The Psychogram of a village


Romania: a year before the adhesion to the European Union. Iacobeni, a village like many others Iacobeni in Hârtibaciului Valley: at 60 km from Sibiu (Hermannstadt), the administrative center of the county. While Sibiu – led by German mayor Johannis- is getting closer by the minute to the European integration and resembles more and more with a culture capital in which the breeze of change can be felt, it seems that for the villages time flows the other way round run. This is also the case in Iacobeni. In a perfidious system, the people are always forced to kneel, as they are getting poorer and more tired by the day. Let’s take Iacobeni for example. Approximately 1,200 people live here, half of them being children. In 1990 the Transilvanian Saxons ran away from this village and also from other such communities. The only ones who remained were those that were not able to move and they were joined by gypsies. Furthermore, the refused ones also showed up, the so called ”authorities”, which could not or would not be allowed to function in a normal social structure. A hopeless alcoholic Moldovan, the music and PE teacher of the village school, is a hopeless drinker and during classes he can be found in the village inn. The parent’s constant attempts to get rid of this bad influence over their children failed. According to some official documents, it seems that he had a relationship with a minor pupil. The School Inspectorate cannot find any way to permanently suspend him from the function he holds. At school, teacher-parents meetings are announced only one evening before to make sure that as few people as possible will attend. The young orthodox priest A. was chased away from among his parishioners from the nearby village not only due to his problems with alcohol, but also for disciplinary reasons, and he was transfered to Iacobeni. A former policeman Former policeman and guard in a prison, Ma. came to this village after the court sanctioned him with a fine of 10 million ROL for having threatened an innocent citizen that he will brake both his legs if he attempts to recover his tools, stolen by this "policeman’s” colleagues. The chief of the police office from the village, Br., had a relationship with a subordinate policeman and destroyed his family, in which children had been born. But it was not the chief policeman who was moved due to disciplinary reasons, but the one who was the victim of his behavior. According to the peasants of the village, another policeman I., detached here these days, has a 52 years old woman whom he ran over on his conscience. He was punished by being transferred due to disciplinary reasons in Iacobeni. The village doctor, T., has just as a tenebrous past. He ran over and killed a child. Being a heavy drinker, he does not offer people either the assistance or the drugs they are entitled to. Furthermore, in his custody, important patient documents vanish into thin air. There is no doubt that these "gentlemen” should rightfully be in a prison. If a gypsy is hungry If a hungry gypsy steals a sack of potatoes he is convicted for several years in prison. At "Leon", the village inn, children can buy alcohol and cigarettes freely. The inn does not attract only adults, but also a gang of youths. Sometimes we request the intervention of masked troops, but by the time they come the bar is already empty. Who informs whom? The barkeeper paid several contravention fines but his authorization was not annulled. What could be the reason for that? In such conditions, the residents of Iacobeni and of other villages feel humiliated, powerless. In these places the ”authorities” that have failed punish innocent people. They live just as when Dictator Ceausescu was alive, because nothing has changed for them. Furthermore, the situation is getting more and more difficult. How are these people supposed to learn the values of democracy and justice? Why are all these failures sent precisely to Iacobeni? How are the children supposed to learn that they can very well live without alcohol? Why is a whole village punished, a village that already lives way under the limit of poverty? And the European funds remain in the cities, in the hands of the few. What will happen with Iacobeni in 2007? Will things look up again? I am overwhelmed by dark feelings. May the good and eternal God have mercy on us. Only then will things be all right.