Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

RÃZVAN PÂRÂIANUThis article was written on the first day of the scandal. It is evident that Popescudid not have time to read the entire textbook properly and to formulatea more coherent criticism. These were his opinions at first sight, referring tothe most visible elements of the incriminated textbook. On the same day, hewas invited to participate in a public debate hosted by Tucã Show, a debatethat scandalized many intellectuals through its verbal violence.Two days later, Popescu re-launched his attack, this time using an interpretativeframework symptomatic for many commentators. His article, “Theanti-national history textbook – a premeditated crime of the Ministry ofNational Education,” is a clear case of conspiracy theory. The textbook is notan accident, but a result of the subservience of the Romanian government toAmerican imperialism. First of all, “political correctness and multiculturalismare ideologies that accompany the expansion of American imperialism.”Second, this “ideological wave” (similar to Stalinism) reached the “empty,parvenu and obedient minds” of the governors of this country. 41Some more details were necessary for giving a reality effect to thewhole story and, meanwhile, to identify the instrument of such an “infamoustreason.” Popescu referred to the seminar organized by the Project on EthnicRelations, in collaboration with the Ministry of National Education.Activists, trained in Washington and Romania, designed the curricula forsuch textbooks. These activists are not Romanian or, if they are, they are formercommunists. He reveals that people like Maria Korek from Tîrgu Mureºor Dan Pavel, “former activist in the communist party,” signed the invitationto Sorin Mitu to participate in this seminar.Identifying the conspiracy, the result was predictable, taking intoconsideration the organizers and the audience of this seminar. Bothorganizers and participants are openly anti-national.It becomes obvious that national loyalty is seen as something evil, a diseasethat has to be eliminated – an old dream of Stalin and Madeleine Albright.Here are the directives listed by the Ministry of National Education, whichis not just the blind administrator of this textbook and of others like that ...but a perfectly conscious co-instigator of their promotion. 42Soon, some intellectuals attacked this kind of reasoning. 43 But, in reality,very few reacted to his journalistic aggression. 44 Popescu was invitinga response from his critiques:A howling of beasts was stirred by my opinion, expressed, in the name ofTruth, about the question of the textbook. ... Scholars on stipend, membersof the Group for Social Dialogue, the so-called intelligentsia, expectoratedinjuries on all channels ...: Fascist, Bolshevik, Ceauºescuist, ultra-108