"Today, the same as on Ceausescu's times, it is believed that a pompous show, which huge amounts of money were spent for, will distract the attention from the country's serious economic and social troubles". We didn't say that. President Emil Constantinescu said that. With a small explanatory note. He didn't say that now, but five years ago, when he was in the opposition. If the current rulers think our memory (the memory of those whom they rule) doesn't even last for five years, why do they imagine it will last for 80 years, as many as Romania is old since it was born. This is our tragedy, I believe. We are too young and too old at the same time. Too young to understand what we were 80 years ago and too old to remember what happened yesterday. We are innocent and senile. We have a past, we have a future too, but we need exactly what is most valuable. We need our present. The worthlessness feeling is sharper than ever. Boots, tanks, flags. Hysterical and demagogue, or stern and dull politicians. Crosses, priests and censers live on TV. Bread, circus and PRO-TV. Everything you want and everything you don't, because, in fact, nobody is celebrating anything. A genuine National Anniversary cannot be but a series of daily and discrete celebrations. They are totally missing in Romania. What we have actually lived for a few years - 1998 is the peak - is the end of a certain kind of solidarity and a certain way of celebrating. The parade, as a form of symbolic solidarity, ends up these years in parody. The parody is a parade which the public don't go to. Our National Anniversary has become a parody because it no longer has audience. It has politicians, soldiers, priests, TV stars, but it no longer has audience. The audience, or the people as it was called the other day, or civil society as it is called somewhere else, is nothing today but a mass on TV in Romania. The Nationa