EDITORIAL

Responsibility and the Romanians

Since ever, spring time is at the Romanians the cleaning season… Unfortunately, they are doing that generally only in their own yards… they are only a few who care how the locality they are living in looks like. Due to reasons hard to understand, the population is quite sensitive to the appeals of the town officials and, why not, to their consciousness, in order to maintain the public cleanliness, so that the few campaigns performed in this respect have no solution to that. This carelessness transforms our towns in huge "trash pits". While the Occidental world is fighting to save …the entire planet, we cannot even take care of our own "yard" as it should.
Certainly, there will be persons saying that it is normal that every time when we have something that does not work well we look in "the neighbor's yard"; a neighbor, who, anyway, is a person of more substance and more educated…
And sometimes, it is quite necessary! For example, in case of cleanliness, better said, of the persons who does not respect the public domain and who, although there are special places for trash storage, are not too timid to throw the wastes in the public spaces. For example, on the railway perimeter - on our domain.
Well, if we look towards the Occident, something like this happens quite seldom, even not at all. "Abroad", if you throw a cigarette stub on the streets, for example, you will certainly be reproved to pick it up, to clean the dirt that you leave behind, and you will be even fined. Why does it happen like that? It's quite simple: first of all, because it is a question of elementary common sense not to do such things. It represents a sign of respect towards the others. The Occidental countries are more evolved, it is true, but the common sense is not related to the economical side, neither to the education. It is related to the "early education of the first seven years".
If we guide after the exterior signs it is quite alarming how worse we are in this respect. We could find out explanations for these situations, we could wonder where the household spirit has disappear, the decency and the common sense of the Romanians, we could "blame" for too much freedom, the democracy which has occurred all of a sudden in our country, we could… We do not need explanations now, but we need clear solutions! Even radical! We have to do something! If not willingly, then as a necessity (through fines, which will sting quite badly their pocket,) the order and the cleanliness should be restored! It's time that the authorities should really involve, to take a better care of the aspect of the localities, closely supervising the activities of the sanitation services companies, more often and more seriously initiating campaigns for cleaning and, why not, for fining the offenders. And also in the education system there could be done more in this respect.
There is for sure that: something should happen to us, too!
Bothered by the unpleasant aspect given by the piles of trash, which are daily gathered along the railways, the railway employees have recently performed a first step. Urged by the superiors they went out to clean up; better said, they have gone out to pick up the trash thrown by their fellows who are in contradiction with the hygiene norms, people for whom the railways has become, unfortunately, a place for "storing" all kinds of stuff: debris, papers, plastic bags, baling, cans, pets, rubbers, household wastes, and…everything you want or not.
But this does not bother too much. More annoying - even alarming - is the fact that the carelessness towards this situation, the indifference that we are demonstrating towards the awareness in polluting the environment, seems to contaminate us all, starting with the superiors and down to the inferiors.
…we are so upset when people "point the finger to us", but we are so naïve to believe that the mountains of trash that are choking us are not seen abroad, at the level of those who are monitoring us?
Then why do we wonder that all sorts of classifications (either it is about the granting of visas or the entrance in EU or in NATO) we are always placed among the lasts, when the image that we offer is such a…dirty one?! They will be many saying that we do not have to blame the trash for the image we project where we should. Absolutely true, but, as there is a saying "the first impression counts"!
Who knows, if we succeed to drain these disgusting "views" that we project abroad, maybe Romania will finally succeed to be approached with more good will…

Oana Branzan