I am Romanian, I was born here, I lived here all my life and, in spite of few opportunities to flee my country, l didn’t.

My opportunities were years ago and my expectations for a very good future in my country made me decide to stay here.

But a few years ago I started to regret my decision. Why ? The answer is simple as well as sad…not because of the economic situation, because of the day to day toughness of your lives, but because of the aggression and hatred which overtook our society.

I used to believe that the main characteristics of my people are kindness, hospitality and belief in God.

Now, I become more aware that Romanians have begun to lose these God-given gifts.

Of course the process of losing them started many years ago but in these last years I've noticed that process accelerating.

An essential question is what are the causes of the moral depreciation of these kind, good people?

I’m not pretending to be an analyst or a sociologist, but I have some experience in working with people and understanding them, and I think it is necessary to talk about this subject and above all to search for few potential causes, which could be. Here are the ones I found:

• The tough economic and social conditions.
• The lack of any future perspective for many social categories - young people who belong to poor families, mature people who lost their jobs, elderly, ill people with scandalous low pensions. The poverty generates many emotional unbalances such as hatred, for instance.
• The lack of professionalism and the over-spread corruption of those in public office.
• The poor quality of the political class.
• The poor quality topics promoted by media.
• The huge manipulation of Romanians practiced by politicians, authorities and media
• The lack of education on the core values of the human beings: kindness, honesty, love, compassion, sympathy.

Here are a few possible solutions which could be a starting point for a general debate, with concrete results.

• The economic and social conditions could be solved (in time of course) with a coherent vision about these topics and proper measures adapted to the objectives, context and resources. Maybe I should add one thing more…with good belief and honesty!
• Good future perspectives of large social categories of people depend on the economic and social policies.
• The lack of professionalism and the over-spread corruption could be solved with better education and clear rules and regulation policies, by selecting people based on exact criteria.
• The quality of the political class is a long term process which should be based on new criteria for values, a new and correct value scale and, maybe even on a professional school for…politicians!
• The aggressiveness of media policies can be reduced (not eradicated, which would be an illusion) with new professionals, well educated, maybe with a proper legislation which - of course – would not restrain the liberty of the press.
• Manipulation should be undermined via educational means. More educated people are less likely to be manipulated.

If we look carefully of all these will find two fundamental words: policies/politics and education.

These subjects are strongly related and quite difficult to put to work together here, in Romania and perhaps all over the world, in the present financial, economic and politic environment. The values which are promoted today – money and power – at any cost, without any ethical basis are the strongest barriers to solving the above mentioned. But I think as we try to find a balance between morality and economics, it deserves the effort.

Following the recent breaking news- political fights, pro and against gold mine, pro and against dogs euthanasia, I became terrified and decided I needed to write this. In my opinion, beyond all these potential solutions, most important is to re-gain our main value as human beings …our humanity. Will Romanians be able to do it ? I think so, or I hope so …

By Mariana Ganea, guest writer