The opening of the files of the communist intelligence services, or Securitate, gave some the dangerous opportunity to rewrite history in black and white, with no in-between grey shades.
This is reminiscent of the communist times history, which depicted the period preceding it as the bleakest in history, and their intelligence services as the most brutal coercion system one could imagine.
These had nothing to do with the truth but with the need of the new communist hierarchy to legitimize its rise to power while bringing to extinction the previous political elite, as well as its access to privileges which were denied to the rest of the population.
In a very similar fashion today we witness how interested parties vilify beyond recognition the communist past, blending it all in one period of North Korea-like shortages and NKVD-like brutality of the Securitate.
Nothing could be further from the truth than this picture. During the early years of Nicolae Ceausescuâs rule Romania witnessed a true process of liberalization in the attempt to give communism a human face.
Even the later years of Ceausescuâs dictatorship, while harsh, were not altogether bleak when compared with the Stalinist period.
It was a dictatorship, true, which means a lower form of government than a democracy, and yet a higher form of government than a full fledged Stalinist-type dictatorship.
This is why I find it particularly dangerous to depict communism as one compact period to the younger generations of Romanians, who know nothing of those times.
I got an unlikely help from President Traian Basescu in his live intervention during the talk-show I was a guest to Tuesday evening on Antena 1 television channel.
He said he was sorry that the opening of the files of the former Securitate for the public did not lead to revealing the terrible crimes
