Romania
The nazification of social relations
The institutionalization, bureaucratization, and legitimisation of violence.
The rise of the state terrorism.
Text: Andrzej Szczepanek - Layout: Pia Berrend - The violent animal slaughter program currently approved by the Romanian parliament and being executed by the Romanian state aiming at the total extermination of stray animals in the country is an ominous and warning sign of how and to what extent a society can be subject to the violent process of social and moral degeneration amidst the world-wide socio-economic decline.
The same insidious process of social degeneration led to the Great Depression of 1929 and the outbreak of the Second World War with its gas chambers and crematoria. We are as indifferent to the agonies of other sensitive living beings as the Nazis were indifferent to the torment of millions who perished in gas chambers. We are treating them in the same business-like manner as the Nazi treated their victims. We give consent to the institutionalization, legitimization, bureaucratization and commercialization of violence and terror.
The indifference is the same. The economic decline is the same. The institutionalization of evil is the same under the guise of legality.
The same insidious process of social degeneration led to the Great Depression of 1929 and the outbreak of the Second World War with its gas chambers and crematoria. We are as indifferent to the agonies of other sensitive living beings as the Nazis were indifferent to the torment of millions who perished in gas chambers. We are treating them in the same business-like manner as the Nazi treated their victims. We give consent to the institutionalization, legitimization, bureaucratization and commercialization of violence and terror.
The indifference is the same. The economic decline is the same. The institutionalization of evil is the same under the guise of legality.
Romania mocks the victims of the Holocaust
and the global institutions keep silent!
Evil has the face of dead human bodies with glassy, wide-opened terror- filled eyes staring vacantly at nothingness. Evil has the stone face of those who were crowded into a gas chamber and who died from asphyxiation. Evil is the unresponsiveness of the cold of a dead body. Evil stinks of decay and decomposition. Evil is a multitude of dead and rigid animal bodies, maimed and bloodied, littering the ground. Evil is a desperate cry of agony of a living being whose life is being violently and cruelly terminated by those who often derive pleasure from this ultimate act of violence and rape. Evil is all-pervading dread resulting from dying. Evil is the psychological suffering of those exposed to violence and death. Evil has the confident face of the bureaucrats and officials who promote violence.
Evil has the face of Romania and Syria. And evil has a tremendously devastating impact on the welfare of the society. One might shrug and say: What of it? It is only animals that are being killed.
True, the Romanian policy of animal extermination means simultaneous violation of human rights and the attack on the constitutional rights of non-governmental organizations but humans are not being killed. So, there is no cause for alarm.
Yes, there is.
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What is puzzling in the contemporary world is the unprecedented wave of oppression, socio-economic misery and violence. Something hitherto unexpected is brewing, something is in the air. The world's societies are in commotion. There is social unrest, civil disobedience, the questioning of the fundamental values on which the present day capitalist neo-liberal social order rests. There is loss of faith in state institutions, there is the questioning of the world's establishment's legitimacy to exercise power once this power works against the society, there is the issue of the true meaning of democracy and true sustainable social order.
The current neo-liberal social order, the ruling financial and political elites call democracy which in fact has very little to do with social order and communal stability breeds violence and social unrest as the ruling classes have already appropriated and gained total control of financial, consumer, commodity, labour and raw materials markets. This economically suicidal ideology postulating ever-increasing consumption, the never-ending exploitation of resources and labor and unceasing expansion of financial markets is powered by the brain sick loan policy of pumping huge amounts of money into the economy in the name of personal wealth and power of the ruling financial and political cartels and corporations. This unprecedented global infusion of capital is meant to expand the financial markets and the financial institutions which capitalize on the unrestricted policy of loan giving and financial speculation.
These institutions have become self-governing global corporations independent of any governmental or social control. In fact, the world's governments depend for loans on the financial cartels thus losing their political independence and social credibility. And legitimacy.
The current neo-liberal social order, the ruling financial and political elites call democracy which in fact has very little to do with social order and communal stability breeds violence and social unrest as the ruling classes have already appropriated and gained total control of financial, consumer, commodity, labour and raw materials markets. This economically suicidal ideology postulating ever-increasing consumption, the never-ending exploitation of resources and labor and unceasing expansion of financial markets is powered by the brain sick loan policy of pumping huge amounts of money into the economy in the name of personal wealth and power of the ruling financial and political cartels and corporations. This unprecedented global infusion of capital is meant to expand the financial markets and the financial institutions which capitalize on the unrestricted policy of loan giving and financial speculation.
These institutions have become self-governing global corporations independent of any governmental or social control. In fact, the world's governments depend for loans on the financial cartels thus losing their political independence and social credibility. And legitimacy.
The Pitești prison. was a penal facility in Pitești, Romania, best remembered for the brainwashing experiments carried out by the Communist authorities of Romania between 1949 and 1952 (also known as Experimentul Pitești – the "Pitești Experiment" or Fenomenul Pitești – the "Pitești Phenomenon"). The Pitești Experiment was designed as a way of "reeducating" political prisoners opposed to the communist government of Romania. The experiment was designed as an attempt at violently "reeducating" the mostly young political prisoners, primarily supporters of the fascist and anti-semitic Iron Guard, as well as former members of the National Peasants' and National Liberal parties or Zionist members of the Romanian Jewish community. The experiment's goal, compliant with the regime's take on Leninism, was for prisoners to discard past political and religious convictions, and, eventually, to alter their personalities to the point of absolute obedience. Estimates for the total number of people passed through the experiment range from 1,000 to 5,000. It is considered the largest and most intensive brainwashing torture program in the Eastern bloc.
They are no longer sovereign political bodies representative of the society's welfare and aspirations. In real terms, democracy is a fake as governments are effectively controlled by the global financial system and they do not represent the society's interests, of which, the most important is social coherence and stability based on the real values of non-violence and true democracy. The uncontrollable policy of unrestricted money infusion and loan-giving gives rise to the structural problem of debt which threatens the fluidity on the financial markets. Fake financial sub-prime products aggravate the condition of the financial system even more. Through financial speculation and credit, money makes money, the fabulously rich become richer, but the infusion of money is not accompanied by the real economic growth in terms of increased supply of goods and services, society - friendly investment, the increase in available jobs synonymous with greater employment. Neither is this global financial speculation paraled by the investment in social infrastructure in terms of better healthcare and education, stabil pension system, or the reduction of unemployment. Financial credit-based speculation diverts enormous public funds from being invested into social infrastructure to the detriment of the socio-economic situation of the society. This leads to violence and social upheaval. Governments use public funds to ensure the liquidity of the financial sector facing bankruptcy thus causing economic recession, the break-down of economic output, the collapse of labor markets, poverty, misery, violence, moral downfall and disintegration of social relations. The policy of austerity affecting the weakest in the most dramatic way misfired. It plunged the society into recession striking the consumer markets and threatening the fiscal and insurance systems. Apart from recession, the debt is there. What is more, the budget deficit is still there and if the situation gets worse, the governments will have to print money to ensure the workings of healthcare, education or public insurance.
In a word, apart from recession, we may face inflation and worst of all we have a financial and economic system unable to divert circulating money from speculation to real economic investment creating jobs, and strengthening the fiscal sector. The neo-liberal capitalist system is very much like cancer which proliferates spectacularly but the pace of its growth is such uncontrollable and unpredictable that it spells its own destruction. Cancer cells have this wondrous ability to divide so rapidly that their growth is spectacular but the growth is so fast and chaotic that the inner cancer cells simply choke because of the lack of oxygen and the tumor begins to decompose and decay from within. It is not enough for the cancer to build a network of blood vessels to increase the oxygen supply.
Metastasis is no remedy because the cancer decays from within and the decay results from too great a rate of growth. The cancer of our society is the uncontrollable liberalization of financial markets and financial corporations and the system has reached the phase of unstoppable metastasis. The concept of the free market which is supposed to stimulate economic growth works against it.
Yes, it works against the economy because the free market is the property of the chosen few. So is the system. So far, we have progressed in terms of technological advance and the level of consumption but the socioeconomic structure of the system is very much like in the past. It is based on the capital manipulation and exploitation of labour. Economists can not grasp the full consequences of the process and they blunder around in the dark. To maintain the workings of the economy and the liquidity of financial markets, money must be pumped into circulation to prevent this loan-and debt -based economic bubble from bursting.
Interest rates must be kept at the level of around 0 % to counter recession. Any desirable rise in interest rates to handle the problem of debt and uncontrollable borrowing to balance the economy might trigger the economy's collapse. The process of economic self-destruction has been set in motion and its unstoppable. It is a matter of time when and how this financial bubble bursts. Money is being spent to save banks instead of being diverted into real economy to revive consumer markets, to fight unemployment and to restrict the monopoly of the financial markets and stimulate small and medium-sized business economic activity which favours the economic welfare of ordinary citizens. Recession effectively destroys the economy based on social economic activity and entrepreneurship. Not only does the world's financial and political establishment repeatedly fail in diffusing the financial end economic crisis. What is equally alarming, the establishment has no credible and working anti-violence social policy. Instead, it feeds ordinary people with the empty slogans of free elections, free market, democracy, human rights and equality.
In a word, apart from recession, we may face inflation and worst of all we have a financial and economic system unable to divert circulating money from speculation to real economic investment creating jobs, and strengthening the fiscal sector. The neo-liberal capitalist system is very much like cancer which proliferates spectacularly but the pace of its growth is such uncontrollable and unpredictable that it spells its own destruction. Cancer cells have this wondrous ability to divide so rapidly that their growth is spectacular but the growth is so fast and chaotic that the inner cancer cells simply choke because of the lack of oxygen and the tumor begins to decompose and decay from within. It is not enough for the cancer to build a network of blood vessels to increase the oxygen supply.
Metastasis is no remedy because the cancer decays from within and the decay results from too great a rate of growth. The cancer of our society is the uncontrollable liberalization of financial markets and financial corporations and the system has reached the phase of unstoppable metastasis. The concept of the free market which is supposed to stimulate economic growth works against it.
Yes, it works against the economy because the free market is the property of the chosen few. So is the system. So far, we have progressed in terms of technological advance and the level of consumption but the socioeconomic structure of the system is very much like in the past. It is based on the capital manipulation and exploitation of labour. Economists can not grasp the full consequences of the process and they blunder around in the dark. To maintain the workings of the economy and the liquidity of financial markets, money must be pumped into circulation to prevent this loan-and debt -based economic bubble from bursting.
Interest rates must be kept at the level of around 0 % to counter recession. Any desirable rise in interest rates to handle the problem of debt and uncontrollable borrowing to balance the economy might trigger the economy's collapse. The process of economic self-destruction has been set in motion and its unstoppable. It is a matter of time when and how this financial bubble bursts. Money is being spent to save banks instead of being diverted into real economy to revive consumer markets, to fight unemployment and to restrict the monopoly of the financial markets and stimulate small and medium-sized business economic activity which favours the economic welfare of ordinary citizens. Recession effectively destroys the economy based on social economic activity and entrepreneurship. Not only does the world's financial and political establishment repeatedly fail in diffusing the financial end economic crisis. What is equally alarming, the establishment has no credible and working anti-violence social policy. Instead, it feeds ordinary people with the empty slogans of free elections, free market, democracy, human rights and equality.
Any manifestation of violence, especially state-promoted violence like the one in Romania and elsewhere traumatizes the society. Any manifestation of violence corrupts the society and sets precedents for relativization and gradation of suffering opening up ways for abuse and oppression or exploitation.
This is exactly the case in Romania where the suffering of countless numbers of sensitive beings counts for nothing thus corrupting and traumatizing the society.
The financial and economic character of the neo-liberal system has led to the escalation and globalization of terrorism and the threat of terrorism is being exploited by the governments to restrict citizens' constitutional rights and civil liberties. Such social liberties are evidently being violated in Romania as any violence-promoting policy of a state implies the violation of human rights and civil liberties.
Socio-economic inequality, marginalization, contempt for the basic needs of the society must inevitably lead to the radicalization of anti-establishment sentiment as is clearly seen in the Muslim countries where aggressive neo-liberal economic doctrines aggravate socio-economic divide and spawn terrorism.
Though many may think that the extermination excesses in Romania may seem marginal because they do not directly relate to the extermination of humans, yet the active involvement of the state in the process of killing, institutionalization and legitimization of violence and the apparent contempt for human rights and the psychological trauma resulting from violence make us understand that the Romanian syndrome is a part of some global series of warning signs foreshadowing the rise of violence and socioeconomic decline.
As colonialism, imperialism and the Great Depression of 1929 foreshadowed the Apocalypse of crematoria and gas chambers, the current economic crisis, terrorism, violence and social unrest and the collapse of faith in the authority of the state foreshadows and determines the future course of events.
For those who have not yet experienced violence first hand, and violence also implies the loss of a job, a family break-up, a suicide or depression because of socio-economic reasons, this statement sounds abstract and incomprehensible. Yet there are many millions across the world stricken by poverty or being subject daily to the ugly face of violence, like those in Romania, for whom violence is not an abstract thing. Violence is not an abstract construct for those who really suffer and those free from the oppression of violence should look into its ugly face to understand what violence implies.
We simply have to know if we want to avert the danger. Apocalypse does not have to be a spectacular bang resulting from someone pressing a nuke button. Apocalypse is happening now. It is the agony of the helpless and defenceless living creature, human or animal, facing oppression and persecution while others simply are looking on.
It is the constant sense of anxiety and uncertainty as the socio-economic situation gets worse. The system will collapse followed by a hard-to-predict violence and social upheaval.
This is exactly the case in Romania where the suffering of countless numbers of sensitive beings counts for nothing thus corrupting and traumatizing the society.
The financial and economic character of the neo-liberal system has led to the escalation and globalization of terrorism and the threat of terrorism is being exploited by the governments to restrict citizens' constitutional rights and civil liberties. Such social liberties are evidently being violated in Romania as any violence-promoting policy of a state implies the violation of human rights and civil liberties.
Socio-economic inequality, marginalization, contempt for the basic needs of the society must inevitably lead to the radicalization of anti-establishment sentiment as is clearly seen in the Muslim countries where aggressive neo-liberal economic doctrines aggravate socio-economic divide and spawn terrorism.
Though many may think that the extermination excesses in Romania may seem marginal because they do not directly relate to the extermination of humans, yet the active involvement of the state in the process of killing, institutionalization and legitimization of violence and the apparent contempt for human rights and the psychological trauma resulting from violence make us understand that the Romanian syndrome is a part of some global series of warning signs foreshadowing the rise of violence and socioeconomic decline.
As colonialism, imperialism and the Great Depression of 1929 foreshadowed the Apocalypse of crematoria and gas chambers, the current economic crisis, terrorism, violence and social unrest and the collapse of faith in the authority of the state foreshadows and determines the future course of events.
For those who have not yet experienced violence first hand, and violence also implies the loss of a job, a family break-up, a suicide or depression because of socio-economic reasons, this statement sounds abstract and incomprehensible. Yet there are many millions across the world stricken by poverty or being subject daily to the ugly face of violence, like those in Romania, for whom violence is not an abstract thing. Violence is not an abstract construct for those who really suffer and those free from the oppression of violence should look into its ugly face to understand what violence implies.
We simply have to know if we want to avert the danger. Apocalypse does not have to be a spectacular bang resulting from someone pressing a nuke button. Apocalypse is happening now. It is the agony of the helpless and defenceless living creature, human or animal, facing oppression and persecution while others simply are looking on.
It is the constant sense of anxiety and uncertainty as the socio-economic situation gets worse. The system will collapse followed by a hard-to-predict violence and social upheaval.
Apart from the economic problems, the contemporary society is being rocked by the unprecedent, since the Second Wold War, wave of social unrest. Violence is becoming a norm, a standard, and those voices which speak against it are being marginalized and isolated. Violence is being endorsed and engineered by the ruling elite disguising themselves as democrats to the point of state terrorism aiming to suppress all dissent and attempts to start up an honest social dialogue.
Direct or indirect violence as exemplified by social and economic marginalization is an inherent and inseparable part of the system and the societies are being conditioned to accept it. The extent and intensity of violence is the measure of a society's decay and corruption.
So is the character of violence which in its ultimate extreme assumes the form of state terrorism as is the case in Romania and elsewhere across the world. The state terrorism can be defined as the institutionalized, bureaucratized and legitimized variety of violence targeting in the first place the weakest, the most defenceless and the most vulnerable, those to whom the mere right to exist has been denied. They are those who are subject to the ultimate suffering and death because they have been denied all rights. They are those who are being eradicated like pests, maimed, whose bellies are ripped open, who are burnt alive, who are being hanged by the leg and quartered alive or who are crucified.
Direct or indirect violence as exemplified by social and economic marginalization is an inherent and inseparable part of the system and the societies are being conditioned to accept it. The extent and intensity of violence is the measure of a society's decay and corruption.
So is the character of violence which in its ultimate extreme assumes the form of state terrorism as is the case in Romania and elsewhere across the world. The state terrorism can be defined as the institutionalized, bureaucratized and legitimized variety of violence targeting in the first place the weakest, the most defenceless and the most vulnerable, those to whom the mere right to exist has been denied. They are those who are subject to the ultimate suffering and death because they have been denied all rights. They are those who are being eradicated like pests, maimed, whose bellies are ripped open, who are burnt alive, who are being hanged by the leg and quartered alive or who are crucified.
When we realize what our corrupt system does to millions of feeling and sensitive creatures in the name of profit and consumption and when we recall the scenes of the piles of human naked skeletons with wide-opened glassy eyes from gassing and asphyxiation being bulldozed into a ditch we get the true sense of that institutionalized violence and suffering are.
We treat animals as pests or meat and we know from history that humans can be treated likewise if violence takes its ultimate form of state terrorism which is the result of corrupt social order, exploitation, marginalization, greed, the abuse of power and moral misery and social indifference.
A Jew or a dog is not a pest. They are living creatures.
We treat animals as pests or meat and we know from history that humans can be treated likewise if violence takes its ultimate form of state terrorism which is the result of corrupt social order, exploitation, marginalization, greed, the abuse of power and moral misery and social indifference.
A Jew or a dog is not a pest. They are living creatures.
Previous video: Outrage has erupted among advocacy groups in Romania on 13th of December, 2013, after the state channel TVR broadcast an anti-Semitic Christmas song calling for Jews to be burned in a chimney. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), the song ran on a Dec. 5 broadcast by the rural-targeted TVR3 channel. In the broadcast, a choir was shown singing a Christmas song that indirectly glorifies the Holocaust. The song, which rhymes and uses the word "jidovi," a pejorative word for a Jew, includes the lyrics, "only in the chimney as smoke, this is what the 'jidov' is good for."
The real truth is to be exposed and we must not ignore the warning signs. The Romanian authorities using taxpayer's money and assuming the guise of democratic procedures actively endorse mass violence through the implementation of state-sponsored, institutionalized, seemingly legitimized, and bureucratized state terror traumatizing a large part of the Romanian and the world's public opinion thus violating the human rights of those who oppose violence.
The volatile socio-economic situation favors the emergence of state terrorism and organized violence and apart from the ultimate scope of the killing, mass extermination and suffering of both animals and humans, the legitimization, institutionalization and bureaucratization of the mass killings as well as its totality and inevitability poses the greatest threat to the stability of the social order and the system of beliefs necessary for the growth of lasting social relations and social coherence.
Putting aside the unimaginable suffering and trauma of the victim being subject to the terror of dying in pain, the process of conditioning the society to the use of state terrorism, institutionalized, legitimized, and bureaucratized as well as commercialized violence made the existence of death camps possible. Endorsing state-promoted violence in its total devious, and institutionalized form has a tremendous traumatic and desentisizing impact on the individual and the society as a whole. The sense of trauma, anxiety, psychological pain, psychosomatic illness and depression and frustration makes it impossible for people to develop lasting and affective relations with others thus leading to the break up of healthy social relations without which a society is ridden with suspicion, prejudice, intolerance and creeping anxiety.
Violence kills the victim but it psychologically maims and disables the witness often for life. There is convincing and unquestionable psychiatric evidence pointing clearly out that the survivors of the holocaust suffering from permanent depression and violence – related depressive anxiety often failed in life in terms of family life, social and professional success because of their anxiety-related sense of inferiority. It is violence-related, all-embracing depressive anxiety which makes the stricken individual fail to adapt and enjoy life. Violence scars human psyche for life. The dramatic rise in the number of suicides, the ever-increasing number of cases of depression, psychosomatic disease and maladaptive behaviour results not only from direct Romanian-style acts of aggression of exposing the public to the direct trauma of state-promoted wholesale violence and mass extermination. Violence is also to be understood as socio-economic or political marginalization and this variety of violence results from economic crisis and recession and it equally dramatically scars human psyche.
It is extremely important to realize that any manifestation of state terrorism and institutionalized violence and mass extermination either directed at humans or animals has a profoundly corrupt and traumatizing impact on the society, the individual and the social system. For all those reasons, the question of the protection of animal rights is ultimately relevant to the question of human rights and violence. This connection should be prioritized if we want to effectively protect social justice and the value of human life.
A society is governable only when a non-oppressive and non-violence varieties of financial, political and social policies are being implemented by the ruling establishment because only then does the non-violent set of values achieve absolute priority.
That is what makes the protection of animal rights as important as the protection of human rights because violation of animal rights implies the relativization of suffering and violence and the relativization of the entire societal system of moral priorities. Not only our socio-economic system is inherently and terminally flawed. Our anthropocentric narrow-mindedness makes us believe that violence against animals is a lesser evil because animals are meat, because animals are commercial unfeeling commodities to be utilized at will. In this way we begin to tolerate violence at the animal level and here is where our terminal moral flaw is. We condition ourselves to accept violence by relativizing and grading animal suffering and pain and in the process we relativize and grade violence and our human pain and suffering in general.
The relativization of violence, suffering and pain in whatever form and manifestation makes us unable to establish the lasting and unquestionable set of values protecting us from psychological trauma and moral confusion.
The volatile socio-economic situation favors the emergence of state terrorism and organized violence and apart from the ultimate scope of the killing, mass extermination and suffering of both animals and humans, the legitimization, institutionalization and bureaucratization of the mass killings as well as its totality and inevitability poses the greatest threat to the stability of the social order and the system of beliefs necessary for the growth of lasting social relations and social coherence.
Putting aside the unimaginable suffering and trauma of the victim being subject to the terror of dying in pain, the process of conditioning the society to the use of state terrorism, institutionalized, legitimized, and bureaucratized as well as commercialized violence made the existence of death camps possible. Endorsing state-promoted violence in its total devious, and institutionalized form has a tremendous traumatic and desentisizing impact on the individual and the society as a whole. The sense of trauma, anxiety, psychological pain, psychosomatic illness and depression and frustration makes it impossible for people to develop lasting and affective relations with others thus leading to the break up of healthy social relations without which a society is ridden with suspicion, prejudice, intolerance and creeping anxiety.
Violence kills the victim but it psychologically maims and disables the witness often for life. There is convincing and unquestionable psychiatric evidence pointing clearly out that the survivors of the holocaust suffering from permanent depression and violence – related depressive anxiety often failed in life in terms of family life, social and professional success because of their anxiety-related sense of inferiority. It is violence-related, all-embracing depressive anxiety which makes the stricken individual fail to adapt and enjoy life. Violence scars human psyche for life. The dramatic rise in the number of suicides, the ever-increasing number of cases of depression, psychosomatic disease and maladaptive behaviour results not only from direct Romanian-style acts of aggression of exposing the public to the direct trauma of state-promoted wholesale violence and mass extermination. Violence is also to be understood as socio-economic or political marginalization and this variety of violence results from economic crisis and recession and it equally dramatically scars human psyche.
It is extremely important to realize that any manifestation of state terrorism and institutionalized violence and mass extermination either directed at humans or animals has a profoundly corrupt and traumatizing impact on the society, the individual and the social system. For all those reasons, the question of the protection of animal rights is ultimately relevant to the question of human rights and violence. This connection should be prioritized if we want to effectively protect social justice and the value of human life.
A society is governable only when a non-oppressive and non-violence varieties of financial, political and social policies are being implemented by the ruling establishment because only then does the non-violent set of values achieve absolute priority.
That is what makes the protection of animal rights as important as the protection of human rights because violation of animal rights implies the relativization of suffering and violence and the relativization of the entire societal system of moral priorities. Not only our socio-economic system is inherently and terminally flawed. Our anthropocentric narrow-mindedness makes us believe that violence against animals is a lesser evil because animals are meat, because animals are commercial unfeeling commodities to be utilized at will. In this way we begin to tolerate violence at the animal level and here is where our terminal moral flaw is. We condition ourselves to accept violence by relativizing and grading animal suffering and pain and in the process we relativize and grade violence and our human pain and suffering in general.
The relativization of violence, suffering and pain in whatever form and manifestation makes us unable to establish the lasting and unquestionable set of values protecting us from psychological trauma and moral confusion.
Corpses of riot victims, including a mother and her young son, lying on the floor of the Forensic Institute in Bucharest, which served as a morgue during the December 1989 Romanian insurrection. In a brief but violent revolution that spread from Timisoara to Bucharest, during which more than 1,200 people died, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his regime were overthrown and the dictator and his wife Elena summarily executed by firing squad. N° of photo: 0000251869-021 Date: 26 December 1989 Photographer: Patrick Robert
If we want to protect human life ultimately we have to oppose all sorts of violence because if we do not it means that the concept of non-violence is not an absolute and unquestionable priority and value. It is relative. If there is no absolute and ultimate moral standard to protect human life and the concept of non-violence is relative, questionable and dubious, then this faulty and morally corrupt construct is useless to effectively protect human life and human rights as well as personal freedoms.
By enslaving others we enslave ourselves, by relativizing one's suffering we relativize our own, by questioning others' rights we question ours, by promoting violence we lose our identity to confront the challenges of life and we live in fear and uncertainty because we have lost our true identity.
That is why the question of animal rights is so fundamentally and inseparably intertwined with the question of non-violence, and the protection of human rights not to mention the direct violation of human rights of those who actively protest against institutionalization of violence and the policy of state terrorism and the relativization of moral priorities.
The Romanian government is bankrupt because it openly encourages state terrorism and institutionalized violence. It is bankrupt because state terror, that is the institutionalization, legitimization, bureaucratization of violence under the cover of democracy is the direct legacy of the Stalinist communism and Nazi Germany.
It is bankrupt because it relativizes violence and suffering. It is bankrupt because it arrogantly believes that it represents the will of the people. It is bankrupt because it shows contempt for the social trauma that mass killings and violence provoke.
By enslaving others we enslave ourselves, by relativizing one's suffering we relativize our own, by questioning others' rights we question ours, by promoting violence we lose our identity to confront the challenges of life and we live in fear and uncertainty because we have lost our true identity.
That is why the question of animal rights is so fundamentally and inseparably intertwined with the question of non-violence, and the protection of human rights not to mention the direct violation of human rights of those who actively protest against institutionalization of violence and the policy of state terrorism and the relativization of moral priorities.
The Romanian government is bankrupt because it openly encourages state terrorism and institutionalized violence. It is bankrupt because state terror, that is the institutionalization, legitimization, bureaucratization of violence under the cover of democracy is the direct legacy of the Stalinist communism and Nazi Germany.
It is bankrupt because it relativizes violence and suffering. It is bankrupt because it arrogantly believes that it represents the will of the people. It is bankrupt because it shows contempt for the social trauma that mass killings and violence provoke.
How is it possible that such socially disruptive policies as the universal violation of human rights does not lead to decisive and determined NO from European institutions and governments? How is it possible that the church and legal officials remain silent?
Evidently, the rights of those who protect animals do not matter as much as the rights of the privilleged ones. Here again, is another example of relativization - the relativization of human rights. Even the law is relative. There are no absolute priorities and against the background of the socio-economic decline and the relativization of values something is brewing.
Anyway, as long as economic hegemony and power struggle have priority over the social order and the awareness of the concept of non-violence, there will be oppression, contempt for suffering and social upheaval.
Andrzej Szczepanek
Evidently, the rights of those who protect animals do not matter as much as the rights of the privilleged ones. Here again, is another example of relativization - the relativization of human rights. Even the law is relative. There are no absolute priorities and against the background of the socio-economic decline and the relativization of values something is brewing.
Anyway, as long as economic hegemony and power struggle have priority over the social order and the awareness of the concept of non-violence, there will be oppression, contempt for suffering and social upheaval.
Andrzej Szczepanek