A shift in thinking in Romania

Following the most recent scandal over two former secret service agents who were invited to take part in the summer school organised by the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) in Berlin, the culture magazine Observatorul Cultural calls for a shift in thinking: "Much fuss has been made about the official condemnation of communism. ... There has been a lot of talk but little has been done. The waters remain murky. ... The scandal over the appointment of Sorin Antohi und Andrei Corbea-Hoişie to give speeches at the ICR's summer school in Berlin offers further proof of the Romanians' difficulties in dealing with their more recent past. ... Was the ICR unable to find representatives who would not provoke a wave of shocked protest among Romanian-German writers living abroad? If so, we have a problem: there are no more morally and professionally irreproachable intellectuals left in Romania. And if this is the case we really need to seriously think about the reconstruction of the elites which were destroyed by communist re-education."

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