As President Donald Trump clamps down on diversity in this country, removes references to transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument, scraps the ban on government surveillance based on sexual orientation and implements similar policies, a Jersey City woman is drawing parallels to her time living under a dictatorship in Romania.
The woman, who is in her mid-50s and asked that her name not be used, grew up during the regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu, who was Romania’s head of state from 1967 until he was overthrown and executed in 1989.
I think that we need to fight this progression into autocracy as much as we can,” said the woman, who came to the United States in the early 1990s. “Fight for the press to remain free. The White House has already made changes. Fight for free elections. Let’s see if we have the midterm elections. Don’t take elections for granted.”
In a memoir, the woman described life was living under the dictatorship and how she and her family survived it. The press, of course, was censored. The weather forecasts and sports were the only things that could be trusted, certainly not “official” news reports. There was arts-and-culture programming, and people did have access to live theater.
“Maybe those arts-and-culture shows were meant not only to teach and educate, but also to offer people a lifeline, a brief escape from a reality that was becoming rougher and tougher to survive with each passing day,” she wrote. Circumstances grew progressively worse during the Ceauşescu dictatorship, and in the 1980s they got so bad that people had no choice but to fight back.
“Water and electricity could be cut off at a moment’s notice, and, although in our area that would not happen too often, I can still recall several instances when my dad brought in his car battery, and then hooked up a lightbulb to it, so that I could have enough light to finish my homework.” Gasoline, she recalled, was in short supply, and she remembers seeing lines of cars stretching along city sidewalks and being pushed by their owners to get a week’s worth of gas ration. Weekend driving was restricted and controlled based on the last digit — even or odd — of the car’s license plate. Food was rationed, and sometimes neighbors would spread the word if they heard of food deliveries being made to grocery stores in the area. She remembered her grandpa waiting in food lines for hours.
“As an adult I’ve spent years trying to block out some of those memories; yet, sometimes, somehow, images from that era happen to resurface, reminders of the reality attached to them.” There was only one car manufacturer in the country and only one car model, she recalled. This, she wrote, made it easy for people to spot any possible foreign vehicles on the streets and report their presence to the authorities. “Not only the press and travel were censored, freedom of speech and of expression were censored, but every single aspect of everyday life was supervised, scrutinized, controlled, and censored,” she wrote.
In this country, right now is the time for people to wake up and take action, the woman believes, because once a dictatorship is entrenched, it becomes much more difficult to fight. “Demonstrations do work in a free society, not in an autocracy/dictatorship,” she said. “People get arrested and then disappear. And usually, the dear leader does not care about demonstrations, unless they directly affect him.” People need to organize at the local level, be aware and not be complacent, she said. “I have the feeling that we’re sliding deeper and deeper into this mess. I don’t know if we have time to wait until the midterms. There’s a very good possibility that we won’t have elections anymore. What then?”
Currently, there doesn’t seem to be much opposition or pushback, especially from young people or the opposing major political party, she noted. “Young people don’t seem to care,” she said, “and where are the Democrats? What happened to them? It is vital that Americans don’t let the country slide so deep into a dictatorship that nothing can be done anymore,” she said. “Because once a dictatorship settles in, it will stay for a long, long time.”
The woman noted that Romania’s dictatorship lasted for 25 years, and Portugal had one that spanned more than 40 years. “So, it’s good to wake up now and don’t let it progress. But now, we have no power, not really, not with the Republicans in Congress.” She said that Democrats need to win back people’s hearts and win elections, listen to people and have common sense, and actually do something.
The woman said that people, such as herself and her family, come to the United States because they want a better life. “People were escaping dictatorships to come here,” she said.
It “freaked her out” when she heard Trump declare that his second term will be a new “golden age” for the country because that is similar to what Ceauşescu said about Romania. Americans have to come back from the extremes and come back to the middle, but are so far polarized, the woman said, she is not sure if that’s possible. She said the situation is dire and that Americans should not think a dictatorship cannot happen to them.
Why is the country in its current situation? “I think it has to do with a lack of education, a lack of desire to acquire that education, because I think education in general opens up your mind,” she said. In addition to a lack of education, she sees an apathy among youth.
“The youth, I’m sorry, but the youth is like they cannot be bothered,” she said, adding that if they wait to “wake up to reality,” it will be too late. “You need to educate yourself about the cause before you just show up.” While the woman is lucky to have survived the dictatorship in Romania, she noted that many did not. Many never knew what it was like to live in a free society, and she does not want to see that happen in this country.
“Most of those born in such a regime can never escape it, and there’s no way for them to comprehend what it means to live in a free society. That point of reference does not exist, because life in a dictatorship is the only version of life there is,” she wrote.
