort to create social posters that would get people to become active participants into civic conversations and actions (Mercea, 246).<\/p>\n Photo courtesy of Save Ro\u0219ia Montana<\/p><\/div>\n Their creations, such as the poster featuring the Romanian prime minister, his face covered with a gold mask and wearing a lapel pin in the logo of the Canadian mining corporation, or the mined-up map of Romania scattered with signs of hazardous materials, use humour and pathos simultaneously, and speak to the profound public discontent with both Romanian institutions and politicians and with the inroads of global corporate capitalism.<\/p>\n The Save Ro\u0219ia Montana campaign signals the vibrant reassertion of local belonging placed in a global context, and illuminates the multiple ways in which global activism can thrive in, and adapt to new local political ecosystems. By placing the environment at the heart of its message, the movement catalyzes patriotism and environmentalism, and simultaneously taps into the global ethos of sustainability animating similar initiatives. But in the context of postcommunist Romania, the conventional terms of the global vocabulary of involvement and resistance inevitably acquire new meanings and are used differently than, say, in the U.S, France, or Spain, as to fit local cultural expectations and political needs. For instance, the Save Ro\u0219ia Montana movement departs from the Occupy Wall Street template in several significant ways.<\/p>\n Photo courtesy of Mindbomb.org<\/p><\/div>\n First, the phenomenon is far from the obstinate horizontality of its American counterpart; the hub of the events is clearly the NGO Alburnus Maior, which has been coordinating the legal and PR battles against the project since 2002. No occupations are taking place, and the movement is unfolding nationally and globally. Second, the Romanian movement has managed to energize a strikingly diverse population. Marches routinely feature parents with children in tow, or pushing babies in strollers, the urban educated youth (ironically dubbed hipsters here, as elsewhere), but also retirees, workers and farmers, people who are less likely to even know own a computer, let alone use Twitter.<\/p>\n Photo courtesy of Save Rosia Montana<\/p><\/div>\n This success is due to the campaign\u2019s mixed approach that combines a strong presence on social media (complete with a free downloadable \u201csmart protest app,\u201d) with more traditional awareness-raising initiatives such as art exhibits, round tables, street concerts<\/a>, as well as unconventional operations, like the urban guerilla campaign that placed stickers reading \u201cCyanide-free (for now)\u201d on food products in supermarkets.<\/p>\n \u00a9Daniel Vrabioiu<\/p><\/div>\n Third, the glocalization of the Occupy repertoire of civil disobedience in Eastern Europe does not include a disenchantment with the workings of democracy. The Ro\u0219ia Montana activists are talking about the environmental impact of the mining project while educating Romanian voters in the basics of participatory democracy. Their campaign doubles as a lesson in civics, in the basics of democracy, as well as a lesson in civil disobedience, complete with concrete legal tools to fight police abuse.<\/p>\n In a symbolic gesture, on 21 September 2013, thousands of Romanians held hands forming a human chain around the former palace of dictator Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu that now houses the Romanian Parliament. In other words,\u00a0 what started as a popular campaign against a dubious mining project has evolved into a movement to reclaim the democratic institutions Romanians fought for back in 1989, and to fight against a tradition of political apathy that has informed Romanian politics for the past two decades.<\/p>\n And last, but not least, this potentially post-ethnic environmental movement in Eastern Europe allows for the creation of emotional and organizational ties with other members of the global civil society through whom Save Ro\u0219ia Montana taps into the larger transnational networks of environmental activism. In one of the more original projects inspired by the protests, London-based Romanian artist Emma Marcu is turning these connections into art. \u201cEcho for Ro\u0219ia Montana,\u201d a collective artwork inspired by Yoko Ono\u2019s instruction paintings, is intended to create a collage of canvases from around the world, to be handed in to UNESCO, in Paris, accompanied by a global petition to include Ro\u0219ia Montana in the World Heritage List. The de-centered and fluid aesthetics of this project engages participants while aiming for the creation of a material object that can potentially bring about a political outcome. So far, Emma Marcu\u2019s echoes are being created in cities across Europe and North America.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Photo2-3-300x225.jpg\" "\\"Photo")
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