The public arena this summer was terrifying: we witnessed a war waged by all against all. The hunt party was open to get former members of the intelligence services and their sources, but also intellectuals. Accusations flied left and right, and summary trials were followed by ad-hoc firing squads which reveled in completing the death sentence. The public arena this summer was terrifying: we witnessed a war waged by all against all. The hunt party was open to get former members of the intelligence services and their sources, but also intellectuals. Accusations flied left and right, and summary trials were followed by ad-hoc firing squads which reveled in completing the death sentence.

All these were fueled by hate, spread widely around. It looked like the nation’s hate accumulated in special glands which now poured their puss over our heads.

And a new breed of people emerged: the one of hate-manipulators.

They are those happy to use the hatred accumulated over the years by some and direct it against others. It was a hallucinating and disgusting show for most of us, but fascinating to them, the hate-manipulators. The dead were dug out of their graves, the fight was to the death and all means deploying hatred were used.

Such lust for destruction, for annihilation was never before seen in Romania.

I think it was time for the profession to make it into the roster of legitimate money-earning activities. We could find out, after all, that we have an ages-long lust to line up to join the firing squads.

Translated by Anca Paduraru

The public arena this summer was terrifying: we witnessed a war waged by all against all. The hunt party was open to get former members of the intelligence services and their sources, but also intellectuals. Accusations flied left and right, and summary trials were followed by ad-hoc firing squads wh