An island of humanity amidst a sea of ugliness
O hail, you indifferent sofa-borne popcorn-munchers good, freedom-loving folks from around the world! This is a picture from yesterday's protests at the Bulgarian Parliament in downtown Sofia that turned violent. The protests against the Socialist government which came to power last spring, despite losing the election - but making a skillful maneuver together with the party of the ethnic Turks, to steal the government from the incumbent right-centrists that had just been knocked down by a previous series of protests. Are you still following? I know, it's tough - I find it difficult to follow the line of events, too. The protests, triggered by corruption and outright promotion of shady interests of our very own political netherworld, have continued without interruption ever since, probably aiming to set a new world record for continuity.
The picture above is probably going to go "viral", or whatever becoming a worldwide phenomenon is called these days. Why? Because it tells a whole story. The story of a nation split along all sorts of divisive lines, after exactly 24 years of failed pseudo-"Transition". Back then, the old commies transformed themselves overnight into "socialists", only to remain in power and build a vast oligarchic network where they've been calling the shots without interruption for the last two decades and a half, only mimicking a farcical imitation of democracy for the eyes of the gullible (and increasingly dumber) public.
Three Socialist governments have been brought down through street pressure since the 90s, and this one is definitely not going to survive much longer. Because nothing seems to have changed much since then. Only the cars of the ruling elites are shinier, the fences around their palaces higher and better guarded, the politicians themselves are more arrogant and out of touch than ever... and the smartest people have already fled abroad.
But now the difference is that people have run out of "messiahs" they could invest all their faith in, they've become so disillusioned with all the bullshit in our politics, that they've become extremely cynical and they don't care about any politicians and state institutions any more. "They're all scoundrels", is an old adage dating more than a century ago in our political life, and it's as topical now as it used to be back then. And this is a dangerous point that we've reached, one which could send a nation into free-fall. There's this feeling that we're at the brink of complete dismantling of the civic society, if it ever existed here. Or maybe it's just getting born now, amidst enormous pain never seen before, which should have happened more than two decades ago, but it didn't. It sure is a dangerous situation. It could either send us towards a cleansing catharsis, beyond which Bulgarians could sweep all the oligarchic feudals away (and I'm not excluding the violence option at all, sadly), or it could plunge us into complete chaos. And it's not like there aren't a myriad of backstage elements who'd love that to happen, and take full benefit of the situation. Because, like I've said before, "Good business is best done in muddy waters".
The good thing is that Bulgarians seem to have finally woken up from a period of long sleep, where they for a time believed that they had their strong-hand Messiah who'd "fix the country". In fact, there've been a string of such messiahs who gave all sorts of amazing promises, never to keep them, and fall off from the political scene in disgrace. Well, people have woken up to the realization that messiahs. just. do. not. exist. A country can't just be "fixed" with a magic wand. Only its people can fix it, and they'll have to roll up the sleeves and work real hard to achieve that. But first, they'll have to sacrifice their idyllic, hollow, empty lifestyle (spending weekday evenings at the TV watching reality shows, and weekend evenings around the table, eating pork with turshija to their fill and drinking rakia to oblivion). And they'll have to kick out the ruling elite which has dug itself so deep into the ground that it could only be uprooted with endless pressure from the streets.
This is a dangerous time indeed. There are all sorts of political charlatans, reckless clowns and hungry wannabe messiahs biding their time and waiting to jump up to the scene and be catapulted to glory. The temptation to swing into one extreme or the other is too great. As well as the risk to start seeking for culprits for our own problems elsewhere, and lose our humanity in the process.
Speaking of humanity, back to the picture on top of this post. A photographer who was filming yesterday's protests at the so called "yellow cobbles" in front of the Parliament, caught a glimpse of the true human emotions that are often overlooked by the media, in their constant obsession with the political side of the situation. Beyond all the bickering of the pundits, all the beaten heads of the protesters, and the angry faces of the police who were protecting a bunch of utterly arrogant, overfed feudals sitting inside that building (but now scared shitless by the chants of the indignant crowd), there was one Desislava Nikolova, an ordinary girl, who met a policeman face to face, and held him by the shoulders, and spoke to him. She spoke to the human, not the policeman. And he responded.
When things got out of hand and some football ultras appeared out of nowhere, to mingle with the peaceful crowd and start knocking down the barriers and throwing stones at the Parliament, and the police responded with batons, she started crying. Then she saw the cop, a lad not more than 25 years old. He had some blood on his chin, probably bruised from a stone. She saw how he was protecting the protesters from his colleagues, pushing them away with his body so they don't get beaten up like the rest. She cried, and told him to take care of himself. He responded, "Hold on to me. Everything will be all right". Then the tears overwhelmed him.
Despite all the ugly aggression that we've seen lately, despite all the bitter poison and aggravation that has marred our society almost since I can remember, despite all the deep divisions, all the hatred, grotesque intolerance and cynicism, it's girls like Desi and guys like this cop who still give us a last, tiny, faint, straw to grasp at, and keep hoping that this is just the bottom, no more. And there's only climbing up from there.
Please keep your fingers crossed for us, good folks. Because we do deserve better. We deserve to be humans, just like anyone else.