Romania's Greatest Asset,
its young human capital
The human capital, that is the students of the city of Iasi and other cities have always been their greatest asset. The 1989 student generation had a “rendez-vous” with the 2014 ones on Sunday, November 16, 2014, the day when Klaus Iohannis was elected president of Romania. At least in Iasi. In the first two weeks of November 2014 people demonstrated against the Ponta government due to the obstruction of the right to vote of the Romanians in the Diaspora. Most of them were young people in their 20s. Various cities such as Iasi, Cluj, Timisoara, Brasov, Bucharest, etc. became conspicuous for their crowds gathered on the streets shouting and chanting pro-Diaspora and anti-government slogans. Romania needed a change from the stifling and corrupt influence of the Social-Democratic Party and its “red robber barons”. The Diaspora was the spark and the young people within the country took it over and nourished it.
Why are the students a blessing for the city of Iasi?
First of all, they are “doers”. They do things. They are pro-active, but also reactive. They are more practical, seemingly.
They are also change drivers but also challengers. They love the new and inquisitive. They have been dissatisfied with the way the government, mainly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, managed the Diaspora crisis. The students wanted to change the attitude of the Romanian officials towards the Romanians working abroad. Perhaps some of them have their parents toiling abroad for a better life. Today’s students are challengers. They thrive on change and challenges. They disregarded the status-quo of the country in terms of political, economic and societal practices.
They are forward-looking and plan for the future. They compare realities, such as the one in Romania and the ones in various European countries that make up the European Union, this mega-federation of multicultural nature. The future is theirs. They have to shape it according to their needs. They need a much better political and economic environment for them and their kids.
Thus, the young people may also act like stimulants but also embrace stimuli more readily. The flow of people, ideas, services and capital render them more aware of and prompt to diverse contexts. Thus, they become pushers and pullers in various spheres of activity, both horizontally and vertically.
Their social entrepreneurship, viewed within the past two weeks in the form of local-national protests for the Diaspora and against the Ponta government, goes hand in hand with their being technologically savvy. They love communicating via Facebook and other digital platforms. The digital revolution is here to stay. Moreover, they are open and cosmopolitan having had various foreign culture-related experiences abroad. In a word, they are more multicultural than their own parents, witnesses of the December 1989 events and students in first years of the 1990s when the two communism-sprung Iliescu regimes raped the democratic aspirations of an already troubled society.
The youth’s energy and spontaneity have rendered possible the prompt, in-time protests on the streets of Iasi. Pretty much like in December 1989 and June 1990, the latter historical momentum being notorious for the coming of miners to Bucharest in order to quench the students’ protests that had been going on for weeks. That moment, Iliescu & Co., those “reform communists” did tread the nation’s dreams of democracy. “We took our portion of liberty” was heard on the streets.
What can we do with today’s youngsters?
First of all, channel their energies constructively. One direction would be the business world and academia. Various partnerships between university departments and firms, corporations should be nourished. At the same time, the latter ones should support financially various educational schemes at work by means of internships.
Another direction may be related to R&D. Unfortunately, the academia in Romania lacks the necessary infrastructure. Moreover, various academic staff members act more like obstacles and gatekeepers than like promoters of academic freedom.
The government should also care for its asset by means of various programs and partnerships within various state structures. There should be a special fund created between the government and other business partners by means of which students could be encouraged financially to become more entrepreneurial, knowledgeable and result-driven.
The academia is another venue where the youngsters should become the centre of educational activities. The whole process should be more student-centred. Interdisciplinarity and inter/multiculturalism are two of the main tenets of such process. Romanian universities need adequate and cutting-edge infrastructure if the students really want to compete with their counterparts in western Europe, North America and Asia. Various academic models should be kept in mind, among whom the Scandinavian one could be one to follow and implement in the country.
The Romanian young people should become social and corporate entrepreneurs. The society seems divided especially if we take into account the generation gap. As one of the titles in mass media reads, “the children are blue while the parents are red”. The volume and flow of information, services, people and capital, besides the newly emerging patterns of regional blocs, have led to various structural changes in politics, economics, society. The divide between parents and children may grow even wider. At the same time, corporate interests should harmoniously blend with the community ones. Romania needs not only corporate leaders but also social ones.
One of the tenets of leadership is rectitude. Integrity and trust are among the main ones. Nowadays, given the regional and national structural changes countries have been undergoing since 1989, the students may need a model. But they also need to take on more responsibilities. Participative democracy and civic involvement run parallel. One cannot be considered an island. Since local governance goes hand in hand with regional one, especially the one emanating from Brussels, people should become active participants in the process of governance. At the same time, they should create various bonds between local-national government and local-national economic players, paralleled by multi-level patterns of governance.
Last, but not least, the young people may also act like “whistleblowers”. When something goes wrong they, and not only they, should bring the issue in spotlight. Thus, for instance, last Sunday, November 16, 2014 various people volunteered to participate in the election process in various voting places as “election observers”. Such people were needed in venues where the risk of rigged elections re-surge. At the same time, the status of whistleblowers could also be applied in business, the environment, politics, academia, medical system, etc.
Most of all, Romania’s youngsters need moral and financial support. The 1989 student generation struggle with reform communists such as Iliescu & the National Salvation Front. But also, the miners of June 1990 and 1991. The student generation nowadays has to be more consistent and assertive in regard to building a more “Europeanised” society, one in which Homo Europaeus is the leader. At the same time, local and national differences should be also encouraged and nurtured. Unity in diversity should characterize the European Union.
We should also not forget that the students nowadays are to become local, national and supra-national players in politics, economics, society and culture. Various regional partnerships have been fostered between schools and high schools, universities and professional bodies. The easiness to study in a different country or have a semester at another university has become the norm of academic life in the EU. Therefore, the young people are to become global citizens preserving their cultural and religious roots. Canada, in this respect, is an example in point.
Why the young people?
Those in their 40s, 50s and the elderly ones are equally important. But the young ones have what Hofstede names “the software of the mind” unaltered by communist practices. In this respect, even notorious former top members of the Romanian Communist Youth and the Romanian Communist Party are nowadays within the circle of power. Such people refer to I. Iliescu, A. Nastase, T. Melescanu, M.R. Ungureanu, etc. While in Germany and former Czechoslovakia former dissidents have become presidents, such as Joachim Gauck and Vaclav Havel, in Romania former RCY and RCP members have grown democratic and European. In its true core, Romania has remained a Byzantine country where ambivalence is the buzzword.
Today’s young people are the opposite of what the Social Democratic Party, Ion Iliescu and the Ponta government stand for. These are marked, most of all, by wanting of rule of law, corruption, mediocrity, collusion and nepotism. Such features have been frequently seen since December 1989, but mostly in the past weeks given the various scandals in the SD party, as well as other parties. With the election of Klaus Iohannis as president, the political and economic oligarchy will have a hard time ahead since two major themes of his political programme refer to the rule of law and the focus on the citizen.
As the Bible reads, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Romania needs to capitalize on its young people.
Why are the students a blessing for the city of Iasi?
First of all, they are “doers”. They do things. They are pro-active, but also reactive. They are more practical, seemingly.
They are also change drivers but also challengers. They love the new and inquisitive. They have been dissatisfied with the way the government, mainly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, managed the Diaspora crisis. The students wanted to change the attitude of the Romanian officials towards the Romanians working abroad. Perhaps some of them have their parents toiling abroad for a better life. Today’s students are challengers. They thrive on change and challenges. They disregarded the status-quo of the country in terms of political, economic and societal practices.
They are forward-looking and plan for the future. They compare realities, such as the one in Romania and the ones in various European countries that make up the European Union, this mega-federation of multicultural nature. The future is theirs. They have to shape it according to their needs. They need a much better political and economic environment for them and their kids.
Thus, the young people may also act like stimulants but also embrace stimuli more readily. The flow of people, ideas, services and capital render them more aware of and prompt to diverse contexts. Thus, they become pushers and pullers in various spheres of activity, both horizontally and vertically.
Their social entrepreneurship, viewed within the past two weeks in the form of local-national protests for the Diaspora and against the Ponta government, goes hand in hand with their being technologically savvy. They love communicating via Facebook and other digital platforms. The digital revolution is here to stay. Moreover, they are open and cosmopolitan having had various foreign culture-related experiences abroad. In a word, they are more multicultural than their own parents, witnesses of the December 1989 events and students in first years of the 1990s when the two communism-sprung Iliescu regimes raped the democratic aspirations of an already troubled society.
The youth’s energy and spontaneity have rendered possible the prompt, in-time protests on the streets of Iasi. Pretty much like in December 1989 and June 1990, the latter historical momentum being notorious for the coming of miners to Bucharest in order to quench the students’ protests that had been going on for weeks. That moment, Iliescu & Co., those “reform communists” did tread the nation’s dreams of democracy. “We took our portion of liberty” was heard on the streets.
What can we do with today’s youngsters?
First of all, channel their energies constructively. One direction would be the business world and academia. Various partnerships between university departments and firms, corporations should be nourished. At the same time, the latter ones should support financially various educational schemes at work by means of internships.
Another direction may be related to R&D. Unfortunately, the academia in Romania lacks the necessary infrastructure. Moreover, various academic staff members act more like obstacles and gatekeepers than like promoters of academic freedom.
The government should also care for its asset by means of various programs and partnerships within various state structures. There should be a special fund created between the government and other business partners by means of which students could be encouraged financially to become more entrepreneurial, knowledgeable and result-driven.
The academia is another venue where the youngsters should become the centre of educational activities. The whole process should be more student-centred. Interdisciplinarity and inter/multiculturalism are two of the main tenets of such process. Romanian universities need adequate and cutting-edge infrastructure if the students really want to compete with their counterparts in western Europe, North America and Asia. Various academic models should be kept in mind, among whom the Scandinavian one could be one to follow and implement in the country.
The Romanian young people should become social and corporate entrepreneurs. The society seems divided especially if we take into account the generation gap. As one of the titles in mass media reads, “the children are blue while the parents are red”. The volume and flow of information, services, people and capital, besides the newly emerging patterns of regional blocs, have led to various structural changes in politics, economics, society. The divide between parents and children may grow even wider. At the same time, corporate interests should harmoniously blend with the community ones. Romania needs not only corporate leaders but also social ones.
One of the tenets of leadership is rectitude. Integrity and trust are among the main ones. Nowadays, given the regional and national structural changes countries have been undergoing since 1989, the students may need a model. But they also need to take on more responsibilities. Participative democracy and civic involvement run parallel. One cannot be considered an island. Since local governance goes hand in hand with regional one, especially the one emanating from Brussels, people should become active participants in the process of governance. At the same time, they should create various bonds between local-national government and local-national economic players, paralleled by multi-level patterns of governance.
Last, but not least, the young people may also act like “whistleblowers”. When something goes wrong they, and not only they, should bring the issue in spotlight. Thus, for instance, last Sunday, November 16, 2014 various people volunteered to participate in the election process in various voting places as “election observers”. Such people were needed in venues where the risk of rigged elections re-surge. At the same time, the status of whistleblowers could also be applied in business, the environment, politics, academia, medical system, etc.
Most of all, Romania’s youngsters need moral and financial support. The 1989 student generation struggle with reform communists such as Iliescu & the National Salvation Front. But also, the miners of June 1990 and 1991. The student generation nowadays has to be more consistent and assertive in regard to building a more “Europeanised” society, one in which Homo Europaeus is the leader. At the same time, local and national differences should be also encouraged and nurtured. Unity in diversity should characterize the European Union.
We should also not forget that the students nowadays are to become local, national and supra-national players in politics, economics, society and culture. Various regional partnerships have been fostered between schools and high schools, universities and professional bodies. The easiness to study in a different country or have a semester at another university has become the norm of academic life in the EU. Therefore, the young people are to become global citizens preserving their cultural and religious roots. Canada, in this respect, is an example in point.
Why the young people?
Those in their 40s, 50s and the elderly ones are equally important. But the young ones have what Hofstede names “the software of the mind” unaltered by communist practices. In this respect, even notorious former top members of the Romanian Communist Youth and the Romanian Communist Party are nowadays within the circle of power. Such people refer to I. Iliescu, A. Nastase, T. Melescanu, M.R. Ungureanu, etc. While in Germany and former Czechoslovakia former dissidents have become presidents, such as Joachim Gauck and Vaclav Havel, in Romania former RCY and RCP members have grown democratic and European. In its true core, Romania has remained a Byzantine country where ambivalence is the buzzword.
Today’s young people are the opposite of what the Social Democratic Party, Ion Iliescu and the Ponta government stand for. These are marked, most of all, by wanting of rule of law, corruption, mediocrity, collusion and nepotism. Such features have been frequently seen since December 1989, but mostly in the past weeks given the various scandals in the SD party, as well as other parties. With the election of Klaus Iohannis as president, the political and economic oligarchy will have a hard time ahead since two major themes of his political programme refer to the rule of law and the focus on the citizen.
As the Bible reads, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Romania needs to capitalize on its young people.