occupy 1st of december, or our best national interest parade

folks, i love myself a nice parade. it’s provocative and gets the people going. also, i get mushy at all opportunities to celebrate and brag in a symbolic and theatrical way – it’s just so heart-warming. but people, we are faced with a terrible inconsistency. for some time now we got ourselves a bloody military parade.

believe it or not, a parade also has a narrative. it usually tells one story out of three. it can tell a tale of tradition, when the march reflects and endorses some core value tradition. it screams this is what we stand for, this is who we are. flooded by folklore it’s almost a ritual exhibition of symbols that are relevant and owned by the paraders. an other angle would be to talk about where we are now, as a nation, commonwealth or community. it’s more of a show&tell. this is what i have, this is where we stand right now. we parade our accomplishments or not. it’s an honest parade, sincere and fun, gives us the opportunity to dress and march to our own rhythm. last, but not least, we have the desire parade. we walk the walk and we talk the talk of where we want to be in the future. it’s a march of desire, of demand. granted it’s more political and social rather then celebratory but it is also inspiring and puts things in perspective. it’s a true human microphone of future expectations.

our current parade is nothing of those. each year we expose a couple of old tanks, two humvees, a couple of scuba-divers, some fireman, three planes and swords on horses. what the fuck is that all about? this communist-leader-idolising-fest nostalgia has no motive whatsoever. Romania was never a conquering nation, was never a military presence. sure we have soldiers but i doubt that’s our biggest achievement in past years and it’s not even traditional. and i hope to god it’s not a desire march and we don’t make a goal in becoming some military presence in eastern europe.

i would rather have priest parade on the 1st of december. think about it, we have more churches than schools and universities combined. we have all the christian dogma variations. we are a holy nation, like it or not. why not parade on that. i would prefer the pretty garments of priests and their beards than tanks and guns. or how about a food parade. this country loves to eat. our engineers and teachers, with gadgets and international prize winning students. that would impress more i think.

romanians like to show off, so let’s have that. a show off parade. everybody bring in their worth. that would be a statement of wealth and power. all the fancy cars we can’t afford, all the jewelry, our bodies, all in one big vanity march. anything but the lousy guns. the ground should shake to our consumerism not our nostalgia.

if any of these parades happen i pledge to go in the front row and wave the romanian flag. until then i’ll just watch mardi gras on treme.