Mostly, we know of Lucian Mîndruţa’s by his “Hungarian-friendly” statements and his Facebook posts, whom we asked in the centennial year of the statehood of Romania how should the issues of the Hungarian community be told, so that the majority can understand it as well. The journalist, who also appeared on television and in radio broadcasts, gave us surprising answers to all our questions, but in his usual style, with wittiness and embellished with examples.

You seemed enthusiastic on Facebook, regarding the protests of recent days and hours…

I do not know how enthusiastic I am. I’m a journalist, so I’m trying to present events rather than participate in them. I am trying to keep the distance of my profession, because, as a journalist, you should not be a part of what you are writing about, but rather you must position yourself objectively. .

All right, but I think you have a firm belief on how developed the civilian spirit is in the domestic society, on public participation, or on how well-informed people are about the matters they are protesting against …

Of course, I do have an opinion. I think that if this civilian spirit was born in 2017, now being nearly one and a half years old, it has started to talk and it will soon be learning to walk. It still has to grow up and learn: if a method does not work, you must not cut yourself off like a toddler, who says he is done, he is not going to do anything or I want to fight anyone anyway. When the method you are using does not work, you must find another solution. In this case, protests are evidently exhausted, people have realized that the protest does not stop the coalition government from voting the laws that are not favored by protesters. And then it happens – or at least I hope – that some will aim for longer-term work, which is a lot harder: participation in politics. Protests seemed to be the easiest way to achieve what people wanted. You participated in the protest for four to five days, you made a banner, you got what you wanted, and then went home … I know that for some this was already difficult, but it could not have been not a huge effort. Political effort, on the other hand, resembles resident association or a membership. So, first you have to fill out some papers, you have to go door to door to talk to your neighbors, whether or not they want an Entryphone and you have to ask for their consent. This is more complicated & nerve-racking…  Somebody commented on my page, that he was working 11 hour shifts a day and asked when he would have time to politicize … But you must take time, if you wish to influence what is happening in this country.

Currently, many people do not like PSD because not their cool friends voted for that party, in contrast to Klaus Johannis, for example. Consequently, many think that its power is less legitimate…

I cannot say I do not like PSD, because I have decent friends there too. Of course, I saw some guys on TV with whom I would not go to have a drink. Actually, PSD had governance periods that made the country more stable, some of which introduced into the European community and most of the prime ministers were worthy of being let out in the big world, like Brussels. What I deem strange is that the PSD has deviated from this standard. People expected more from this party and what happened was surprising. But I do not want to criticize the party because I have not yet entered politics. I’ll do it when I will. I have not been disappointed only by PSD, many other parties and their communication skills have also let me down.

Would you enter politics?

I’m not that rich. If I entered, I would like to hustle for a decent political environment. However, I currently have a job, that I should give up, If I entered. When they become politicians, journalists are no longer able to practice their profession and cannot get paid for it. So my simple, practical question is: how could I make ends meet? You acquire a seat in Parliament, but who would pay you for a decent job then? I was thinking about this a lot…

Returning: the subject of constant political debate is the proportionality of powers and the electoral mandate. I am thinking here of the constant conflict between the President and Government and the debate on what one or the other can do in their position. Why is not it the most important question in public opinion about how to properly define this issue this in a new constitution?

As far as I am concerned, PSD would take over from the powers of the state, because some of them disturb them. The has never done so before and it did not promise to do so at the elections. It is possible, that the leaders of the party gave the idea to their supporters that they will change things in the country and get rid of the presumed “Johannis’ arbitrariness” … But before the elections, it was not made clear to us that they would not get on well with the President and only the roads in Brussels were being devoted to him and within the national borders no power attributed to Johannis. This is also strange because Johannis had a much more unpopular predecessor of a PSD state president, namely Traian Basescu. Of course, he was suspended, but PSD did not dare to change his powers. They may have learnt from it and apply another tactic: suspension is not enough, and powers need to be changed. Unluckily, this is an unfortunate decision to change the balance of the state. This is a decision that more people should take part in it, rather than a single party. What kind of country we want to live in should be a topic of wider debate.

That is why I thought about a new constitution…

We might need a new constitution, but currently a new stability would be much more needed. To ensure that there is no tension in Romania every day, so people do not have surf on the web daily to find out what their leaders have done recently. We should not be nervous, we should rather work to move our country forward. And while people are surfing the Internet constantly, they fail to realize the actual changes. I wrote six months ago about the fact that the purchasing power of the population is real and bigger than in Russia after 1938. We managed to bring an eighty-year backlog, which was a huge effort. To my mind, politicians should work to continue the country’s development, because it’s perhaps more important than their personal destiny. At least a stateman should think so …

However, in the centenary year of the big union, I see that the population of the country is divided between the supporters of PSD and Klaus Johannis. I did not see large mass movements at the occasion of a hundred-year statehood, except for a street-haul in Budapest, organized by public television. Did we quit celebrating, or am I seeing this incorrectly?

I hereby invite you to the cycling tour we organized for the anniversary of the statehood, which was named “Cycling for Romania”. On June 26^th, teams will depart from Iasi, Timisoara and Bucharest and arrive in Alba Iulia on the 30th of June after a five-day trip of 500 kilometers. The points of departure cover the historical regions, Transylvania, Moldavia and Regata, and symbolically meet in Alba Iulia. It was my dream that the participants would be Hungarians as well, but there are only two so far. This is good and beautiful anyway. In addition to that, we are also touching Hungarian-inhabited areas on this path. My idea was to visit mayor’s offices, including two Hungarian settlements, asking the mayors to go for a mile and talk to people. Bucharest has a team of 150 people and 50-50 of the other two cities. This will be a beautiful event because I think that Romania itself is a story of success. Despite what is happening in politics today, we must admit that it did not go so bad economically for us in the last 3-4 years. And I reckon this is the best argument for greater solidarity among the Romanians. Let’s all be part of this story.

Recently I went to a Hungarian village near Oradea, where they wanted to sell me two bottles of water and one ice cream for 3 lei. I asked twice if they really said 3 lei, because I pay more for one water only at the gas station. Then I realized how low the purchasing power was in the village. It should be our main task, therefore, to bring all the local communities in Romania to same level of the wealthy domestic counties …

Raising the community to the same standards, I think, also depends on exercising its rights to identity. In Romania, the momentum in this field had practically remained until the country’s accession to the EU. Currently it is almost as “high-quality” as the highway construction. So, what should the national minorities celebrate in the centennial year?

But do they want to celebrate? I really want the national minorities to want to celebrate this common success with us. Because Romania is the country of all of us. And this is the message I want to formulate to the Hungarians. For example, in a settlement where everyone is Hungarian from the mayor to the various local authorities, I would like to hear a good word about the hundred years of Romania and the “Romania of others”. Likewise, I would like to hear such words from our side as well. As far as I am concerned, I always try to appreciate the Hungarian community, including its holidays. Because I believe we should reach our hands towards eachother instead of slapping eachother. And I also think that we cannot continue the discourse we have had in the last fifty years in which we have been accusing eachother of different things.

Your public statements and the comments about the Hungarian community are known to me from my friends who shared your posts. They celebrate the tone of normality …

According to this, you must also know that I shared the frustration of my friends from Cluj-Napoca, who said that they also objected to the cases supported by the leaders of the Hungarian community …

I know about that, of course. But also, there are few Romanian people who are not scared by the demands of the Hungarian community, which are discussed, among other things, by community leaders, including the idea of ​​autonomy. At least to the same extent my acquaintances are annoyed by the fact that these issues are approached in such a way, that they are not acceptable within the framework of a “nation state”, as Romania is often called. For example, autonomy is equal to separatism. How do you think these things should be put?

I cannot give advice on this, but I can only say what I think. And I have concluded that many speeches about autonomy are coming today from those who want to break up Europe – on the one hand, the splitting of the European Union, on the other hand, of the progressive nation states. Some of these statements are influenced by Russia or even encouraged by it. For a while I’ve been dealing with trolls and all kinds of annoying things that they’ve come up with and I think that some of the hate speech in the country comes from outside Romania and Hungary. The goal is that this Europe, which we know today, should not function as a unit and to return to the blockade before 1989: to the east, which is under the influence of Russia and to a West which is part of Western civilization. I believe that Romanians and Hungarians would like to be a part of the latter and not to be controlled by those who want to use an old conflict to maintain cases in which certain states are interested. And do not forget how many times we have been a tool of another power that used us to fight each other while our own interests were just to have peace between us.

How can we defend ourselves against incitement from the outside, from fake news and others? Obviously, we must be well-informed. But apart from that, what would be the best method?

This reminds me of the way the people from Marosvásárhely are doing: there is a civil and political organization in which Romanians and Hungarians work together. But the best way would be to talk to each other more. Because, for example, my Transylvanian friends are saying that these conflicts exist only to you, we get on well with each other here. Against the outside, we can only defend ourselves through dialogue between the two nations.

My dream is to have a common Romanian-Hungarian history book written jointly by Romanian and Hungarian historians as well, that covers the period from the Middle Ages – because there were the biggest problems – to present, that would enumerate events from the common past that both parties could accept, meanwhile every piece of information must be true. That would be sensational. I have noticed that sometimes rhetoric is more important than historical facts.

I would say the same, almost every time…

I think that we must build a reality in which we can accept each other as we are. That is why I do not consider it a good idea to fight for separation now because, as we can see, those who are fighting for it are not those who want the best for Europe. In this regard, the best example is Catalonia, a region that would separate from Spain, that is, the wants of one part, because common will is still questionable … But beyond that I think we should strive for creating an economic unity and equality and then the intellectual part will work. I realize that there is no more absurd nationalism on the Romanian side today, and I see several personalities who reach their hands out and do not want conflict, but they would rather be friends with the Hungarians. In the following generations, I realize that they do not make that kind of difference. I may be naive, but I think there are decent Romanians who are worth sitting down for a beer …

Source: Maszol