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| Media Headlines |
| (2011-06-24) |
| Last updated: 2011-06-27 13:55 EET |
A wave of bewilderment and anger sweeps across Romania following president Traian Basescu’s attack on the former Romanian monarch, King Mihai. “Shame on you, Basescu!”, headlines the daily paper Adevarul after Basescu accused the King of betraying his country when he stepped down, thus becoming the Soviets’ acolyte.
The accusations are grounded on absolutely no historical foundations, given that King Mihai, generally considered the last stronghold in the way of the Red Army’s invasion, was forced to give up the crown in December 1947 under the direct threat of a Soviet-controlled puppet government in Bucharest.
Traian Basescu wages war on history and his discourse is a carry-over of fascist and communist propagandistic ploys, writes the same daily paper. According to Romanian political pundit Andrei Taranu, Basescu’s claim that King Mihai holds a bigger blame for oppressing Jews and gypsies than Romania’s de facto leader at the time, Marshall Ion Antonescu, is but a typically fascist argument.
The Romanian analyst says Basescu’s statement is an attempt to win over the far right, being at the same time a threat against the Royal House, whose legitimacy in the public sphere Basescu will never enjoy. Nor do the president’s friends in the print press spare him for his boundless disrespect for and foul attack on Romanian history.
The daily paper Romania Libera writes that Basescu’s outburst against the king stands proof of his limitations and his propensity to be ensnared by the siren songs of the former Securitate, the communist political police, just like his predecessors.
“Had Basescu truly wanted to go down in history”, writes the daily Romania Libera, “he would have stepped down before the end of his second term in office and would have called on the King to reclaim his rightful throne from where the communists had banished him.
It is a sad end for a man that could have been a great man, but missed the rendezvous with history”, concludes the journalist in a bitter tone. In a biting critique targeting the president, the daily paper Gandul compares Basescu with Herostratus, the young Greek who burned down the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the marvels in ancient Greece. Incapable of creating or building anything, he was driven by an insane desire to hand down his name to posterity.
The daily paper Jurnalul National says that King Mihai has ignored Traian Basescu’s coarseness. Neither he nor any other member of the Royal House has expressed his willingness to comment on the president’s statement. However, other dozens of foreign journals have done so. Among them, the daily paper Washington Post writes “Basescu’s comments stunned Romanians, who respect the former monarch, and praise his role in their history”.
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