Civil Disobedience Essay
Civil disobedience is an inherent part
of any nation’s history, from the most developed to the most backwards. One act
of civil disobedience was the Romanian Revolution of 1989(Revoluția Română). The people of Romania grew tired of the tyranny,
censorship, and poverty imposed on them by the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, so
they took up arms against him. The accounts of those dark days vary depending
on the person, but all have one thing in common: Ceaușescu was a dictator
who had to be deposed to free the Romanian nation. The people were totally in
the right, for they had the natural human right to remove someone who did nothing
but oppress and kill „dissidents”. This act of civil revolt shoed the rest of
the world, especially other oppressed peoples, that there is always a way to
achieve the goal of freedom from the regimes that look to suppress them.
The Revolution began as a protest
against the economic and social malaise that pervaded the daily life for most
Romanians. The people at what was to become the dictator’s final speech
listened to his worthless rhetoric with a lack of emotion that had never been
seen in the nation. Few cheered for him when he finished portions of his
scripted speech; quite the opposite occurred: they began to jeer. The
Securitate(secret police) saw this as a threat while the people saw this as a
beginning of a democratic revolution. The dictator and his wife, the deputy
Prime Minister , white with fear, were escorted to a waiting helicopter by their
guards and fled the scene to the chanting of the crowd,” Ti-mi-șoa-ra!” The whole scene was
televised, allowing other Romanians that were absent from the speech to see
what was happening. This spurred them to action, and soon the whole country was
in the throes of revolution. From the point of view of the Ceaușescus and their
cronies an unjust rebellion and Soviet coup-de-etat was taking place. From the
point of view of the Romanian people, a glorious and long-overdue revolution
was igniting their spirits, pushing them to throw off the yoke of Communism and
the Warsaw Pact, making them take their rightful place in the world as a modern
European nation.
The Ceaușescus were captured by the
military, which, by December 22nd, was on the side of the revolution
and the people. The new minister of defense, Victor Stånulescu, said about the
reason for the military’s defection,” I had the prospect of two execution
squads: Ceaușescu’s and the revolutionary one!” He chose the people over his
ex-leader, and had a trial for the two. The trial ended in 90 minutes, with a
death sentence for both leaders of the Socialist Republic of Romania. The
charges were,” Accounts in Switzerland amounting to $1 Billion, Genocide
against the Romanian people, undermining of the national economy, and
subversion of state power against the people.” They were taken outside and shot
with a machine gun. The whole scene, from the trial to the execution, was
televised. This allowed the people to see what was happening and gave them the
knowledge that the oppressor is dead and that the nation will turn over a new
leaf.
If this had occurred in 2015, people
from around the world would know much quicker, for social media and new
coverage has increased many times over since 1989. The world would express
their support for the revolting people and the dictator would fall quicker,
with international disdain being voiced. Such an act in the modern day would be
much more well-known and would garner the support of millions.
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