Quotation from the complaint of a middle-aged lady, a nostalgic pilgrim at the Ceausescus' grave: "maybe under Ceausescu there also were rapes, crimes, robberies, but they weren't showed up like now, so that everybody see it." Here is a new reason to regret the former dictator. It was bad under Ceausescu too, but at least we didn't' know it. Subtle, isn't it? What could be worse than to be aware of the world we live in? At the anniversary of 83, that Nicolae Ceausescu would have reached several days ago, one of the most invoked living persons was Ion Iliescu. For the fans of the former dictator, the incumbent President seems to be the only hope now. Since the already famous declarations at Focsani, Ion Iliescu manages to do what a Vadim Tudor, for instance, would never be able to do. To let the impression that, beyond the circumstantial political interests, the electoral imperatives or the external pressures, he says what he has in mind and what he feels deep in his heart. And what he thinks and feels has noting to do with today's Romania, with this "marsh" of freedom. Comparing to Vadim, who seems to praise Ceausescu for the sake of the publicity, Ion Iliescu is a real treasure. He is the only one qualified enough to keep on refusing the evidence of the world we live in. He is the only one to know what the benefit of the illusion and of the unawareness means. What those who feel nostalgic for Ceausescu reproach Ion Iliescu is the lack of power. The power to follow his instinct and to ignore the ones who have betrayed, for so many years, the virtues and the relishes of stupidity. Ion Iliescu don't believe in dilemmas. He can't stand incertitude. For him, knowledge is an oblation animal. If, against all reasons, he had become a priest, Ion Iliescu would have celebrated Ceausescu's requiem. So that at the next elections he become a patriarch. (Pavel LUCESCU) Quotation