Intellectuals and power

Mr. Sever Voinescu wondered rhetorically in a yesterday's editorial: "Is it grounded, the fear that they, in their closed circle, are quickly writing a Constitution that sanctions Basescu as a god and then push it upon us?" He then immediately answered no, as: "A condensed rational analysis of this fear irrevocably broke it up. A new Constitution will only exist if the main political forces want it and, eventually, only if the people vote for it".
Fair enough, on condition that we all agree on the definition of the terms: what do we mean by "main political forces" and "eventually" ? During the debate that has launched the alert, the detonator was the idea vigorously expressed by some of the most imposing supporters of this new constitutional drawing up. Well, on account of this, during such a procedure of founding the third republic, the political parties and the parliament should be short-circuited, and the new constitution should be adopted directly by means of a plebiscite. In consequence of, I recalled the tragic constitutional experiences by the time King Carol II would also fully benefit from the public support of some imposing intellectuals, from Mihai Ralea to Nae Ionescu. The bitter criticism of the Parliament and the parliamentarism - to a certain extent a work of the same intellectual circles, as well as of the "furious young people" of the extremes, eight and left in a heap - had preceded, with an ever increasing intensity, the plebiscite that legitimated the dissolution of the Legislative and the banning of the political parties. Therefore, what does "eventually" mean ?
The public opinion in Romania has no organ to process international matters, because the recent history had turned the national ones into an obsession.. Neither the media, nor the political parties - as "Romania-centered" as any of us - pay any attention to the international context. If they did, they would notice at once that the aggressive populism is the main current threat to the representative democracy, the one about which Churchill said it was the worst political regime except for all the others. The post-modernist populists stand out by their voluntarism that tends to replace the law by an anti-oligarchic attack which in fact aims at bringing into power their own clientele-based oligarchy, by an authoritarianism carefully disguised for the national security and by an idealization of the State as a liberating force for the "people" and opposed to the country's political and economical elite.
Or, illustrious intellectuals - Nobel Prize for literature, like Harold Pinter or Günter Grass, famous scientists, like Noam Chomsky or Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel for economy) - turn out to be fascinated by their own vainglory and by the authoritarianism of some "caudillios" like Chávez or even Castro. When top intellectuals plead against the democratic system, the discourse effectiveness is directly proportional to their talent and intelligence. Intellectual prestige does not forbid political far-sightedness, but doesn't either generate it automatically.
At the end of his editorial, Mr. Voinescu still wonders: "Why Mr. Emil Constantinescu, the first non-communist president of Romania, ... , hasn't managed to gather these intellectual forces to assist him ? Mr. Basescu does it now, in spite of the fact that his biography recommends him to a much smaller extent as a favourite of the intellectual elite". Yes, how comes ? If I let myself lured by the ironical register, I would say for now - more in detail, another time - that Mr. Constantinescu's great fault seems to be hasn't had any philosopher brought to secret consultation by the presidential plane.

Zoe Petre
Ziua Vineri 29 Iunie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english