|
|
SELF-PORTRAIT:
A Romanian
Born in Turda
Everybody knows I come from the Ratiu family and I am a great-grandson of the great Memorandist (1); very few know I am a direct descendant of Ion Codru Dragusanu (2). My own grandmother, Eugenia Turcu, was Ion Codru Dragusanu’s daughter.
I have read Law at Cluj, and I passed my exams; after this, in 1938, I have joined the Army. I was assigned to the Artillery and was sent as a reserve in Craiova; after this, I was called to duty and got assigned to Secaseni, on the border with Hungary. I was there during the winter of 1939-40, and in February my uncle encourages me to write a request to enter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thus, I was appointed as a commercial attaché of the Romanian Legation in London, where I departed to in April 1940.
When the great troubles began, the traumatic changes of the Summer of 1940 – losing Bessarabia and Bukowina, the slashing of Northern Transylvania by the Vienna Diktat, at the end of August, the establishment of the Legionar government [Romanian nationalist fascist movement], and Romania joining the Axis – I have decided to be part of this political situation no more, and I requested political asylum in England. To my great joy and luck, I was offered a scholarship at Cambridge, where I read economics; I got my degree in 1943; I gained a PhD in political sciences.
A Recipe for Success
For seven years I have had two jobs. I was working as a radio journalist, news-reader for the Romanian Section in the BBC World Service, and in the meantime I was an employee of a maritime enterprise. I learnt my trade there. In fact, I was working 11-12 hours a day, I am not exaggerating. After learning my trade, I gathered the courage to start my own business. I started my own enterprise, and I called it JR Shipping Company; I started it with £5,000 which I borrowed, being too proud to use my wife’s money.
Against Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceausescu visited London in the summer of 1978. Those around Ceausescu have asked the British government to ensure no public demonstration against him would take place. I considered this intolerable. I organised a Romanian group and we went and protested – it is the right of any citizen in a democratic country to express their point of view in a peaceful manner. At the time the Queen came with her entourage to take part at the at Claridges Hotel banquet to honour Ceausescu, the police tried a manoeuvre.
In the Western world, people had to see the true face of the Ceausescu regime, it was not to be allowed that Ceausescu would always take advantage and the Romanian people would always be neglected.
We have never supported Ceausescu’s regime, we’ve always considered it an imposture.
How We’ve Organised Ourselves
I started the Association of Romanian Students in the UK. I managed to obtain the patronage of the Archbishop of Canterbury and with his help, our position was made known. After this, we initiated the so-called Centre of European Students in New Society, and we had the courage to call Mrs Roosevelt, the wife of the American president, to come and give a talk. Thus, we had a ten thousand-strong crowd in London, at Albert Hall. And Mrs Roosevelt talked to us.
After this, we decided that what we had done was not sufficient and that it was very important to have an audience of the most important kind and, for this, we had to benefit from legitimacy; this came by organising the UMRL (Uniunea Mondiala a Romanilor Liberi - The World Union of Free Romanians) (3), in 1984 in Geneva. There, we could present Romania’s problems, discuss them and present them to the free world. At that time we edited ‘Free Romanian’ (‘Romanul Liber’) newspaper (4), sent it to all the great European chancelleries, to all major newspapers, and they ran innumerable covers of what we published.
Notes:
(1) Memorandist = Dr Ioan Ratiu (1828-1902). The Memorandum was an initiative in 1892 by which Romanian intellectuals from Transylvania protest against the Hungarian politics in Transylvania in a letter to emperor Franz Joseph.
(2) Ion Codru Dragusanu (1818-1884) = Romanian writer from Transylvania, journalist, politician; travels to London in mid-19th century.
(3) In 1984 the UMRL (Uniunea Mondiala a Romanilor Liberi - The World Union of Free Romanians) was launched in Geneva to unite Romanians from all over the world. Ion Ratiu was elected the first President. From that date (1984) UMRL published a monthly newspaper in Romanian and English, 'Romanul Liber' (Free Romanian), which flourished until 1997. In 1984 a British branch of UMRL was founded, along with branches in 23 other countries. Sandu Pobereznic was elected as the first British President, and succeeded by Nicolae Ratiu in 1992.
(4) The newspaper was closed and political activity sharply scaled down after the election of 1996, when it was considered that the objective of UMRL, the restoration of freedom and democracy to Romania, had largely been achieved.
|
