Esenta propagandei totalitare este cladeasca o hiper-realitate, diferita de aceea a faptelor verificabile. Acum 25 de ani, cand a avut loc catastrofa nucleara de la Cernobil, presa scrisa si vorbita a regimurilor comuniste, inclusiv a celui de la Bucuresti, au negat realitatea, au amanat cat s-a putut anuntarea cataclismului. Radio Europa Libera a fost sursa de informatii, obiectiva si tocmai de aceea credibila, in acel moment de maxima ingrijorare si maxima primejdie. La fel, in noaptea cutremurului din martie 1977, romanii au aflat de la Europa Libera ce se intampla in tara lor. Cand in tara menestrelul comunismului dinastic, Adrian Paunescu, organiza orgiile agitatorice ale “Cenaclului Flacara al Tineretului Revolutionar”, la Europa Libera Cornel Chiriac propunea o tabla de valori alternativa pentru tinerii insetati de muzica rock si folk. Cand Sergiu Andon, actualul aghiotant al lui Dan Voiculescu, ridica in slavi, in paginile “Scanteii” , organul oficial al CC al PCR, ceea ce regimul numea “legalitatea socialista”, Emil Georgescu spulbera in chip usturator aceasta fictiune.
Situatia economica, pictata in culori trandafirii de scribii propagandei, era analizata cu competenta in editorialele d-lui Serban Orescu. Despre agonia morala a sistemului scria cu neiertatoare ironie N. C. Munteanu. Incurabila criza politica era examinata in chip realist in editorialele profesorului Vlad Georgescu, mai devreme cele ale lui Noel Bernard. Se stabilea un canon al acuratetii, onestitatii si rigorii. Starea culturii tot mai vasalizata, tot mai agresata de sistem era analizata de Monica Lovinescu, Virgil Ierunca, Gelu Ionescu. A fi mentionat pozitiv la Europa Libera insemna un certificat de onorabilitate. La fel, a fi amintit in “Antologia rusinii” de Virgil Ierunca insemna o rusine absoluta. Cum sa nu turbeze diversii sicofanti, cum sa nu scrie poeme de afurisire impotriva “tradatorilor de tara”?
Abuzurile Securitatii erau prezentate in cumplita si ubicua lor realitate. De aici si obsesia acestei insitutii criminale de a penetra si infiltra postul de radio. Mitologiile dominante despre istoria PCR erau demistificate. De la Washington veneau comentariile politice, sobre si aplicate, ale lui Nestor Ratesh, reportajele lui Constantin Alexandroaie, reflectiile unor distinsi intelectuali precum Matei Calinescu si Virgil Nemoianu. De la New York au transmis ani de zile jurnalisti respectati precum Liviu Floda si Justin Liuba. Printre colaboratori, tin sa-l amintesc pe regretatul Cornel Dumitrescu.
Fara Radio Europa Libera, cetatenii Romaniei s-ar fi sufocat intr-o stare de autarhie spirituala, de inanitie informationala tot mai devastatoare. In timp ce presa oficiala trambita “valorile eticii si echitatii socialiste”, Radio Europa Libera rostea adevarul despre un sistem totalitar intemeiat pe duplicitate, amnezie si manipulare. Dupa prabusirea regimului comunist din Romania, cand noua putere facea tot posibilul ca sa impiedice formarea unei culturi a libertatii mediatice, a pluralismului in genere, Radio Europa Libera a continuat sa fie un avanpost al spiritului democratic. Iar la ora actuala, prin emisiunile Departamentului Moldova, RFE ramane un indispensabil rezervor de speranta, de incredere in valorile societatii deschise.
Miercuri, 27 aprilie 2011, ora 11.00, a avut loc, la sediul Institutului de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului si Memoria Exilului Romanesc, o dubla lansare de carte (Cold War Broadcasting: Impact on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: A Collection of Studies and Documents, CEU Press, 2010; Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: The CIA Years and Beyond, Stanford University Press, 2010), cu participarea editorului/ autorului, dl. A. Ross Johnson, fostul director al postului de radio Europa Libera, research fellow & adviser to the RFE/RL Archive Project at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Lansarea de carte a fost urmata de o masa rotunda, moderata de Damiana Oţoiu, director al Departamentului exil si minoritati, IICCMER, la care au participat: dl. A. Ross Johnson, Hoover Institution; dl. Mihnea Berindei, cercetator CNRS si membru al Consiliului stiintific al IICCMER; dl. Dorin Dobrincu, director al Arhivelor Nationale ale Romaniei si dl. Stephen Ruken, secretar II al Ambasadei SUA din Bucuresti.
Dl. Ross Johnson a anunţat în cadrul evenimentului intenţia RFE şi Hoover Institution de a stabili un parteneriat cu instituţii de stat interesate de prelucrarea şi digitalizarea arhivei RFE şi a fondurilor existente la Hoover Institution care privesc istoria exilului românesc. În acest sens, IICCMER va continua demersurile necesare pe lângă instituţiile de stat interesate precum şi pe lângă RFE şi Hoover Institution în vederea definitivării unui astfel de acord. În prezent, Departamentul Exil şi Minorităţi al IICCMER desfăşoară, în parteneriat cu Radio Europa Liberă, două proiecte de digitalizare, procesare şi valorificare ale unor fonduri aduse de la Hoover Institution Archives, fonduri documentare valoroase pentru istoricul RFE/RL si pentru studiul istoriei exilului românesc.
A Message from Professor Vladimir Tismaneanu, President of the Scientific
Council, IICCMER
Radio Free Europe: The Voice of Hope, Dignity, and Truth
Let me first congratulate the participants to this exceptionally significant event. In times of moral disarray, social oppression, political crisis, and continuous aggression against the autonomy of the mind, Radio Free Europe was indeed “ziarul vorbit al românilor de pretutindeni” (the spoken newspaper of Romanians everywhere). For millions of Romanians, it was the voice of hope, dignity, and truth. After 1989, it remained a model of objectivity, fair-mindedness, and genuine journalism.
I grew up listening to Radio Free Europe. In a Bucharest pervaded by official lies, with newspapers dominated by sycophantic poems and hagiographic articles celebrating the “victories of socialism” and the “triumphant march of Marxism-Leninism”, not to speak of the infinite genius of the general secretary (first Gheorghiu-Dej, then Ceauşescu), Radio FreeEuropewas indeed the source of our refusal to despair. I started listening to RFE haphazardly, “zapping” on our family’s radio receiver (an antiquated East German piece) and discovering the “forbidden fruits”: RFE, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, RadioVatican, BBC. I even listened to Ratio Tirana denouncing the Khrushchevite “traitors and renegades.”
Thanks to RFE—by far the most influential of all Western broadcasting toRomania—I learned a lot about the system. I made a habit of listening to director Noel Bernard’s superbly informed and remarkably balanced editorials. His extraordinary voice, penetrating and subtle, made the comments doubly effective. The rigor of the interpretation was complemented by the sobriety of his tone. To the prevailing legends about the continuous successes of Romania’s socialist strategy, Bernard opposed a lucid vision which emphasized the rise of anti-dogmatic forces within world communism. For him, communist tyranny was not irreversible. He insisted on the benefits of pluralism, a concept execrated by Romanian party hacks. Radio Free Europe under Noel Bernard and later under Vlad Georgescu proposed an alphabet of dignity and lucidity. Mention should be made of the directorship ensured in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the distinguished political scientist, Professor Ghiţă Ionescu, the author, among other seminal works, of that monument of insightful scholarship, the pioneering volume “Communism in Romania” (Oxford University Press, 1964).
Interested as I was in philosophical and cultural issues, I was addicted to the immensely influential broadcastings of Monica Lovinescu and Virgil Ierunca. My own formation owes a huge debt to those uniquely insightful discussions of major trends within contemporary political and aesthetic realms. Marxism was deconstructed unsparingly, with reference to the illuminating works on communism by Raymond Aron, Alain Besançon, Boris Souvarine, Jules Monnerot. Monica Lovinescu, Virgil Ierunca and their colleagues (among them Matei Cazacu, Alain Paruit and Şerban Cristovici) explored the meanings of totalitarianism and the ways to challenge the bureaucratic Leviathan. Thanks to them I found out about Hannah Arendt, Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, Koestler, Nadejda Mandelstam, Ante Ciliga.
No less important, Radio Free Europe supported all dissident and oppositional activities inRomania. It became the tribune for defying the regime’s self-serving propaganda. From Paul Goma to Doina Cornea, from Dorin Tudoran to Radu Filipescu, from Dan Petrescu to Mircea Dinescu, from Ion Negoiţescu to Ion Vianu, from Vasile Paraschiv to William Totok, the voices of Romanian dissent had in Radio Free Europe’s their most consistent and influential ally. It was RFE that unmasked the Fascist turn of a group of party-backed Romanian intellectuals known as the “protochronists”. In their broadcastings, Monica Lovinescu, Virgil Ierunca, and Gelu Ionescu defended the real values of Romanian culture and the liberal, pro-Western voices among Romanian intellectuals (Gabriel Liiceanu, N. Manolescu, Andrei Pleşu). When inRomaniathe younger generation was exposed to the grotesque pageants of Adrian Paunescu’s sycophantic manipulations, Cornel Chiriac provided, at Radio Free Europe, an alternative set of genuine musical and universal human values.
For Ceauşescu and his clique, Radio Free Europe represented the ultimate villain, an enemy that need to be smashed, compromised, and eliminated. It was the voice of sedition, the invitation to truth in a system in which mendacity reigned supreme. Broadcasting about the rampant political corruption of the communist nomenklatura, denouncing the Securitate’s endless abuses, telling the truth about the communist party’s history, were clearly eye-opening undertakings.
For totalitarianism, truth is subversive. The regime reacted accordingly, unleashing sordid, slanderous campaigns against RFE’s most active editors. An attempt against Monica Lovinescu’s life was hatched. Directors Noel Bernard and Vlad Georgescu most likely lost their lives as a result of Securitate-planned criminal plots. Other broadcasters were singled out for the regime’s vicious attacks: Emil Georgescu, N. C. Munteanu, Şerban Orescu, Max Bănuş. Among the most influential voices, one should remember Nestor Ratesh (a splendid analyst of the American political and cultural scene), Emil Hurezeanu, an electrifyingly intelligent political commentator, as well as the thoughtful broadcasts by Mircea Carp and Nicolae Stroescu-Stănişoară.
On various occasions, Radio Free Europe helped Romanians understand their country’s predicament. During the 1977 earthquake, RFE helped create a sense of solidarity based on true information; in 1968, it kept Romanians aware of the search for democratic socialism in Czechoslovakia and the suppression of the Prague Spring by the Warsaw Pact; and, after 1985, it promoted the new ideas of reform, playing a major role in debunking Ceauşescu’s dismal dictatorship as totally decrepit and obsolete, even by Gorbachevite standards. Radio Free Europe broadcast invaluable information about the heroic initiative to create a free trade union of the Romanian workers (Ionel Cana, Gh. Brasoveanu, Vasile Paraschiv, Carl Gibson and others), the anti-communist strikes in Valea Jiului in August 1977, led by Constantin Dobre and his colleagues, as well as about the anticommunist movement in Brasov in November 1987. During the 1989 revolutionary upheaval, RFE was the main hope of the Romanians, a source of information, knowledge, clarity, and self-confidence.
After the demise of communism, RFE has continued to militate for democratic values, for tolerance, dialogue, and moral clarity. It has opposed communist restoration and criticized Ion Iliescu and his cronies for their refusal to engage in genuine democratization. ForRomania’s democratic intellectuals, RFE has symbolized the values they cherish most dearly.
As a regular contributor to RFE’s Romanian service since February 1983, I consider its role a vital one in terms of defending what Vaclav Havel understood by living in truth. When one writes the history of Romanian communism and post-communism, RFE’s decisive role in advocating an open society and opposing any form of totalitarianism should be prominently highlighted.
