euro|topics - Vladimir Tismaneanu

21/11/2008

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Tismaneanu, Vladimir

2 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.

Evenimentul Zilei - Romania | 30/07/2008

How to deal with ex-informers

In an open letter, the Romanian-German writer Herta Müller recently criticised the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) in Berlin for inviting as speakers Romanian intellectuals who worked for the communist secret service Securitate. The political scientist Vladimir Tismaneanu calls for the integration of the accused: "In no other country of Eastern Europe has there been such an obvious regrouping of the nomenclatura and such a vehement offensive against supporters of an open society as in Romania. A lustration would have solved this problem. ... But since things look different in reality we must decide what to do with the ex-informers. ... Do they have a moral right to participate in social institutions? ... The ICR programme is based on the rules of academic competition, not on political biographies. Of course, an informer past is repulsive to anyone with any sense of morality. But the ICR is not a court of morals. And Herta Müller might have taken a welcome and therapeutic step if she had asked the two ex-informers what they thought about using their position as cultural authorities to return to the leading ranks of public life."

Gazeta Wyborcza - Poland | 07/12/2006

Opening files of the Romanian secret police

More than 16 years after the end of Communism, Romanians are getting a look at the work of the infamous 'Securitate'. Some 1.3 million files of the secret police will be opened gradually. Vladimir Tismaneanu, appointed by Romanian President Traian Basescu last April to head the commission for investigating the communist dictatorship in Romania, pleads for a clear disclosure of secret police collaborators. "We are waging a war against amnesia, and it's the right thing to do," says Tismaneanu, who is also professor of politics at the University of Maryland in the USA. "Anyone who calls this a witch hunt just does not get it. 'Witches' were innocent women who were denounced, tortured and often murdered using insane rituals. But secret service informers worked actively for an evil cause... It is high time to open the files of all today's powerful figures and politicians. We need total clarity and the whole truth. The net of lies that we are dealing with today is closing in... Such an atmosphere of ambiguity nourishes the growth of populism and other demagogical authoritarianisms."

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