J'accuse!

Вчера учителката ми по английски ми по английски ми изпрати тази статия по имейл. Ето какво ѝ написах в отговор.

Yes, I'm aware of this blogger's writing, and I find it very symptomatic. You see, I was born after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the times of hyperinflation and total chaos. That's the Bulgaria I know and I have no memory of the glorious Bai Tosho's Era. 

But that's not always the case. The older generations looks up to the past and thinks of it in a melancholic way. And the funny thing is, that it is not the financial prosperity that they miss, it's this strange combination of propaganda build self confidence and the fact that they were, well...young, in the prime of their lives, with a clear picture in their heads of the things to come.
After the Collapse of the Communism in eastern Europe, the so called "Velvet Revolution", it was joy everywhere, and I mean worldwide. Except in Bulgaria. While in Poland (Solidarnost), Czechoslovakia (The Prague Spring), Hungary (The revolution in the 50-ties), Romania (the decline to boycott  the Los Angeles olympics, followed by the murder of the Cheusheskus), every country in the Eastern block had its kind of defiance against the Soviets. Except for,again, Bulgaria.

We were supportive of the regime, the leader, his "Father knows best state" and we were ready to overlook the spreading corruption and nepotism for the small priviligies and the "carefree" lifestyle. The so called coup d'etat on november 10 was not dictated by the people on the streets it was 100% political. The bulgarians then, without any real dissidents to lead them, crawed timidly out of their homes and began amassing on the streets, filled with blind hope and naivity.

We all know the story after that. But my main point was about the effect of history on people. If the generation in the West born after the WWI is known as the "lost" one, its bulgarian equivalent shoud be the generation of my parents. Not because of some great military feats or a vivid civil rights movement, no. The fact that makes them great is their ability to survive. To see your dreams and prospects crushed, your saving eaten by the inflation and your children malnourished and without clothes and to keep to push on, despite the situation.

Their world view hasn't changed since 1997 and that's of no suprise. They will keep lamenting the life they should've had, and that's natural. I understand that. The thing that angers me though, is the inertion of their modus operandi. The following situaton is so absourd, but so widespread in Bulgaria, that nobody even questions it- people of my age and younger, who haven't eben been born in 1989 repeating time after time, talking about the "good times under Zhivkov", the inability of the present goverment(s) to cope with the problems ("Vsichki sa maskari") and so on and so. Like it's some kind of a sacred mantra, our own's Transition's (Prehodut) "aum", a stupid observation that helps no one and nothing. And if the older generation have failed at something it's exactly this-it transmited its depretion to its children, making them unable to break that cycle of distrust and form and effective civil society.

And this article is a bright example of this. In Bulgaria's case finding the problems is not the first step of resolving them. Because, in most cases it's stating the obvious common truth. And I don't see the benefits. Much more helpful will be for the people to stop pointing fingers and accept that we are as much to blame for this as any other. That also is a painful artifact of the socialism, when the state was "a mother and a father to the individual", creating a dependency and a sort of mental laziness, much needed in modern times.

Anyway, the young generation is responsible for the future of Bulgaria now, the ball is in our field. It will be a rough ride =]