Robu’s Revolution

Between June 13 and 15, Nicolae Robu,the mayor of Timişoara, Romania, visited Gwangju with a national delegation, which included his wife Florica Robu, Mr. Sorin Iacob Drăgoi, Timişoara’s City Manager, and Mr. Ioan Coriolan Garboni, General Manager of the Banatul State Philharmonic Orchestra. Robu graciously agreed to sit down for an interview with Gwangju News before his GIC Talk on June 15. Robu’s GIC Talk was entitled: “The Road to Democracy of Romania and the 1989 Revolution.” Robu has experienced several changes in Romania, particularly the shift from a communist dictatorship to a capitalist democracy in the Romanian Revolution of 1989.

Gwangju News: Could you tell us about your motivation to visit Korea in general and Gwangju specifically?

Nicolae Robu: I appreciate South Korea a lot due to its performances in high-tech industries, and also in education, scientific research, culture and urban development. I know the level of development and the level of life in Korea 50 years ago. That’s why my appreciation of Korea is superlative.

I am interested to establish bi-lateral relationships with people and organizations in my city Timişoara, and to attract investors to Timişoara. Timişoara has well-educated and diligent people: good workers, engineers and economists. We have an international airport and good connectivity to the European highway network, as well as low national taxes and very low local taxes.

Why Gwangju? In Romania, Timişoara is called the City of Freedom because it had the first movement against communism in the 1956 Student Movement, and the anti-communist Romanian Revolution in December 1989 started in Timişoara. I appreciate Gwangju as the City of Liberty in Korea, the city of the fight for democracy and human rights, but of course, too, [for its] strong industry and excellent universities. Gwangju is a beautiful city with open-minded, competent, hospitable and very friendly people, starting with the mayor, the vice-mayor, their associates, the professors and the others I have met.

GN: Are you working in cooperation with Gwangju universities?

NR: Yes, we have visited Chonnam National University. In Timişoara, we have eight universities: four state universities and four private universities. The biggest are the state universities. In Romania some universities are specialized. In Timişoara we have a technical university named Polytechnica, where I was Vice-Rector four times, then Rector for two times. I was also elected president of the University Senate. In 2008, I decided to enter into politics, and I was elected as a senator in the Romanian Parliament. In June 2012 I was elected as mayor of Timişoara, so I had to end my term as senator a few months early. This new position is for me a new challenge and is a very important position because Timişoara is [currently] the third largest city in Romania.

GN: Could you share more with us about the 1989 Revolution?

NR: It is very interesting that in Timişoara before the revolution, the level of life under communism was higher than in other cities in Romania. Nonetheless, the revolution started in Timişoara because we were and are influenced by occidental cultures and civilizations, with Timişoara being the westernmost big city in Romania. It is close to Hungary, the former Yugoslavia and Austria and Germany are not far, and the influences from these capitalist countries were [stronger] in Timişoara than in other cities in Romania.

GN: In 1980, Gwangju university students were very active in the struggle. How about in Timişoara in 1989?

NR: I was a teaching assistant at the university and I participated in the events. Of course, always the students are very important in these contexts because the students are more open-minded, more educated, more emancipated and desire a better future for themselves and for all the society. In Timişoara too, the participation of students was very, very important, but all the citizens participated. That was our chance.

GN: Do you have any particular stories about your involvement in the 1989 revolution?

NR: On the 19th and 20th of December, my family was together in Victory Square, Opera Square at the time, and I was very enthusiastic. My wife and I took our children, who were both about 10 years old, to participate in those historical events. I was sure we would succeed. I was sure the revolution would change the regime in Romania. My father was a political activist when I was a child, and I can’t forget that time. I was very stimulated by the events, and when my wife asked me if we could go home together because things appeared as if they were about to become dangerous, I said, “No, I have an inspiration. I want to compose a song, a revolutionary song.” Finally, she insisted, and we went home. In a few minutes, shooting started, and I realized what the situation would have [meant] for all the family present. We were saved, fortunately, due to my wife.

GN: Wasn’t Nicolae Ceauşescu (the president of Romania from the mid-60s until the revolution) a little more independent from the Soviets than some other Eastern European leaders?

NR: Yes, he developed a nationalist communism. The first years of the Ceauşescu regime were known as a good period with important successes, but investments were not made rationally, and Ceauşescu became step-by-step a dictator with a cult of personality. The last 15-20 years of the regime, he was very, very bad for Romania. That’s why Ceauşescu was finally shot.

GN: Ceauşescu was tried and executed very quickly. These days, what do people think about that?

NR: In my opinion, and in the opinion of a lot of Romanians, it was not a good idea to kill Ceauşescu in that manner. It was not a civilized process, but history has such moments. Of course, Ceauşescu was responsible for a lot of wrong things, but the manner of prosecution could have been more civilized.

GN: Which aspect of Ceauşescu’s political and economic system has been most difficult to change?

NR: It was difficult to change. It was an experience that the other former communist countries also know: a new experience in the transition from the communist system to the capitalist system. Everything had been under the control of the state without individual initiative, without the freedom of organization. People all were under the command of the hierarchical system, and it was not easy to change the system and to develop the most appropriate democratic and economic behaviors in the new countries.

GN: In Korea, it took a while after 1980 to achieve full democracy. What was the aftermath of the 1989 revolution in Romania?

NR: We had democratic elections in May 1990. We constructed all democratic institutions, and step-by-step, a better state. Of course, from an economic point of view, it was not easy because the former economy was constructed around the concept of state planning and control. We had to adapt to new conditions, to a market economy.

When Romania became stable enough, we had foreign investments and built the new economy. The addition of Romania to the European Union in January 2007 was very important. We now have access to the European funds for development, for increasing economic competitiveness and for modernizing our infrastructure. We postponed the initial plan to change to the Euro due to the 2009 economic crisis, but probably in a few years, five, maybe seven years, we will change.

GN: How did the 2008 worldwide economic recession affect Romania?

NR: [Romania] was OK in 2008, but immediately afterwards in 2009, the economy had big, big problems, due to the international economic crisis and due to the change of government, when a very incompetent government was installed under President Basescu. Now it’s almost OK. We have started to arrange things, and we will have, this year, economic growth of around 1.5 percent. Not huge, but it is important that the economy begins to grow.

GN: Is there a clear distinction between liberal and conservative parties in Romania’s multi-party system?

NR: We have different political parties, but the main ones are the National Liberal Party on the right, but a balanced right, center-right oriented. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) is the main left-leaning party. We had an important party, the party of President Basescu, but due to its very bad results at government, it decreased, and now it is a small party.

The trend in Romania is to construct two strong parties. The others have no chance by themselves. Now we are in coalition with the SDP, but probably in 2016, we will be separate, and around each one of us will be other small parties, ideologically established, left and right. But in Romania we have no extreme right; it is insignificant. Our right is a balanced one.

GN: In Korea, some have distorted the truth of the Gwangju Democratic Movement. Does that happen in Romania?

NR: In Romania the revolution was recognized and respected by all the parties and all the population, fortunately, yes. And, unfortunately in Korea, Gwangju has not the same position in the face of some forces. Gwangju merits the same recognition and respect due to sacrifices made for democracy.

GN: Romanian is a Latin-based language. How closely is it related to other Latin-based languages?

NR: Romanian is close to Italian, to Spanish and to French. We in Romania understand Italian without any problem. Not everything, but we can speak Italian well enough. We also understand Spanish but not so much as Italian. French is not difficult for us to learn, but for somebody who didn’t study French, it is difficult to understand.

GN: How about the influence of Russian?

NR: It was not a big influence on Romania because of our nationalist communism. In Romania a majority of the population learned French as a first foreign language, and the second was English, German or Russian. I studied French and a little Russian.

GN: What is the significant difference between your contributions to society as a teacher and as a politician?

NR: As a teacher, I tried to offer a good education or good preparation for my students. I am a professor of computer science. As a politician, I try to change things, to do things better with a correct approach, with professionalism and without “politicianism.”

GN: In Korea, politicians are not very popular.

NR: In Romania, too, of course. Of course, but our lives are made different by political decisions. It is very important who the politicians are because they decide the future.

Photo by  Turbojet (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons