Dizertatie in specializarea de master Teorie Politica si Politica Comparata

Universitatea din Bucuresti

Facultatea de Stiinte Politice

'The structure of extremist discourse in pre-2007 Romania'

(Structura discursului extremist din Romania inainte de 2007)

Dizertatie in specializarea de master Teorie Politica si Politica Comparata

1. Introduction

1.1.Background and intent

This study will investigate the ideological discourse of three political organizations: the Romania Mare Party (P.R.M.), the New Generation Party (P.N.G.) and the Noua Dreapta Christian Forum (N.D.). Elements such as sociological appeal or political marketing will not be touched upon unless they are relevant to the discussion at hand.

At a cursory glance, the three organizations have few similarities and many differences. The P.R.M. is a long-standing member of the Romanian Parliament, having gained seats in every election since 1992. By contrast, George Becali's P.N.G. is a relative newcomer to the Romanian political scene - sub par results in the 2004 elections have not allowed it entrance to the Romanian Parliament, a situation that might repeat for future elections. Furthermore, 'Noua Dreapta' is not a party per se; it has adopted the tone and strategies of a civil society organization - albeit of an extremist persuasion; in addition, the N.D. has publicly denied its' becoming a part of the political spectrum or providing political support to already existing parties. Thus, the question naturally arises: what were the criteria which were at the basis of the selection of these case studies? The answer lies in the fact that in the science of comparative politics the relevant factor in the development of a scholarly set of observations is the unity of the issue at hand. By different means, with a different language or relying on separate sets of values, the three organizations above tackle the same problems, dilemmas and malaises of the post-1989 Romanian society. Each of the three movements questions or contradicts some of the fundamental components of democracy, and in particular of the Romanian democracy. They are also particular in that they speculate upon the perceived failure of state hello Romania should be (re)built.

While other such lines of endeavor have existed since 1989, the three organizations listed above are unique in their popular appeal, visibility and mobilization capabilities. Their lifespan has brought them on a collision with Romania's accession to the European Union, an event that has proved fertile for the development of extremist action and thought.

1.2 Axioms underlying the study

While the subject matter of the study is original, in that no in-depth study has been carried out in the topic, there are a number of publicly recognized statements concerning the tension between democracy and extremism in Romanian political life which helped elaborate the mindset utilized for analysis. They will be listed here, both for the convenience of readers unfamiliar with the history of Romanian political thought and for the aid of a knowledgeable audience that desires a deeper understanding of the study's foundations.

Romanian political scientists such as Stelian Tanase have noticed the existence of three cultures[1] in Romanian political expression:

- The conservative political philosophy in the country evolved from a 19^th century critique of modernization as undertaken by the National Liberal Party to a vigorous and prolific set of political doctrines, having at their center 'the cult of the village, autochtonism, anti-Occidentalism'[2]. By a natural extension, the capitalist market and the city - central institutions for a modernizing set of values - were and are mistrusted by significant portions of Romanian population. Thus, the young Romanian intellectuals of the 1930s were stating openly that 'some (.) may defeat the foreigners in the economic field, but they will have been defeated by them spiritually, in their Romanian-ness, because they will impose upon our being customs of doing, of being, of thinking, which are not ours (.) they will have become exchange agents, channels of circulation for international bourgeois values' . The main conflict of Romanian history was seen by extremist forces in the inter-war period as that between 'the Romania of the native spiritual configuration which has lasted in our kind ' and 'the modern Romania of the cities, of comfort and the good life, of the material civilization, of the West, of the industry and of the machine, of the opposition between the middle class and the proletariat, of what is actually the foreign Romania' ;

- Etatism existed prior to Communist rule and has played an important part in post-1989 political life. In all its forms, this value set claimed that the state alone had the power to eradicate the existing deficit between Romania and the West. In its contemporary form, for etatists 'decentralization, local autonomy, independent associations, the private sector in the economy, European integration, international organisms, open markets are regarded with suspicion, as attempts to limit the state's sovereignty and control of society'.

- Thirdly, a liberal agenda, oriented around the development of capitalist institutions and the establishment of a powerful middle class has also been relevant to public discourse , with varying success depending on the political era and regime in power.

Another Romanian intellectual puts forth the thesis of Romanian political evolution as occurring under the mark of a 'catastrophic identity'. Horia-Roman Patapievici begins by stating that, historically, the evolution of the Romanian political stage was shaped by the inescapable diarchy between the 'thin' elite of intellectuals and a silent majority . The fusion between the identity of the elites who created the Romanian state and the mental mindset of the classes empowered by the universal voting act of 1919 represented a massive failure. This failure paralyzed resistance to authoritarianism.

Constructing and being part of a modern state was visibly easier for the educated upper-class than for the mass of Romania's citizens: 'From a political point of view, a people of atemporal peasants had to be transformed into a historical nation of citizens.' Patapievici proposes two outlooks on the causes of the catastrophic identity: either the arrival of communism took place exactly as the process of passing from rural-neolithical to the modern state was undergoing, or this transformation was never going to succeed.

Utilizing communism as an ex-machina factor that disrupted the subtle process of modernization does not explain the resistance of the 80% to the population to the modernization; indeed, prior to the first world war modernity became perceived by a portion of the population as alien to the Romanian self. The State, in the view of such anti-progressivists, had been implanted in disregard of the structure of the Romanian self. Whether by attacking individualism (like Nae Ionescu), democracy (the Legion movement) or 'shape without content' (Maiorescu), an influential portion of Romanian intellectuals constructed their public and intellectual personas by opposing modernity. It must not be forgotten that the three literary models of Romanian literature, the most highly-regarded intellectuals of the literary pantheon (worshipped as such in elementary school manuals) were all opponents of the country's modernization. Mihai Eminescu idealized a historical, rural past devoid of the immorality attributed exclusively to modern democracy. Ion Creanga emphasized the social and psychological attractiveness of rural communities; I.L. Caragiale pointed out the faults and incoherencies of the creation of the bourgeoisie. The very state which aimed to transform Romania was seduced into making anti-progressive voices integral parts of its canon, a mistake that was fully expanded under communism.

In Patapievici's view, the universal vote fully exposed the failure of modernization: '[It] brought into the Romanian political life populism, authoritarianism and the unfortunate idea that the existence of a charismatic leader is indispensable to the development of an efficient political life'. Eventually, Patapievici continues to point out, the morality of political life was perceived as hinging on the weakening of parliamentarism and the arrival of a wise, nation-loving dictator (on the voievod model)[10]. Individualism - a precondition of a capitalist, democratic society - was understood by thinkers such as Nae Ionescu as disorderly, chaotic and infused with selfishness - indeed contrary to the collective nature of the Romanian self: 'Because the social form of individualism is freedom of expression, these critics of liberal societies all agreed that freedom of the press must be limited only to the ideas with which collectivists happened to agree.' Nationalism - in Patapievici's understanding - was the recourse to the intimate community that had been lost via individualism and impersonalized progress.

The two visions are compatible if one takes into consideration that Tanase himself argued that autochthonic traditionalism and etatism have been fused together after 1989[12], thus affirming a collaboration first suggested by Ceausescu's brand of national communism. Outside observers proposed similar schemes for understanding Romania's political arena in post-communism: a division between reformists and conservatives , or between 'political parties that sustain a rapid transition and <social> parties' , i.e. those that seek a more protective advance to market capitalism. Fundamentally, these separations seek to express, with different terms and in relation to different fields, the same dichotomy that Patapievici perceived.

As looked upon in this study, the division between the modernist and the reactionary is not sociological; while it may be ascribed to political figures, regions or social strata it figures preeminently in this thesis as a distinction between currents of expression (i.e. viewpoints). However, metaphors borrowed from the field of sociology may be utilized for a better understanding of how and why these viewpoints influence political life and Romanian identity. Such a tool is the perspective of market sociology, according to which most social phenomena can be explained in economic terms. Romania possesses - for the historical reasons mentioned above - a large number of voting citizens who are potential consumers of ideas, values and messages belonging to the extreme right. Their number cannot be determined with precision, because it is unclear, for instance, how many of Traian Basescu's backers - in 2004 or afterwards - admire the elements from his political personality which they felt correspond to the criteria above.

The extreme right thus represents a portion of the political 'marketplace' assaulted by visitors, one in which competitors for attention and vote (the political parties and political movements) try at the same time to fit the characteristics of the seller in that area of the market (i.e. to maintain extremist ideas) and at the same time to identify themselves as an 'seller', incidentally of value superior to that of the nearby competitors. Exactly like in a real market, the tone and volume of the voice, the quality of the wares or the specificity/originality of the goods in the stall play a part in attracting consumers, different elements of individuality or manners of emphasizing these elements attracting (of course) consumers of different factures. What lacks, due to the nature of political interaction, is the price: if the P.R.M. and the P.N.G. ask for votes, the Noua Dreapta appeals to mechanisms specific to the civil society, soliciting time involvement and effort.

For a valuable understanding of the political narrative of how Romanian extremism achieved power and voice, one should start with what is, paradoxically enough, an analysis of the Romanian left. It is clear for a dispassionate observer of Romanian political history, the left has occupied a disproportionately small role in the political debates of democracy. Prior to the First World War, the impetus of the nation lied on development and modernization - the Liberal and Conservative parties competed in providing visions of how Romania was to become a capitalist nation. The socio-economic foundation for a leftist doctrine - the proletariat - slowly came into being while the electoral system in existence did not have as a particular goal addressing their concerns. Indeed, the philosophical-moralistic backbone of the left - redistribution, equality and social rights - was only being developed in Western Europe at the time.

After the First World War, when both the socio-economic and philosophical-moralistic roots of the left had been solidly planted in European consciousness, Romania lagged in the development of a leftist political structure which could hold its own against right- or extreme right-wing forces in the nation's political arena. The Social Democratic Party (P.S.D.) played in a minute role in the politics of the day by comparison with the titans of the parliamentary weltanschauung, the National Liberal Party and the National Peasants' Party. The P.S.D. never formed a government on its own and actually succeeded in obtaining more than 3 % of the votes in 1938 alone. The more extreme version of the Romanian left, the Communist Party (P.M.R./P.C.R.) suffered from international divisions. Its dedication to a Soviet-centered left-wing doctrine ensured that the P.M.R. would remain a minuscule organization, of less than 1,000 members. Thus, the political drives and needs of the Romanian blue-collar working class were partly addressed through illegal strikes (i.e. the Grivita events of 1931).

A somewhat different pattern of political activity was encountered after the 1989 revolution. Left-wing parties or coalitions have ruled the country for 11 of Romania's 17 post-communist years. Although a categorization may be too early in the making, it seems obvious that at least two generations played a part in the formation and development of the P.S.D. (Social-Democratic Party) from the F.S.N. (Front of National Salvation). Ion Iliescu and the select group of individuals around him (Alexandru Barladeanu, Silviu Gherman, etc.) had been long-term dissidents from Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship, while at the same time being dedicated to a Gorbachev-influenced redefinition of communism. Their post-1989 efforts focused around the conservative of resisting foreign influence, investments and presence in the country (witness the famous slogan of 1990: 'Noi nu ne vindem tara' - 'We're not selling our country'). By slowing down economic reform and playing the communicational devices of Communist-inspired propaganda (i.e. calling on the miners to intervene via violence and thus operate political shifts), Ion Iliescu's left was conservative in aim and limited in effort. It cannot be included in a proper discussion of democratic left in Romania, since its methods and aims cannot be circumscribed on the whole to orthodox democratic behavior.

The coming to power of the P.S.D. in 2000 signaled the coming of a new generation of Romanian leftists to the forefront of power, such as Adrian Nastase, Miron Mitrea and Dan Ioan Popescu. Slick and business-like, they found themselves in the unenviable position of having to create wealth in order to share it. Wide range social support programs became muddled with corruption charges affecting their political status to the present day. After losing the 2004 elections, the Social Democrats reoriented themselves towards Mircea Geoana, a presentable leader who put forth several unsuccessful programs meant to redefine the Romanian left in European terms. As long as the party's financial and organizational base lies in the businesspeople Nastase promoted - and as long as youths and intellectuals feel attracted to the right - Geoana's endeavors are doomed to fail.

This historical exposition on the structural inadequacies and deficiencies of the Romanian left was made in order to emphasize several elements which are familiar to a knowledgeable Romanian audience, but which do not match the patterns of classical political theory. These statements - on which the efforts of the dissertation rests - identify the situation particular to Romania in terms which avoid confusion.

First, the fundamental conflict in Romanian politics is not the one between the left and the right. As seen above, the left was almost non-existent prior to 1948; after the December Revolution, the Romanian left was either an attenuated continuation of the Romanian Communist Party (P.C.R.) or in a position to provoke substantial social changes by means and with goals closer to those of the right. The Romanian right of the post 1989-years consists of democratic and intellectual segments, who don't have the political know-how or communicational abilities to take power, and extremist, nationalist groups, playing on communist themes. The Democratic Party (P.D.) has made the switch from the left to the right of the spectrum, without its alignment to the European Popular Party having made a change in its attitude towards minorities. The chronic weakness of the Romanian left has been discussed at length by analysts such as Dan Pavel .

Secondly, the fundamental conflict of Romanian politics is the one between progressive and modernist forces (and to a lesser extent between different speeds of progress and modernization). No real debate on how to share the wealth or to define national identity has been ongoing, since there was never enough wealth for a moment of truth to emerge or a focused, steady national identity to be discussed. The sweeping process of modernization is the thread running through modern Romanian history - rather than being a subject of debate within a democratic system, it has led to the creation of such a system, and to the proliferation of debates concerning its pace and manifestations.

Third, the absence of an authentic, dedicated left has misbalanced the political spectrum, focusing the attention of the populace on the right wing. The competitor to liberal-capitalist democratic regimes - with all the fallacies, errors or misappropriations that they commit - is not found by the Romanian public in a coherent, social-democratic or left-wing doctrine (not that Romanian political organizations have gone to great lengths to advertise themselves accurately as such). Symbolically, social unity can only be utilized by the P.S.D. in relation with the figure of Ion Iliescu, a political persona whose appeal is about to become meaningless as Romania moves away from communism, at least temporally. Especially after 1990, doubts concerning the effectiveness of capitalism have become entwined with doubts regarding the value of democracy. Without a solid political force to make the difference between the two (offer to maintain democracy while redefining the economical conditions, for example), the anti-democratic is equaled with the anti-capitalist. The extreme right became in 2000 the only option to a regime that had failed to legitimize itself in front of the populace.

Fourth, the current structure of the political and electoral systems aid charismatic figures. The above-stated ambiguities concerning the doctrine of parties made voters orient themselves not around political attitudes and philosophies - which from experience they believe have no cover in fact - but on persona itself ("can he be trusted?"). According to post-1989 opinion polls the political leader 'should be authoritarian and protective, able to stop dissensions. A kind of powerful but good father, who exercises his force on others and his goodness on you. He is capable of solving everyone's problems and assumes this responsibility' .

Fifth, the different strains of political extremism in Romania point out different understandings of the current Romanian reality. While Gigi Becali, Corneliu Vadim Tudor and the Noua Dreapta movement are located in the same reality - briefly decrypted in the five points above - they operate with different components of this reality, representing it in different terms and focusing on different elements. The similarities between these movements point out the characteristic of anti-democratic thought in contemporary Romania; the differences point out the different paths of evolution in anti-democratic thought.

1.3 Sources and methodology

For reasons of space and depth this comparison takes place exclusively at the level of ideological and philosophical discourse. What are the concepts that anti-democratic extremists utilize in their public presences? What are their points of contention with democracy, capitalism or globalization? What are the elements to which these points of contention are leading them? What does the presence of a single element in all these extremist strains prove, and on what aspect of Romanian political life is this shedding light - the interplay between democratic institutions and extremism, a common driving source for extremist energies or something else? If two movements display a certain ideatic characteristic and a third one doesn't, what is this telling us about the political groupings at hand from an ideological perspective?

The scholarly tradition in the study of extremist ideology falls under two headings. The theoretical approach is preferred by Italian and French political scientists - the focus lies on ideas and theories ('history seen from above'[17]). This method is critiqued by political scientists from outside these two nations as not being grounded in or connecting with reality: 'Theoreticians and factors of decision have priority over the masses of militants and anonymous sympathizers (.) while the distance between institutions and practice is left in shadows' . A widely different approach is utilized in the study of right-wing organizations in Germany and Great Britain, where sociological methods and concepts are utilized. Factors specific to these countries organize the scholarly effort along these parameters: the movements are fragmentary, short-lived and numerous. Most importantly, they have no parliamentary representation . The profile of the organizations being studied fits the Italian/French model, since their presence in the public arena is visible and powerful. A purely sociological investigation would leave unanswered questions about the mechanisms through which extremist discourses meets success in pre-2007 Romania.

During the research and information gathering processes, the keyword has been the localization, utilization and analysis of primary data. This has included:

- a full review of P.R.M.'s official newspaper, 'Tricolorul', from its first to its most recent pre-2007 issue;

- an extensive study of P.R.M.'s 'Romania Mare' newspaper, from 1991 on to 2007;

- press releases, commentaries and informational materials provided by the P.N.G. or the 'Noua Dreapta' organization on their websites (www.png.ro and www.nouadreapta.org respectively);

- interviews realized by local newspapers with leaders of Noua Dreapta organizations;

- George Becali's press statements and impromptus as recorded by the HotNews archive (available at www.hotnews.ro), as well as news items and articles from 20 Romanian newspapers;

- TV appearances made by the political figures being studied in the context of electoral campaigns.

Secondary data consisted mainly of studies and analyses of Romania's political scene and philosophy, both by Romanian and by foreign analysts and scholars. On occasion, especially on the topic of myths and mythology, the work of recognized anthropologists has been quoted with the goal of providing a qualified framework for the discussion at hand.

1.4. Study structure

The main considerations which influenced the organization of the material were: a logical representation of who the three political forces pretend to be, what they support and what they are against, as well as the manner in which they prepare their public apparitions. Namely, chapter 2 will introduce the three organizations in an objective manner which would make them identifiable to an outside observer of the Romanian political life.

The self-portrayal of the three organizations is presented via relevant material in Chapter 3. The fashion in which they construct their own identity is related both to the circumstances of their emergence (as stated in the previous chapter) and to the values which they consider important. Of high-relevance to unconventional, extremist or populist organizations is the development of an irrational bond between the message carriers and the public. Chapter 3 presents the shared values that are taken as a given by the extremist forces depicted in this study. Special attention has been given to history (chapter 3.4) and religion (chapter 3.5) due to the pre-eminence that they have for the political psyche of the contemporary Romanian right.

What separates the unconventional right from ordinary party politics is the perpetual demonization of its opponents (which in the case of mainstream parties is restricted to electoral campaigns). Such a separation between the 'us' and the 'them' tends to have specific characteristics in the cases of the organizations being studied. Chapter 4 ('The enemies (us and them)') identifies the coordinates of exclusion, the directions of the intolerant rhetoric and analyzes the mechanisms by which intolerance is promoted and defined.

Chapter 5 ('Political packaging') discusses the manner in which the mediums of communication that the P.R.M., the P.N.G. and the N.D. have been using have altered, shaped or drawn their messages.   

Chapter 6 ('Conclusions') presents in a condensed form the discoveries that this study has made, as well as a thorough assessment of pre-2007 nationalist discourse under the imperative of comparison and analysis.   

2. Extremism in pre-2007 Romania - a brief presentation

2.1. The "Romania Mare Party" (P.R.M.)

In early 1990, experienced journalists who had been employed by the press corps of the Romanian Army wanted to start a new publication from scratch. 'Romania Mare' ('Greater Romania' - name proposed by former Air Force officer Radu Theodoru) was considered geopolitically inappropriate since it alluded to the annexation of Bassarabia by the U.S.S.R. and would thus create the potential for a diplomatic conflict. Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a poet and publicist who had made himself known for his attachment to Ceausescu's communist regime, was planning to publish a newspaper of his own - potential titles being "Neamul Romanesc" ('The Romanian Kind') or "Natiunea" ('The Nation'). One of Army journalists, discontent with the refusal of the title by his colleagues, leaked the information to Eugen Barbu, one of Vadim Tudor's close friends[20]. In several months Barbu and Vadim Tudor had established the 'Romania Mare' newspaper. Its main traits were:

- xenophobia aimed in particular at Romanians of Hungarian ethnicity and the Hungarian state;

- conspiracy theories suggesting that the fate of Romania was decided according to malevolent plans, concocted abroad and

- a cult of historical figures along the patterns established during Ceausescu's rule, with the addition of Mareshal Antonescu, Romania's leader ('Conducator') during the World War Two conflict with the U.S.S.R.

A year later, with sales soaring, two of 'Romania Mare' literati - Radu Theodoru and historian Mircea Musat - reached the conclusion that 'they had created a successful publication for nothing if they didn't utilize this achievement to the maximum by creating a political party'. Vadim acquiesced.[21] In the following years, as Musat and Eugen Barbu died and Radu Theodoru was expelled from the party, the magazine and the party itself became Vadim's domain.

The first years of the P.R.M.'s existence were also its most difficult from a political point of view. One of the premier sources of extremist thinking - anti-Hungarian emotion - was a 'market cornered' by the P.U.N.R. (Partidul Unitatii Natiunii Romane - The Party for the Unity of the Romanian Nation). Yet the P.R.M. joined the government in 1992, together with F.D.S.N. (Frontul Democrat al Salvarii Nationale - The Democratic Front for National Salvation), the P.S.M. (Partidul Socialist al Muncii - The Socialist Workers' Party) and the P.U.N.R. The strong left-wing platform of the government, oriented towards a conservationist attitude towards social protection, democratization and the free market, earned the coalition the name of the 'patrulaterul rosu' ('the red quadrilateral').

In the 1996 elections, the P.R.M. surpassed both the P.U.N.R. and the P.S.M. in terms of votes and parliamentary seats (4.50% of the popular vote[22]), arguably becoming the number one extremist and anti-democratic party in the country. The defection of P.U.N.R.'s most vocal leader, Gheorghe Funar, to the P.R.M., consolidated both the latter's status as the outstanding extremist force in Romanian politics and its Transylvanian voting base, previously uninterested in Vadim's political persona .

The following four years saw a marked increase in the virulence of Vadim Tudor's attacks on the functioning of state institutions and on the reputation of individuals from within the public arena; central to the discourse of the party and its newspaper was the existence of a 'Mafia' with both Romanian and foreign interests whose aim was to destabilize the economy of the country. Making a profit from the virtual dissolution of the ruling coalition and from the political mismanagement of right-wing democratic forces, the P.R.M. recorded an astounding success in the 2000 elections: it became the 2^nd largest party in parliament in terms of seats and its president, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, reached the 2^nd round of the presidential election (in which he received 33% of the popular vote). Unlike in the case of the eventual winner, Ion Iliescu, Vadim's support was balanced throughout the historical regions of Romania (26-29%); the categories that backed him in the first round were primarily first-time voters and adults under the age of 44.[24]

The P.R.M. outnumbered the parliamentary representatives of the democratic opposition single-handedly for the following four years . The hijacking of its anti-corruption discourse by the D.A. alliance in the 2004 elections, its limited coalition potential due to careful E.U. monitoring, the improvement of the country's economic potential and ineffective campaigning led to a decrease in the party's parliamentary representation after 2004. Also, the party has lost a number of key figures, either to more attractive offers from other parts of the political spectrum or because of failed attempts to move the organization away from Vadim's strong hold. Twenty parliament members and hundreds of local electees had migrated by December 2006 ; yet Corneliu Vadim Tudor's vitriolic discourse continued to attract Romanians to a degree that practically guarantees his party entrance into Parliament in future elections: not once since the 2004 elections has the party dipped below 8% of the public's political preference in opinion polls .

2.2. The "Partidul Noua Generatie" (P.N.G.) - a brief presentation

Even more so than the P.R.M., the New Generation Party is defined by the will and words of one man. George (or Gigi, as he is known to most Romanians) Becali was born in 1958 in Zagna village, Braila county. His family is one of ethnic Macedonians; many of its members had been Iron Guard members prior to World War Two, according to Becali himself[28]. After a rapid and somewhat secretive rise to great fortune, Becali acquired shares in the Steaua Bucharest football club in 2000. He motivated his choice on nationalistic grounds: 'I wasn't such a great football lover, but six years ago Steaua was in a pretty tough financial situation and I wanted to help a Romanian symbol" . At that time, he was the the 16th richest man in Romania, with a wealth is estimated at $150 million (presently, he is in the top eight, with a fortune that has tripled in six years ).

In 2003, Becali became the sole owner of the Steaua franchise; one year later, he took over the failing Partidul Noua Generatie, which had been started off by an ex-mayor of Bucharest, Viorel Lis. In the 2004 elections, Becali ran with a pre-World War Two Iron Guard slogan ('I swear to make Romania as beautiful as the sun in the sky'[32]). The party's relative lack of success (2% of the votes and therefore failure to gain parliamentary seats) did not spur Becali from rebuilding his party and his soccer franchise. Around the time of Romania's accession to the E.U., Becali's charisma and fortune had lifted the P.N.G. to a popularity score of 9% in most opinion polls .

Becali's image is a unique mixture of businessman, philanthropist and political radical. Becali and the P.N.G. rose to political relevance by utilizing a series of ideological assets, some of which will be discussed later in the paper. The two important co-ordinates to take into consideration are:

- The Steaua football club. Becali's pet investment and top manner for grabbing public attention, Steaua Bucharest has had remarkable success in the last few years, in part because of Becali's investments. For a more detailed discussion, see chapter 5, 'Discourse packaging'.

- A nationalistic public discourse heavily infused with Christian themes, doubled by effectiveness (i.e. the construction of houses for flood refugees at Vadu Rosca). Becali has had success positioning him as a person who not only speaks, but also does the 'right thing', especially by contrast with the weak effort of the state. This trait is analyzed in chapters 3 and 4.

2.3 The Noua Dreapta - a brief presentation

Between the two world wars, Archangel Michael's Legion (or its paramilitary branch, the Iron Guard) represented one of the most vigorous threats to the Romanian democracy. With an extremist right-wing ideological stance resembling fascism, yet claiming to adhere to Christian values, the Legion was particularly popular among college students and the rural intelligentsia. The 1937 death of the organization's founder, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, represented a temporary setback for the Legion. Historical circumstances favored its rise to power in 1940, while under the leadership of Horia Sima; months after beginning to share power with Mareschal Ion Antonescu, the Legion met a bloody fate in a January 1941 rebellion. Legion members were after the end of the war one of the main groups being persecuted by the Communist regime.

In July 1990 Horia Sima, the last leader of the Iron Guard, sent from Spain a political will calling on legionnaires abroad to organize a party that could gain entry into the Romanian parliament. The Iron Guard leader recognized that classic legionnaires forms of expression (the green shirts, weapon use) should be avoided and that the government should not be attacked verbally or otherwise . Feeble attempts to reorganize the movement among the aged veterans who had survived Communist prisons soon led to the creation of two political organizations, "Noua Romanie Crestina' (pro-Sima) and 'Pentru Patrie' (anti-Sima). After 1996, the two organizations abandoned most political activities and dedicated themselves to the 'Prof. Gheorghe Manu' foundation. Yet, in 2003 the S.R.I., Romania's internal intelligence service, mentioned in its yearly report the existence of 12 organizations or associations attempting to rebuild national structures similar in scope and thought to that of the Iron Guard . Yet it is only after that year that ideological platforms heavily influenced by the Legion began to truly emerge in the public domain.

'Noua Dreapta' ('The New Right') is considered the most visible of the neo-Legion movements of the 2000s . In a 2003 report made for the Open Society Foundation-Budapest on extremism in Central and Eastern Europe, Gabriel Andreescu remarked that the organization is prominent in and around large city universities. Its main themes of attack (through the means of leaflets) are the Rroma or Gipsy community, religious sects, immigrants, homosexuals and last but not least political parties, seen as (morally) 'bankrupt'. An example of the tone is provided by the N.D.'s attitude towards the Rroma, which represent a 'problem that should be solved through their social integration, or, in case they cannot adapt, by having the leave the country's territory'.

Comparing the ideology of the 'Noua Dreapta' with that of its pre-1941 predecessor or with other competiting Legion 'descendants' does not represent in and of itself one of the goals of this study. Rather, such similes are mentioned only in as far as they are relevant to the broader subject topic.

The non-existence of a comparison between the current Legion movement and the political force on the extreme right can be related to a series of factors, such as:

- the reduced visibility of a coherent Legion movement (it is only since 2003 that Noua Dreapta's actions were reflected in the mass-media);

- the rapid evolution of the post-1989 political environment in Romania, with an emphasis on the changes in the extreme right (in the years preceding the 2000 elections Corneliu Vadim Tudor was not perceived by either analysts or the public at large as a presidential figure; G. Becali did not exist from a political point of view as late as 2002);

- the lack of participation to political life from the side of the Legion movement.

In addition, it should be statds that a debate of the extremist causes in a society cannot be limited to the electoral stage. Particularly in contemporary Romania, marked by the dissolution of authority in public perception and by a visible, unpunished high-level corruption, movements such as the neo-Legion are important exactly because of the themes they utilize, similar in many ways with those of the politically-active extreme right. More so, if one regards political parties strictly as voices of the civil society, the members of the Noua Dreapta are just as legitimate as Vadim Tudor or Becali.

3. 'Who we are and what we believe in'

- ideological identity management in Romanian extremism -

3.1 Introduction

As Daniel Barbu observes in 'Politica pentru Barbari', an etatism which shunned civil society mechanisms or individualism was present in the mindset of essentially all political forces since Romania's advent to modernism. But for the contemporary population of Romania, it is the providential Communist state that is of the highest relevance. Given the weak historical tradition of democracy, as well as the unrealistic expectations of the early 1990s (which associated post-communism with immediate prosperity), there is no surprise that many Romanians shun both democracy and the downfall of the all-powerful state institutions. Extremist organizations are both a mirror of this state of disillusion, as well as public voices for the philosophical options utilized to deal with the new situation.

On a theoretical level, 'governance for Romanians is simultaneously positive and negative. Romanians expect any new government to give them something and to get them rid of something else'. The feeble state of Romania's democratic values is evaluated by D. Barbu in relation to the psychological profile of political leaders, as represented according to opinion polls: 'the political ideal of the overwhelming majority of Romanians is an authoritarian president, 'a player', omnipresent and omnipotent (.) In other terms, Romanians would still like to be governed by one man [italics in original], not by laws, be they right and European. The same Romanians, coherent with themselves, would be happy to elect their parliamentarians one by one, in uninominal circumscriptions. Even when it comes to Parliament, the people don't want the rule of law, but of people.'

These convictions are not simply the result of a superficial education on what democracy is and should be. The behavior of political forces has led Romanians to perceive that most parties and politicians are not trustworthy. Only 5 politicians were positively regarded by more than half the population[41] at the end of 2006; three did not belong to any party at the time the study was conducted, and one is the leader of a political organization not represented in Parliament. Some observers have labeled the profound process by which state resources and political enterprises are undertaken in Romania a 'partitocracy', namely 'a form of government in which parties have total monopoly over governmental personnel, resources and policies' . According to this framework, the population has blamed economic and moral failures on the partitocracy and thus placed its confidence in political figures unattached to the conventional political specter.

Partitocracy is but one of the components of popular sympathy for unconventional politicians and unorthodox political organizations - it is one of the many motifs of the discursive story[43] that pre-2007 Romanians share and act upon. Especially in the context of a country and society making the transition from transition to transition, it is important that 'narratives create order out of disorder and meaning from meaninglessness' . Each society has a 'narrative consensus', which 'articulates the fundamental mythologies of culture in a generally accessible language, a heritage of stories known by all, a heritage of epical schemes, types, cultural symbols and epical conventions' . Overstepping partitocracy is the myth of the Savior , one with a solid tradition in Romania's recent history (Ceausescu himself, as well as several of the national leaders of the post-1989 period enforced the model of the savior as legitimate and viable in the country's political life). The fundamental difference between the pre- and the post-1989 era is the emergence of a need for publicity and self-representation: `in post-communism the story is the same [as in the Communist mono-narrative of the Savior/dictator]; it is just the figure that has changed and the number of saviors. There is no monopoly of the role anymore: each part of the political area has its own choice` .

The choice of right-wing extremists in contemporary Romania is defined in terms of the moral qualities of the person being proposed for political ascendancy. Religious behavior and discourse, as well as having a strong public discourse aimed at the corrupt and the criminal, are supposed to give the population confidence in a political leader. Enterprises which share some starting points but follow different goals (such as the Coalition for a Clean Parliament, which sought to exert public pressure on Parliamentary candidates lists in order to eliminate those with shady backgrounds, or the vast media investigations into the immorality of the political class) are omnipresent in the Romanian society and political spectrum. Romanian political scientist Daniel Barbu, quoting and commenting on David Hume , mentioned in relation to this concept as it is utilized in modern-day Romania: 'Only absolutist governments depend on the human and professional quality of the administrators they use (.). In exchange, a free, republican government becomes an absurdity in the lack of a constitutional system of checks and controls capable of forcing institutionally even the most malevolent of beings to act for the public good' . For extremist organizations in Romania, democracy is failing or was doomed to fail, checks and controls or no checks and controls, and must therefore be 'helped' or even dismissed altogether in the name and through the heavy use of personal morality.

The P.R.M., P.N.G. and N.D. also utilize the main political tools of opposition parties or counter-culture organizations: they speculate on social chasms, governmental lack of efficiency or anomic occurrences in the public arena to instill distrust in the political forces ruling the country. By extension, they present themselves as morally upright (preservers of an a priori significant value code) and socially aware (guarantees of economic justice). But, as the quote in the above paragraph suggests, their effort of identification is built on the premise that the institutions of democracy themselves are inefficient, badly thought out or simply inappropriate for the Romanian psyche. One of the main means of de-legitimizing democracy is to redefine Romanian history and claim its common grounds as points of rendezvous for a revised political consciousness.

While these traits apply to the P.R.M., the P.N.G. and the N.D. alike, the exact coordinates of their proposed identity, as well as the interactions between the elements mentioned above differ. The three groups utilize different vocabularies and juxtapositions of ideas, often even differing in their outlook on one central concept (i.e. religion or the figure of Corneliu Codreanu). This chapter will rely on several basic tenets of political self-representation (fundamental statements, general doctrine, attitude towards history or religion) to key in the specific portrait for each of the organizations under study.

3.2 Fundamental statements of identification

3.2.1. P.R.M.: Fighter for the oppressed

The P.R.M. is first and foremost a nationalistic organization, with the majority of its discourse identifying it as a right-wing party. The leadership has a tradition of presenting itself in the form of brief, incisive statements, organized under the grammatical model of 'We are not X, we are Y'; these self-characterizations have the role of redefining the party's unsuitable attitudes in the context of greater, more important values.

For example, in 1991, the official party newspaper stated that 'we are not extremist nationalists, we are patriots and we want Romanians to be masters of their own home (.) otherwise we will become the servants of Europe, all will maim us, from everywhere, the crime of some Hungarian fascists will carry on and, in a record time, we will disappear from the map of the world' . Eleven years later, a similar attempt at a portrait was provided in the following terms: 'We are not extremists, nor xenophobes, nor anti-Semites - we speak for national dignity, true liberty, the fight against a barbarian and humiliating globalization, that is torturing our peoples'. The differences and similarities between the two statements are summarized below:

Table no. 1: P.R.M.'s self-portrait, 1991 vs. 2002

From 1991 to 2002, the discourse has evidently become more sophisticated; in 1991 patriotism (understood as vigilance) is an excuse for the party's radical stances. Ethnic tension and distrust of Hungary is being played upon, as is Communist-era fear of Western European influence (much in tune with the 1990 neo-Communist slogan, 'Nu ne vindem tara' - 'We are not selling our country'). In 2002, the discourse borrows several concepts from the left; globalization (by which traditionally one understands American, rather than European influence) is the main enemy and anti-Hungarian emotion is no longer being mentioned. The reference to 'popoarele' (the peoples), in the 2002 quote, sets a tone different from that of 1991. Romania is no longer a country besieged by opposing forces, aimed to eliminate it - but the member of a global community of exploited nation states. The sphere of the danger has modified as well: rather than national and political annihilation, the country risks to be explored economically and culturally divested by a 'barbarian' culture. If the arguments of 1991 would have been brought forth in 2002 to back Corneliu Vadim Tudor's claim that the party is not extremist, the initiative would have been discarded by outside observers. By borrowing language from the radical left-wing, the P.R.M. leader has been able to present his party in more modern terms, while at the same time projecting his party as a defender of national values.

In a rather surprising manner for a party and a newspaper named 'Romania Mare' (Greater Romania), the themes of union with former Romanian province of Moldova, currently an independent state, or reclaiming land lost in the summer of 1940 to Bulgaria or Ukraine, do not occupy an important role in defining the P.R.M. talking points. A brief press campaign in 1991 stressed the importance of Romania's friendship treaty with the soon-to-be defunct U.S.S.R. The implausible diplomatic gesture was seen as a sine-qua-non condition for a timely, danger-free union with Moldova. 'In the newly created conditions, our golden dream appears more and more realizable'[52], wrote Corneliu Vadim Tudor; yet silence set on the issue even as the P.R.M. joined the government coalition in 1992. Union with Bassarabia was a means for leveling charges at the P.S.D. right before the 2000 elections, on the basis of conveniently forgetting that the last time the Social Democrats had governed P.R.M. had been a member of their alliance: '[The Social Democrats are guilty of] a duplicitous foreign policy (.) to which one can add missing the historical chance of a union with Bassarabia'.

Moldova occupied a symbolic location in P.R.M.'s image strategy via the suffering of Ilie Ilascu, a pro-Romanian politician who was kept for several years in Transnistrian prisons. The name of Ilascu was present in the 'Romania Mare' newspaper for several years ; upon his release he became a P.R.M. parliament deputy, the successful ending to what appeared as a clean, nationalistic media campaign.

The P.R.M. is presenting itself as a fighter for the rights of Romania and Romanians. Positive initiatives, such as those referring to a union with Bassarabia, do not constitute an essential component of the party discourse. Corneliu Vadim Tudor is therefore relying strictly on his role as a savior, first and foremost of national interest; the multiple valences of the savior identity that he assumes will be revealed in the future sections of this chapter.

3.2.2. P.N.G. - Magnet of Christian patriotic energies

The P.N.G. is remarkable among all right-wing political parties in Romania and indeed within the political system by the fact it can be portrayed as a one-man party. The party is currently Becali's enterprise, to a greater degree even than the football franchise he owns; unlike in the case of the P.R.M., no other centers of power are visible, no other officials speak publicly and there is absolutely no dissention.

Upon taking control of the P.N.G. from Viorel Lis, Becali hesitated to describe it in the conventional terms of left- and right-wing. Rather, he identified his party as indistinctly but positively Christian: 'when you say Christian you say all the good things'[55]. The party was intended to attract 'all the energies and characters left in this country' around a platform built on nationalism and patriotism : 'We have a rich and beautiful country that was called the garden of the Mother of God, but we didn't have [good] leaders. For 15 years this country has been led by people who swore on the Bible and who did so falsely' . Democracy was an indifferent means for the acquisition of absolute power: 'For me, democracy is a means, and the nation is a goal' .

Throughout his actions since seizing the P.N.G. Becali has proven that, indeed, the party defies traditional definition models: social assistance programs have been blended with statements signaling intolerance. An extreme example of the former was Becali donating money to Ferentari inhabitants in late 2006[60]. Ferentari, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Romania's capital city of Bucharest, recorded such a high level of electrical energy theft that the plug was pulled by the regional energy distribution company - a move to which Becali responded by paying all the existing consumer debt in the area. Most often however Becali disposes of his party's finances to build churches and monasteries , in acts of charity such as helping financially ill children , or setting up 'Caravans of charity' in Romania's cities, which identify needy families and provide them with food on a regular basis .

A populist understanding of Christianity has made leftist and right-wing stances coexist under a single banner - a truce which limited P.N.G.'s appeal as an attractive force for resourceful political and non-political actors.

3.2.3 Noua Dreapta: The moral beacon

According to the organization's website , The Noua Dreapta organization emerged in early 2000 as a response to the rise of nationalist emotion, and in the absence of a proper nationalist-Christian organization (it actually labels itself 'the only movement for Christian and national rebirth in Romania').

The organization's 10-step program points out the primary organization aims:

- From the perspective of identity politics, to unify the Republic of Moldova and Romania, halt assimilation processes in Harghita and Covasna, and also in other countries in the Balkans where a significant Romanian population is present;

- On a social level, the N.D. stands for 'the protection of the traditional family' and combating elements inimical to it (with specific reference to abortion and homosexuality);

- Educational efforts include: the creation of a nationalist Christian spirit; stopping the 'offensive of religious sects'; the maintenance of a heroes cult for those who sacrificed themselves for 'God, Kind[65] and Country'; the elimination of 'manelization' and 'Americanization'.

- Central to foreign policy views is the notion of a Christian Europe of Nations, 'in front of threats exercised by American imperialism, radical Islam and the (..) European centralist super-state'. All these objectives, the N.D. states, are to be fulfilled 'via exclusively LEGAL ways' (capitals in original text)[66]. Other, less publicized viewpoints include the protection of the environment, enforcing economic distributism and a participative democracy, as well as 'solving the gipsy problem' (modalities unspecified).

As in the case of the P.R.M., the Noua Dreapta has had to defend itself from accusations stating that it was operating outside the field of democratic practice. Responding to accusations of racism and xenophobia, organization leaders responded in the media that it 'pointedly rejects Nazi, neo-Nazi and pagan ideology and any theory related to genetic manipulations, considering them incompatible with Christian morality and ethics' . Nazism and fascism are seen by the N.D. as 'foreign to the Romanian space and feeling' . The Celtic cross - a pre-Christian symbol for the sun, which became utilized by the Church and can be seen particularly in Maramures - is the N.D.'s logo, a sign of 'national identity and spiritual revolution'. One of the focal point of the doctrine, nationalism, is defined by Tudor Ionescu, the N.D. leader exclusively as 'being devoted to the specific values created by the people to which one belongs, to cherish them, cultivate them and increase them' .

As long as an ideological standpoint is rooted in Romanian nationalism it cannot be at fault in a political environment, the argument of the N.D. seems to point out. The current international climate creates an opportunity for the N.D. to present to the public an advanced form of P.R.M.'s xeno- and Europhobia, which emphasize the cultural legacy of Romania rather than its political independence. The 'family cult' of the N.D. must be understood not only as a symptom of contemporary right-wing organizations across Europe, but also in connection with the institutional orthodoxy for which the group militates: abortion and homosexuality are seen as social evils which must be rooted out for a 'sanitized' Christian Romania to develop. Euro-skeptics, radical Christians and agents of intolerance are thus pooled in the cause of nationalism.

3.3 General doctrine

3.3.1. P.R.M. - National-Communism revidivus

The genesis of the party is defined by its accession to an ideological field in which other political organizations, wary of association with the deceased Communist Party, feared to step in: 'The party was responding [in 1991] to a real need of the Romanian society (..) some of the main ideas at the basis of this party's doctrine are valid, valuable and dear to any Romanian for whom patriotism isn't an empty word but a lifting sentiment, cultivated in family and school and which you carry, as a shadow, your whole life.' Parties such as the P.S.M. (Socialist Workers' Party), which supported communist patterns of economy management but which didn't utilize a nationalistic discourse faded away in the mid-to-late 1990s. Politicians who supported Vadim at the beginning of his political career labeled the topics touched upon by the P.R.M. newspaper as 'innovative'; typical headings of the 'Romania Mare' newspaper at the time included: 'Love of country and kind', 'The National Interest', 'The Fight against corruption and the mafia', 'The Hungarian danger in Transylvania', 'De-masking the foreigners who rob the country', 'Basarabia - Romanian land' .

After the party's early growth, the focus of the doctrine shifted to a sociopolitical change which would profoundly alter the relationship between the individual and the state, removing much of democracy's institutions and practices in the process. While some elements of the proposed societal model were borrowed from Communist dogma, others are characteristic to authoritarian regimes. Thus, the P.R.M. manifesto of the 2000 elections promoted socialist/communist themes (confiscating fortunes obtained suspiciously and transferring them into a National Savings Fund for the poor; a total halt of privatizations; decreasing prices on food, drinks, medicine and school requisites via state intervention in the economic sphere[74]) backed by a vigilant police state, whose first priority would be the elimination of mafias which operate on Romanian territory, the breaking up of prostitution and drug trafficking networks. Also as a part of this heading, 'individuals guilty of genocide against the Romanian people' would be trialed publicly and a Committee for the Research of Anti-Romanian Activity would seek to expel individuals responsible for 'sabotage, espionage and propaganda aimed at territorial changes' . As it is made clear in the manifesto, the Romanian state has to 'reinstitute its authority in the counties of Harghita and Covasna' (which have a majority of ethnic Hungarians). Days before the manifesto was published, Anghel Stanciu, the P.R.M. vice-president, made clear that the P.R.M.'s arrival to power would lead to concrete changes in the country's social and political fabric: 'journalists who sold out to the West will be sent to labor camps' . Vadim Tudor emphasized this view with abrupt concision: '[Romania] can only be governed through the mouth of a machine gun' .

After the 2000 elections populist themes continued to represent the defining trait of the party's doctrine. But the ingredients failed to produce the same explosive effect as in Vadim's 'finest hour' on the Romanian political stage. By sticking to a standard left-wing populist discourse, the P.R.M. managed to keep a hold on a significant portion of the Romanian electorate: 'In comparison with the incomes of our country [the salary of a member of parliament] is rather high and shouldn't be increased, at least not this year. (..) There is practically no difference between the old and the new forces in power when it comes to money!'

The statist-communist origins of the P.R.M. are visible in its stances on the economy. Whereas the P.R.M. is characterized by intolerance and hatred towards sundry minorities (see chapter 4.2) the party does not fit the profile of neo-fascist organizations in its attitude towards labor (as Romanian political scientists have noticed)[79]. The P.R.M. does not seek a transcendent solution to the conflict between capital-owning classes and the proletariat, but most often condemns the capital (seen as of foreign origin, corrupt or both) and defends labor: 'This inclination is marked both by its older complicity with miners' labor unions from Valea Jiului, as well as its electoral and programmatic association with the National Syndicate Block of 2004' . Also, the P.R.M. proposed a state-driven model of statist cooperation with rural Romania, a system by which the state would purchase excess grain from the peasantry . This system and other related measures were considered to provide a buffer from economic hardships for those in need of social assistance, assuring 'socio-economic equality among all members of society' as well as eliminating the uncertainty of market mechanisms .

A more direct proof of P.R.M.'s nostalgia for the Communist state came during the public condemnation of communism issued by President Basescu on December the 18^th, 2006, when the P.R.M. acted quite effectively with the goal of disturbing the Romanian Parliament session. Both as a sign of a aggression towards Basescu and the condemnation itself, Vadim organized a manifestation inside the parliament, donning football-like red cards and whistles to his supporters, insulting the president during the presentation and unveiling a banner which presented a caricature of Basescu behind prison bars. The P.R.M. thus identified itself as the only significant political force in Romania that stands behind the ideals and practice of communist society.

The economic mechanisms of a powerful state are not emphasized by the P.R.M. simply because of their innate attractiveness for certain sections of the population. For Corneliu Vadim Tudor, the P.R.M. and their supporters, the most significant event of the last fifteen years has been represented not by the rise of democracy and the growth of capitalism, but the downfall of the state. In 1991, the 'Romania Mare' newspapers was publishing broad platforms, generic and bombastic, calling for 'the reawakening of national dignity, the growth of the country though our own forces, getting the most disciplined organism - the Army - to rule the community which would simultaneously ensure the discouragement of all attempts to dismember the Unitary National Romanian State'[83]. As the years have passed, the discourse of the P.R.M. has mellowed, and changed in scope, as will be shown in the following paragraph.

As one turns towards the study of the more obvious right-wing ingredients of P.R.M.'s discourse identity, it must be stated that the P.R.M. was not the only force in Romanian politics aiming to attract the population on the basis of nationalist viewpoints. What is remarkable about the 'Romania Mare Party' is the strength and persistence with which it has always presented itself as a moral solution to the country's evils. Early in the party's existence, its members were presented as dedicated heroes, the only resistance to the violent evils surrounding the country: 'Think that in our Balkanic and beautiful Bucharest there are people who have put on the shirt of death, who have engaged themselves on a road with no return and who know well they will pay too for the supreme courage of being Romanian. These Romanians form the nucleus around the "Romania Mare" ideal (.) around the country there are flames of war, within the country there are 'Trojan horses' who watch, just maybe we will kneel'[84]. Even the foundation of youth movement in 1995 provided the occasion for a leap into quasi-legionnaire rhetoric, aimed to promote the party's image and create an esprit de corps based around a moral-elitist framework: 'You are young, you are beautiful, you are without a moral scar, so no force of evil can stop you' .

In time, as party leaders began to dissociate themselves from Vadim Tudor and informal authority was centralized in his hands, the moral asset of the P.R.M. became Vadim himself. Simultaneously, P.R.M.'s declared belief that it is the only truthful political force in the country has led to the continual development of a intense conspiracy theory, whose main traits are detailed in chapter 3. This struggle represented also a potential for defining P.R.M.'s strengths and ideals around Corneliu Vadim Tudor. In February 1999, as Vadim's parliamentary immunity was under discussion, as well as the possibility of arrest for instigating a coup d'etat, the leader of the P.R.M. mused in the pages of one of his newspapers: 'All I did was to say out loud (..) what millions and millions of Romanians are thinking (.) I am waiting in peace for the parliamentary immunity to be removed and to be arrested in a few days. In a regime of terror, the only honorable place is jail (.) Everything that happens in these horrific days represents an exam for the Romanian People : if it doesn't defend its patriots, if it just stays in front of the T.V. set as a spectator, if it lets itself be humbled, robbed and taken out of history the it deserves its fate. Anyway, I will love it and will give myself away for this People '.

Patriotic populism isn't the only tool utilized by the P.R.M. for legitimation. Religiousness is seen as the gateway between patriotism and moral uprightness. Thus, it was not only patriotism but also religious belief that led to Vadim's 'persecution' - the P.R.M. states - a religious belief which is a radical break from the pattern of everyday politics: 'The time has come for the current political class to get used to consistent, incorruptible people with a clean heart, fighters for truth and justice, who care for the People. I have proved throughout my life as a practicing Christian that I am such a person - inconvenient, that's true, which is why 50 political trials were fabricated by the Mob in the Justice system.'[88] Only such individuals can rescue the State that the P.R.M. worships: 'This country will either remain a foreign colony, mocked and robbed by adventurers with no scruples - or it will be controlled and saved by people who fear God, patriotic and incorruptible' .

As a reply to the emergence of the D.A. Alliance in 2003, Corneliu Vadim Tudor was faced with a serious competitor for the anti-corruption vote. He sought to enhance his own image by promoting himself once more as a religious individual without fault:

'We have proven that we don't fight corruption in general but the corrupt, excluding from the party those who broke the Law and got greedy: [names of former P.R.M. members follow]. (..) In 12 years of leading the P.R.M. I have educated myself and forged my character so that I represent a behavioral model for the members and sympathizers of our political organization. Today, I am the only party leader who has no bank account, in lei or in foreign currency, and this can be checked (..) Although I could have a considerable fortune, I refuse to be a rich man in a poor country. My riches are my children, the books I write, the Bible I study'[90].

Vadim took care to define himself as a special, selfless member of the political class he was attacking: 'I am the only parliamentarian in Romania and, probably, in Europe who donates his salary in full to the poor elderly, month after month, which shows my idealism and disinterest towards the advantages of this job'[91]. Vadim's discourse operates as follows: 'disinterest towards material earnings -> signals a faithful Christian -> a person with strong moral values -> a good leader for the country' or, depending on the subject topic: 'politician who is not wealthy -> not corrupt or corruptible -> a person with strong moral values -> a good leader for the country'.

Throughout its history, the P.R.M. has often blended leftist and right-wing themes for electoral benefit. The perfect case study for P.R.M. identity tactics is represented by the attention it paid to Valea Jiului miners throughout 1999 and 2000. P.R.M.'s media campaign started off with emotional appeals to social justice, some denoting differences between Vadim and the other politicians: 'I have known, since the earliest age, what hunger means, and I cannot assist passively to these nightmarish scenes'[92]. Devices borrowed from Marxist propaganda techniques include the utilization of vivid contrasts: 'While workers (..) look in despair as their children and old people fade away of hunger, of cold, lacking medicines, Emil Constantinescu parties in a revolting set of orgies with his lovers, in all sorts of villas, castles and palaces, both in Bucharest and at Scrovistea or Predeal, bathing them with champaign and practicing revolting sexual aberrations' , or symmetrical justice: 'as Emil Constatinescu placed Miron Cozma in prison, I will jail Emil Constantinescu the same way, in the same prison and same cell' .

The operalization comes to full force with identification of the aims of those guilty for the situation: to reduce the country's population in the form of a disguised genocide[96]. The actions of the working class are seen by Vadim as being by default, guilt-free: 'It is inadmissible that the corrupt and Mafioso power of Bucharest treat workers like lawbreakers' . Vadim's solution is to 'go to Valea Jiului and organize a Large Popular Assembly, during which I will burn my Senate card. This is because I refuse to be the member of a Parliament who, by silence and cowardice, is accomplice to the killing of innocent children.' According to Vadim's inner political logic, it is natural for the assembly to be 'Large' and 'Popular' (the wording itself was over-used under communism); the gesture must be public and publicized, it must take place in the midst of those 'harmed' by the conspiracy; and it must point out the differences between Vadim and the political class. In the article quoted above, Vadim warns that such an action could be the start of a 'popular avalanche', since 'exasperated crowds do not obey either reason or self-conservation instincts' . Such a revolution, motivated by nationalistic sentiment but based on deep socio-economic inequalities, would be the fulfillment of P.R.M.'s revised national-communism. In PRM's public appeals , the miners' riot should have been accompanied by a 'boycott' (the object of which wasn't specified) and a 'general strike', all with the goal of 'toppling the antipopular and antinational regime of Emil Constantinescu' (please note the coupling of 'national' and 'popular', as well the impromptu notion that a regime that doesn't aim first and foremost to please the populace should be dismissed). On the judicial level, 'state institutions should be replaced with a Revolutionary Council that would run the country and that would organize, in two months, presidential and parliamentary elections' . The river of effusions which accompanied Vadim's articles towards the miners reached a nationalistic/religious fervor of great impetus: 'I have confidence in your star! You are the live conscience of Romania's Awakening! The Revival of the Romanian People is nigh! With us is God!'

3.3.2. P.N.G.: The Christian State

Becali's underlying theme is a denunciation of the premises of democracy and capitalism and replacing them with an irrational mix of right-wing values and left-wing socioeconomic actions. As the uniter of the two main foci of Becali's discourse - patriotism and faith - irrationality is seen as the gateway for national salvation. When running in 2004 for mayor of Bucharest, Becali made his framework visible from the first public appearances: 'I was sent by God on earth with one mission: to save Romania'. Becali's attitude towards democracy is diffuse - he is however strongly in favor of reducing some individual freedoms in favor of an unspecified improvement of the country's situation. Publicly rejecting dictatorship ( 'if I guide myself after Christian morality I cannot be a dictator' ) he is in favor of a 'tougher regime until the country gets on its feet' .

Becali believes that his qualification for public office include psychological aspects, such as a strong dislike of injustice. When asked about his faults, Becali characterized himself as follows: '[I may seem] impossible, volcanic, insulting (..), but I do that when I see injustice, because when I see injustice I have a reaction in my heart, I cannot stand it" . Another important trait that Becali promotes is his love for the Romanian people, concretely characterized by acts of charity. According to Becali himself, he is a popular figure because 'I love Romanians, I help them as much as I can. God says love your neighbor, and I love my people. The people felt that. I will sacrifice my life for Romania and for Romanians. I don't see another one who will do the same. You'll see, I'll do more and more for the people of this country' . Demonstrative acts of charity include building churches, rebuilding houses for flood victims or offering free tutoring in biology for baccalaureate or college applicants .

The two traits of Becali's political portrait - devout, militant Christianity and a personal morality cult - are united in the current P.N.G. slogan, 'Faith and honor' (Credinta si onoare)[108], as well as in the addition of the syntagm 'Christian-Democratic' to the party name. Also alluding to Becali's recent arrival in the political scene and to his unorthodox methods of attracting attention, the P.N.G. website promotes Becali under the headline: 'Becali: a new face for Romania.'

A very important component of Becali's doctrine is self-promotion, as hinted above. Very aware of his public status, Becali proclaimed himself after Steaua qualified in the Champions League 'the strongest man in Romania' . He also relies on demonetization of his opponents (labeling the prime-minister a 'political cockroach' ) and augmentation of his own status ('There's nobody of my status in Romania. Who is stronger than me in this country?' ; 'By comparison with the people who created this system, I am a noble. I have blue blood if you compare me with them' ). This self-augmentation is a key component of Becali's public image: in the 2004 electoral campaign, Becali sought to augment this image by utilizing a clip from the 'Michael the Brave' movie (a depiction of one of Romania's most respected historical figures) . He has rewarded religious behavior publicly, even by awarding thousands of euros to high school students who could recite by heart certain Christian prayers .

3.3.3 Noua Dreapta: Education and indoctrination

The official Noua Dreapta doctrine[115] is Horia Sima's "Doctrina Legionara", a fundamental component of pre-WW2 Legion ideology; the impact of this writing is evident as one considers that it can be perused at other neo-Legion websites , belong to organizations which are not affiliated to Noua Dreapta. Post-1989 additions or modifications to Sima's work are non-existent, yet in practice the N.D. is closely following some of the structural tenets of pre-WW2 legionarism, while adding contemporary issues to their political toolset as necessary. The following enumeration consists of a summation of Horia Sima's ideas (in italics) and steps that the N.D. has taken in that particular direction:

- the goal of the organization is to create 'a new man', fashioned according to Christian standards. This model, endowed with heroic qualities, will awaken the 'dulled energies' of the country and remove it from 'the state of suffering in which [it] finds itself.' The N.D. aims to attract 'young nationalists' who 'have wandered up to now with no use' and who 'have the force and the enthusiasm of a total militant engagement'[117]. In practice, membership is limited to those aged between 17 and 35, students and intellectuals being preferred for recruitment. The 'heroic qualities' and energy with which to refresh national identity necessitate a low level of social integration (i.e. individuals early in their career, who have not started a family). The Legion's intricate ideatic structure formulates the need for educated members, or members with the capacity to learn rapidly; its counter-culture structure requires enthusiasm; and its core themes create the need for members with strong nationalist impulses.

- the Legion function is educational, and then political. The N.D. is not a party. Attempts to incorporate it within other political movements (such as the P.N.G.) were met with severe condemnations and denials by the N.D. on its website. Noua Dreapta's leaders mention at point 3 that the central feature of the organization is 'fighting for the maintenance and promotion of Romanian national identity with the means specific to the civil society' and that therefore 'the transformation of the organization into a political organization or its inclusion with such an organization are excluded'. Such a stance had been made obvious by the N.D. in the 'Who We Are' section of its website: according to the presentation, the Noua Dreapta is not an electoral enterprise, but 'a center for permanent military formation'[119]. Its primary mission is to 'wake consciences and warn on dangers to the Romanian kind'. Actually the organization's non-political nature increases its propaganda potential ('we are not fighting for material advantages, but for an idea'): by distancing itself from the wealth and influence that presence in the political field could bring, the N.D. can persuade potential members and the public at large that its enterprises are sincerely motivated by the desire to improve the state of the nation.

- modernity is condemned as anti-spiritual, a state of 'conscience opacity', caused by the removal of God from the sphere of contemporary life. According to organization leader, Tudor Ionescu, Noua Dreapta is not an extremist force, but rather the opposite: 'a true voice of the silent majority'[120]. The N.D. combats through its actions and statements extreme attitudes and vices (among those mentioned: prostitution, homosexuality, proselytism, drug use, corruption, a high crime rate among 'a certain portion of the gipsy ethnicity). The values that the N.D. relies on (family, Church, Romanian traditions) are popular and legal, according to the N.D. leadership; this view is in tune with the anti-modernist stance of the pre-WW2 Legion, which was a value-driven reactionary movement.

- the nation is a spiritual, and then a historical entity - its inception is divine. Few N.D. leaders go as far as to state this publicly. The leader of the Timisoara branch, Goran Mrakici, confessed that he joined the Noua Dreapta because of his attachment to orthodoxy and Romanianism, as well as the belief that 'the nationalistic right can be an avangarde political movement'[121]. It could rather be stated that in the perception of educated N.D. leaders the organization is equally spiritual and historical (i.e. political).

3.4 Attitudes towards history

3.4.1. PRM: The Medieval-Communist Autarchy

The Romania Mare Party's identity is inexorably linked with the last decade of the Ceausescu dictatorship, when national-communism became a state policy and private enterprise was seen as a sign of capitalist decay. A profound devotion to the pillars of the Communist state - the Army and the Securitate - is still present in the party's public stances. The latter (Romania's pre-1989 secret police) is considered by Vadim 'a patriotic institution, by comparison with the current national disaster'[122]. In 1998, Vadim publicly announced that: 'We should end this informants' hysteria, because nobody is interested anymore to find out who collaborated with the Securitate' . In 2006, Vadim Tudor took pride in proposing to former Securitate officers that they join his party . More importantly, in October 2000, the P.R.M. asked the Senate to approve a motion which applauded former dictator Ceausescu as a 'patriot' and a 'good diplomat', who had become 'one of the greatest statesmen of the world'. According to the P.R.M. motion, he had been executed in 1989 in order to halt him from 'consolidating Romania's independence' . The political leadership of the Communist Party received support on several occasions from the P.R.M., who made several interventions for the release of former PCR executive committee members from prison (after the 1990-1992 trials which placed responsibility on them for the political and economical hardships which the country had endured) . Opposing the condemnation of communism, which took place in December 2007, is thus consistent with the P.R.M.'s reading of history.

'Romania Mare' takes its cues from Ceausescu's propaganda when defining its stance towards contentious periods from Romania's history. A staunch anti-monarchist, Corneliu Vadim Tudor holds the opinion that King Michael 'shamefully' arrested the 'great soldier' Antonescu[127]. In the first years after the revolution pro-monarchist TV shows and press articles were being carefully monitored by the P.R.M., which remarked negatively on 'foreign infiltrators' that were supposedly attempting to re-establish monarchy in Romania . A similarly feverish pitch is encountered in 'Romania Mare''s cult for Antonescu - seen as a patriot not necessarily because he had halted the Iron Guard's coup d'etat in January 1941 or because he has led Romania into an anti-U.S.S.R. coalition but because of his martial qualities, military background and heavy-handed control of the government and population. The P.R.M. has aimed strong criticism at the U.S. embassy and other international entities which condemned the Antonescu cult in post-1989 Romania: according to the P.R.M., the Mareshal had been 'demonized' and the Romanian Army 'insulted'.

Furthermore, for the P.R.M. there is an internal consistency in the history of Romania, one probably inspired by 1970s and 1980s nationalistic communist propaganda. Antonescu and Ceausescu belong together, but the kings don't; Michael the Great, Tudor Vladimirescu and Steven the Great are heroes, foreign influence on the country's politics and economy is universally malevolent. Strong leadership and protection of national independence are for the P.R.M. the indisputable qualities of quality Romanian leaders; progressive tendencies, even those aimed at improving the condition of the population, are unmentioned and unmentionable.

3.4.2 P.N.G.: Successors of the Legion

Early in the party's existence, George Becali did not fear to recognize his admiration for the pre-WW2 Legion. During an August 2005 TV show, he states that 'the legionnaire movement was the most beautiful movement in this country, with all of the country's elite, priests, university professors and students!'[130] 'During the actual electoral campaign Becali utilized as a slogan a poetic concept from the Hymn of the Mota-Marin Heroes, a legionnaire song. Addressing Codreanu, the original song lyric demanded 'Captain, make a country like the holy sun in the sky'; Becali's electoral vow undertook the form of a response: 'I swear in front of God that I will make a Romania like the holy sun in the sky' .

The utilization of the Legion mythology did not limit its effects to a purely discoursive level, but indeed led to practical consequences. Political analyst and scholar Dan Pavel renounced his collaboration with George Becali in December 2004, claiming that the PNG leader was about to promote 'Noua Dreapta' leaders in his own party. Becali admitted that an emissary had set up a meeting with Noua Dreapta leaders at which he participated. Dan Pavel explained the genesis of the collaboration ('Gigi had recognized when we started working together that members of his family had belonged to the Legion') and the extent to which it was about to take place ('people from Noua Dreapta were about to become the P.N.G.'s core')[132].

The negative publicity caused by the incident led Becali to moderate his statements concerning the Legion and to dismiss the slogan which had landed him in so much negative publicity. In effect, Becali's statements have been mostly convergent with the Legion ideals of the Codreanu era. The utilization of 'Michael the Brave' movie clips in his electoral campaign (as shown in chapter 3.3.3) points out that Becali is more likely however to incline towards a statist-dictatorial model of running the country, in many ways similar to the Legion's pre-WW2 aims.

3.4.3 Noua Dreapta: The Romanian Jesus

Through its imagery the N.D. seeks legitimization and irrational approval in a historical context. In accordance with the anthropological view that 'myths have symbolic power. They are constantly repeated, often re-enacted. Myths are, in other words, essentially propagated for their effect rather than their truth value'[133], the N.D. is built around the myth of the pre-war Legion's first leader, a man seen both as personally valuable but also historically and philosophically meaningful. Here is a typical presentation by N.D.'s leadership in a local newspaper: 'Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the martyr of the national revolution (.) Great visionary, catalyzing spirit and Christian hermit, with an immense energy and love for the Romanian Kind, fearless of death, correct and sober, the Captain Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was and is the idol of the Romanian people, the symbol of the Romanian struggle and martyrdom, the embodiment of the urge to fight and sacrifice for future generations of Romanians'.

The cult has taken many forms: books sold in N.D.'s online shop, a special website, and an yearly march to the supposed location of Codreanu's death. The latter is a public occasion for the N.D. to don pre-WW2 garb (green shirts or flags bearing Codreanu's face always interceded by Romania's national flag). 'Brigada de Asalt' (The Assault Brigade), Noua Dreapta's musical extension, has a song labeled 'Capitanul' (The Captain) which consists of alternating propagandistic messages ('After 15 years of fight, harassment and sacrifice (.) The age of legionnaire victory is no longer far' (.) 'those among us who will fall, /will have the names and graves of heroes/ and those who will kill us will bear the names of traitors/ and be cursed throughout time') and a repetitive chorus, built around the sentence 'when the oaks fell' imbibed with metaphorical undertones ('the forest became quiet (..) a beautiful dream collapsed (..) and all was over'). Another 'Brigada de Asalt' song, 'Tara Noastra' (Our Country) sets the backdrop for the Codreanu cult: the current political leadership ('liars and impostors') are compared with the medieval kings, endowed with 'courage and pride'. The former are 'traitors who sold and borrowed us'; the latter are presented as fighting 'the hordes of invaders/ So that we could have a Country and a People!' (words capitalized in the original). The mythologized reading of history that the N.D. promotes is often utilized to validate nationalism and xenophobia. N.D. leaders routinely state that 'Romanians are the only nation not to have conquered their country through combat. Romanians never undertook a war of conquest against the land of other nations. Quite the opposite, they sought brotherhood and good understanding with the neighbors, and the wars they had to fight were exclusively to defend their own' .

Beside the cult of the 'Captain' and a ethnocentric perception of its own history, the N.D. legitimates itself through its doctrinarian identity, presented as claiming a lineage with Eminescu, Nae Ionescu, Codreanu and other legionary figures (Mota and Marin, Cioran, Eliade and Noica). Putting a positive face on the movement's activities and its history is a lait-motif in the N.D.'s presentation of itself: the organization is 'proud of the past, but looking to the future'.

3.5. The political utilisation of religion

3.5.1. PRM: Savior Management

For a party that has made Christian beliefs part of its very political identity, the P.R.M. pays surprisingly little attention to Christian rhetoric in occasions other than religious holidays (Christmas, Easter) or New Year's Day. These Christian holidays provide ample opportunity for assessing - in bleak colors - the state of the nation. The appeal to God - as a restorative force that would lead to the rebirth of the country - is always mediated by pointing out the value of the P.R.M., and the regenerative potential that the party and its leader could bring to the country: 'I beg good God to have pity on us and to take us up from the chasm. Chasm which now seems deeper than ever. Because the garbage of all times has gathered now, in this shameful transition from the Fanariot Age to the Mafia Age. But, for God to receive our prayers, our souls must be clean and we must live in the worship of His light. That's what I'm trying to do for years: to be with no fault, after the model of our Teacher, Jesus Christ (.) My dear sisters and my dear brothers, Romania will not undergo rebirth until the moment when people who do what pleases God begin ruling the country. Don't lose hope. If God exists - and He does! - he will save us.'

Supposed messengers of God, divinely inspired in deed and thought, the P.R.M. and its leader are aiming to format themselves to devout Romanians as the shortcut to a morally clean, prosperous future. It is only in rare occasions, such as when commenting on the intellectual mass-media (i.e. the 'Romania Libera' newspaper) that Corneliu Vadim Tudor's religious language reaches extreme levels: 'These animals can do nothing to me because (..) I am protected by dear God, and their knife, in order to rip my heart, must first go through the Bible at my chest.' By contrast, opposing parties are usually seen as morally defective: 'you have no idea how [the population] will sanction when voting the state-party with no country or God'.

Stances in favor of religious beliefs, mirroring those of a Christian civil society, are usually interlinked with anti-Semitic or conspiracy theories: upon remarking on the broadcast of a documentary named 'The Real Jesus Christ' by Discovery Channel, Corneliu Vadim Tudor announces in a rather threatening manner: 'I am drawing the attention that through such attacks on Jesus Christ - obviously the work of Jewish movie producers - there is a risk of anti-Semitism growing throughout the world. I, personally, will not tolerate by any means the mocking of our Savior!'[141]

Another typical use of quasi-Christian rhetoric is to attack public figures on basis of their lifestyle choices (i.e. US ambassador Michael Guest and homosexuality):'Your bad luck, Mr. Guest, is that you've arrived in the midst of a Christian people, who judges those with inclinations against nature and the Bible very roughly! (..) This is what you are, Mr. Guest, somebody good for nothing, who shocks public opinion by the ease with which he shows his repulsive, AIDS-carrying vice. We don't want you to turn our country into Sodom and Gomorra and attract God's wrath on the Romanian People!'

Examples of homophobia, as stated in the previous chapter, are rare. More likely, what is occurring is that the P.R.M. occasionally chooses to frame its attack on a Christian framework even though the basis of the attack does not lie in religious convictions of one form or another.

3.5.2. P.N.G. - The Blessed Mouthpiece

Having proclaimed itself a Christian-Democratic party[143] at its last congress, the PNG has launched a massive campaign that would identify it as the only - or strongest - Christian party in Romania. Unlike in the case of the PRM or of the 'Noua Dreapta', this component of the party ideology is central. Whereas the Noua Dreapta's program is relatively intricate, built on an identity of intolerance and protest towards several social groups, events and processes, and whereas the P.R.M.'s justice theme is representative for the electorate, the P.N.G. is banking almost exclusively on its Christian roots.

But what exactly are the coordinates of P.N.G.'s understanding of Christianity? What is the image of Christian Orthodoxy that the PNG is attempting to identify itself with? Becali's worldview is filtered by a personalized and ubiquous theology. The only danger to the party, he mused in 2006, was for 'the devil to stick its tail into it' . Far from being a metaphor or an exaggeration, this statement is part of Becali's comprehension of daily existence as a continuous communication with the divine realm. When insulted by Vadim Tudor, the P.N.G. leader dismissed his opponent's slander by claiming that 'the devil's spirit' was in his opponent . Although having labeled himself as 'an athlete of God' only as late as Easter 2006, Becali was from the get-go of his political career an individual who attached great importance to the interaction between faith, the public and the private. In 2004 he started the presidential campaign at the Orthodox Church's epicenter, Dealul Mitropoliei, trying to get a blessing from Patriarch Teoctist . What has changed in time is the degree to which he is willing to let his religious emotion to be publicly known.

Becali's medievalism is described by the degree to which he believes that ordinary events are disguised signs from God pointing the right path to take. During the 2004 elections he commented on a incident which had occurred during one of Vadim Tudor's press conferences: 'he wanted to take the Bible out of his pocket and it wouldn't come out - well he couldn't take it out: God's will was there: hey, you cannot come with the Bible, you - never!'

Becali's use of religion for political purposes is not reduced to words and statements. During the 2004 presidential race he mentioned donations of millions of dollars that he had made to the Church[149]. His statement having not sounded veridical for the population, Becali underwent a large philanthropic campaign that would identify him as the most charitable and God-fearing of all Romanian politicians.

3.5.3. Noua Dreapta - Intellectual Christianity

The Noua Dreapta has taken a very applied and practical view on how to (re)implement Christian beliefs in the life of Romanians. Several campaigns on moral issues have been organized by the N.D. In its attempt to halt the legalization of prostitution, the N.D. has benefited from the support of the Initiative Group for the Defense of the Family. This coalition includes - according to the anti-prostitution campaign website ' members of the Bioethics Commission of the Romanian Patriarchy, the Center for Applied Theological Studies, the Association of Orthodox Christian Students of Romania[150]. Other groups who have donated their support were the 'Pro-Vita for the born and unborn' Orthodox-Christian Association . Also drawing the N.D.'s attention was Alina Mungiu-Pippidi's play, 'The Evangelists', seen as 'an insult to Christian values' and a blasphemy' .

In late 2006, the N.D.'s media arm, altermedia.ro, launched a website aiming to promote scientific creationism[153]. A thesis dear to contemporary American conservatives, scientific creationism doubts the reality of evolution and maintains that divine creation of the universe can be made consistent with science. Future plans for the enterprise include: a media campaign, a set of conferences and public debates, as well as printing works popularizing the concept .

One of the main areas of the N.D. discourse, anti-homosexual propaganda, is undertaken from a respective which combined a conservative view of the Biblical message (homosexuality seen as offending God) and a biological outlook (homosexuality seen as unnatural).

On a wider level the N.D. perceives 'the loss of God', i.e. increase in immoral behavior, to the main cause of social ills in Romania. In its song, 'O Romanie nationalista' ('A Nationalist Romania'), the N.D.'s musical mouthpiece ties in economic hardships, immoral behavior among youths and adults or harmful politicianism as being the logical consequence of having lost faith in God .

3.6 Conclusion

Patriotism, religiousness and a moral rejuvenation of society are the key elements in the development of a right-wing extremist identity in Romania prior to the country's integration within the European Union. These elements should be studied independently at first, with particular care to the similarities and differences in outlook between the forces involved.

Patriotism is attachment to the nation - but how is that nation defined, and how can patriotism be demonstrated? Rather than limiting the discussion to the ethnic vs. civic nation dichotomy, one should also consider the social aspect as a relevant variable, due to the influence of communist ideology. If the ethnic nation is defined by belonging to a cultural and biological heritage, whereas the civic nation is a community of willing participants to national projects, the social nation is one built around a common lifestyle and cultural values in the economic field. The P.R.M. and the P.N.G. show the influence of communist ideology - their identity is built around the ethnic-social core of a state which provides for its citizens, and from which non-Romanian ethnicities or wealthy Romanians can be excluded. In contrast, the N.D. is a supporter of an ethnic-civic model, in which the community is morally bound by Christian laws and precepts and acting accordingly.

All three organizations show admiration for the heavy-handed medieval leaders of Romanian provinces . Their resistance to foreign influence, unchecked decision-making and 'love for the people' were propagandistic mainstays of Communist and pre-Communist Romania that the P.R.M., the P.N.G. and the N.D. willingly promote. A significant difference emerges in relation to the figure of Codreanu and his pre-WW2 Legion. The N.D. identifies itself by a number of statements and initiatives which seek to adapt the Legion's spirit to contemporary Romania - the organization seeks to legitimize itself as the premier neo-Legion group in the Romanian extremist 'marketplace'. Becali's stance on the Legion is determined by the direction of his doctrine - a Christian core, dominated by fervent nationalism and acts of social welfare. The Legion's historical example seems to have been utilized by the P.N.G. almost one year after the party's political identity was devised. Thus, identification with the Legion is much less essential to the P.N.G.'s identity than in the case of the Noua Dreapta. The P.R.M., on the other hand, has been consistent at avoiding the cult of the Legion; partly because of its dedication to statist ideals, and partly because of its aged leadership and intended audience, the Romania Mare Party is directing its admiration towards Mareshal Antonescu. The leader of Romania during World War two is a figure of stability, rather than social change; obedience rather than morality; dedication to the state, rather than to God. This mechanism was clearly detailed by Vladimir Tismaneanu in a study of post-Communist fascism: 'When people get scared of the avalanche of risks they seek alienation into the past, often into an idealized one'[156].

Turning to the topic of religion, it must be mentioned that Romanians are the most religious people in Europe - if one considers belief in God, rather than praxis, to be the most valuable indicator in that respect. According to a study realized in April 2006 by marketing research company GfK, 97% of Romanians believe in God. When the question turns to actual participation in religious services, 18% of Romanians actually attend church services on a regular basis, which would place them on an average spot in the 'religious praxis' standings in Europe[157]. This gap between practice and belief is one of the roots of Romania's deviated ortho-extremism. If one were to adapt Daniel Barbu's thesis on orthodoxy and politics to the current discussion, statistics such as the one above should be read in a different, more subtle key: 'Christianity, in its eastern form, is not, in the eyes of Romanians, a faith (term which implies personal fidelity), but a law (term which implies obedience in the public sphere)' . Romanians do not equate religious belief with exercising their personal will in private matters, but rather with public demonstrations of adhering to a community. As Daniel Barbu notices, modern right-wing value-driven campaigns have chastised homosexuality, 'a refuse of normality and of the uniformity of collective behavior whose historical management was assumed by the Romanian Orthodoxy' , but abortion - a personal choice to ignore religious values - having a lower profile: 'individual conscience is outside the field of mission' . This is the point on which the civic nature of N.D.'s effort emerges: unlike the P.R.M. or the P.N.G., the N.D. has produced a number of anti-abortion campaigns. The Noua Dreapta is trying to promote a profound change in the Orthodox fiber. Similar initiatives from the P.N.G. and the P.R.M. are driven exclusively by propaganda interests (i.e. Becali much-publicized acts of charity).

At a larger glance, it can be surmised that although religion and faith play an important part in the public discourse of the P.R.M., P.N.G. and N.D. there are significant differences in the frames of perception that they utilize. Restoring moral order through the instatement of a God-fearing figure is central to Vadim Tudor and G. Becali's political views; however, Becali is presenting himself as communicating directly with the divinity, while Vadim portrays the P.R.M. as individuals with a clean moral structure. The N.D., on the other hand, is attempting a strict (re)deployment of religious value codes in the Romanian society. Their educational efforts are aimed at specific groups and, with the exception of homosexuality, target small and elitist audiences. The continuous intellectualization of the N.D.'s religious message shows that the focus of their strategy has moved away from causes which are popular in Romania (like homophobia) and which gather large public support to relatively obscure points of Christian beliefs in the public arena (like scientific creationism).

For the P.R.M. religious references are one of the many components that 'guarantee' that its leadership is composed of just and fair individuals. For the N.D. and the P.N.G., behavior in accordance to religious norms is the foundation for a better and improved Romania - a situation which is understandable given the P.R.M.'s heavy use of the 'statist mindset' in its public discourse, an ideological component which by its nature tends to overweigh other considerations.

4. The enemies of the right: 'Us versus them'

4.1 Introduction: Nationalism and Myth

Transition from communism to a capitalist democracy, doubled by the perspective of E.U. integration, has created massive social, cultural and economic turmoil. This situation was clearly reflected in the actions of extremist political actors who sought to exploit discontent, intolerance and anomie for their own gains. Manufacturing 'enemies', assigning malevolent deeds to them or simply blaming them for anything which malfunctions in Romania have been the components of an effective toolset for the improvement of extremism's visibility, power of persuasion and appeal: as often noted in political science, uniting otherwise unconnected groups cannot be done more efficiently than by creating a fictional body of 'outsiders' against whom action is needed .

Nationalism is one of the keys for understanding the mindset of contemporary extremists in modern-day Romania, in the terms first utilized by Isaiah Berlin: 'the persuasion that primarily human beings belong to a particular group and that the group's lifestyle is different from that of other groups; that the individuals who compose the group have a priori characters that cannot be understood by those outside the group, being defined in the terms of a territory, customs, laws, memories, faiths, artistic language and religious expression, social institutions, common lifestyle, to which some add heredity, kinship, racial characteristics; and that these factors model human beings, their goals and values'[162]. Nationalism can thus be understood in terms of layers of ethnicity, defined fundamentally in a negative fashion (ex. not-Jewish, not-Hungarian, not-Rroma). If one takes as a given historical fact that `national-communism was the common - rather than the exceptional - approach that Communist parties took throughout Eastern Europe` it is clear that exacerbated nationalism is part of the political culture of post-communist Romania; indeed, it is perfectly relevant that a portion of the political class and of the electorate would feel obligated to hail nationalism as their ideal or value set.

However, ascribing the discourse of Romanian extremists exclusively to nationalistic impulses would miss a large part of their priorities, appeal and goals. The representations of reality are built on a nationalistic core, yet they take a separate, elaborated form that cannot be understand exclusively by the common or conventional tools of political analysis. What is needed is an instrument that could define the exaggerations and the irrational deviations in a comprehensive fashion, accounting for social, psychological and cultural challenges brought on by the downfall of communism and E.U. integration. The use of myths as discourse components is quintessential to the Romanian right.

In `Myth', Mythology and 'Myth-demeanors': The Role of Emotions in Risk and Resilience`, Dr. Kaye Haw from the University of Nottingham establishes several traits of myths as they function in the contemporary world[164]. Firstly, the 'myth' is an explanation of issues and values that help make rational everyday experiences and emotions. At this level 'myth is used to bring together constellations of issues and values creating mythologies that rationalize both actions and interpretations. In the political field in particular, mythologies provide methods of reframing reality under the influence of factors of opinion' . Incidentally, this function of myths leads to a separation of those who 'understand' or 'know' (i.e. think according to the myth's guidelines) from those who 'do not understand' or who 'do not know', and who therefore must be either educated or vilified. In the context of the Eastern European experience, as V. Tismaneanu remarks, 'the new mythologies have the tendency to encourage self-pity (.) no other nations has suffered as much as that of the speaker (..) who simply doesn't understand why the world outside is so insensitive to the unique suffering of his country' .

Secondly, `myth has the power not only to offer relatively facile explanations for perceived victimhood and failure but also to mobilize, energize, and even instigate large groups into action`[167]. Inherently, 'the function of the myth is to create a state of mind' which can exploited by electoral means or by voluntarism. Vladimir Tismaneanu touched upon the issue when he considered that the main function of post-communist mythologies is to 'unite the public discourse, offering to the citizen an easily recognizable identity as part of a vaguely defined ethnical community' . It is however arguable whether ethnicity alone is at the core of extremism-inspired identity modeling. Emphasis on social behavior that is at variance with religious rules (homosexuality) or the voicing of mistrust in the political establishment (anti-democracy) suggest that the imaginary community mentioned by Tismaneanu is complex in that it contains social, cultural and political elements which, while layered onto the ethnic identity, enrich it to a considerable degree.

4.2. Redesigning reality via myth: the conspiracy theory

4.2.1 Introduction

According to British anthropologists such as Kaye Haw , myths also function as a causal framework by providing inferential and 'illusionary' links between different behaviors. In the case of conspiracy theories is used to provide simplistic causal accounts of complex interactions using narratives based on fantasy and creating normative analyses. Myths simplify and appeal exactly because of their simplifying function, which leads the participant in the mythologisation process to trust them as 'self-evident' .

Conspiracy theories alleviate responsibility for the unpleasant or defective mechanisms within Romanian politics, economy, etc. and preserve the sanctity of Romania's self-identity. As Betz and Immerfall have recently argued, "the success of the radical right is above all a reflection of the psychological strain associated with the uncertainties produced by large-scale economic and socio-structural change"[172].

4.2.2. P.R.M.: The 'Mafia'

A discussion of conspiracy theories as expressed by three organizations under study helps define both the 'we' with which these groups operate as well as the nature of the threats against which they seek to mobilize society. Operating rather freely with concepts of good and evil, taken to their extreme in assessments, these organizations demonstrate their taste for extremism in their exaggerations. The P.R.M. mythologizes according to simple binomic coordinates, freely recognized as such in party propaganda and which (a few words changed) would be assumed by Becali and the Noua Dreapta:

'In Romania there are two tendencies: those who aim to dismember the country and turn it bankrupt, and their opponents, those who, just like us, want to foreshadow, by any means, the destruction of this country. This division is not new, it has been known [to exist] in our History for hundreds of years'[173].

Specifically, there are several strains of 'evil' in the geography of conspiracy that the P.R.M. utilizes. On a primary level, forces located outside the country or in the case of the U.D.M.R. acting at the order of foreign centers of power aim to destroy Romania, primarily by sapping its economic strength but also by alienating its citizens from its authentic values (Orthodox Christianity, morality, patriotism, etc.). Via persuasion or material corruption, these forces are utilizing agents, partners or 'hired guns' located inside the country to achieve their aims. These 'tools of Satan' are located, essentially, everywhere: the media, the intellectual milieu including the civil society, political parties of the left and of the right, central state institutions (the ministries, parliament, the secret services). Occasionally they also infiltrate Romania's most popular institutions , the Church and the Army, though these cases are relatively rare. A special case is presented by the private sector, in which individual acts of immorality and lawlessness are more often to be encountered than acts committed upon the order of foreign structures.

On a secondary level, the 'conspirators' utilize Rroma (gypsies), Hungarian ethnics of Romanian citizenship and Jews. In Vadim Tudor's intricate hierarchy of hate, the former are more likely to be simply immoral by nature, at most low-level servants of higher structures. Hungarian Romanians and Jews are, by some traits never explained in full, more likely to be aware of the role they are playing in the supposed pillaging of Romania.

A special category is represented by P.R.M. members who have left the party, almost always coming up with damaging revelations about the party life and depicting a strongly negative image of its leader, Corneliu Vadim Tudor. The list is too long to be elaborated on, yet it is worth stating that P.R.M.'s visible leaders in late 2006 and early 2007 are fewer in numbers than those who have left the organization. A typical example is that of Radu Theodoru, one of the P.R.M.'s earliest leader, who left in November 1992, accusing Vadim of 'verbal violence (..) exaggerations, denigrations, disloyal ad hominem attacks' that have hurt the party image in the country and abroad[175] and led to a personal dictatorship and a personality cult . Predictably, Vadim portrays such defectors as 'interested in their career alone' , 'mediocre (.) paid by the Social Democratic Party (.) attempting in vain to derail the P.R.M. from its national justice orbit' ; their statements concerning Vadim's attitude and personality are 'sub-human products, pestilential dejections which show the damage rabies can cause' .

By exacerbating the 'enemy', the PRM is augmenting the danger to create the need for drastic, heavy-handed action from an authoritarian figure/force: the Mafia had supposedly turned the country into 'a concentration camp'[180]. Yet, for electoral reasons, the P.R.M. focuses mainly on the middle level of the structure - high-ranking officials. Real cases of corruption as well as a high perception of corruption as afflicting the core of governmental decisions have detrimental effects on democracy since, as noticed by Romanian political scientists, high-level corruption 'makes corrupt dignitaries dependant on extremist movements for whom blackmail is a preferred weapon and affects the confidence of the population in the principles of democracy'

The most powerful diatribes were reserved for the presidency of Emil Constantinescu (1996-2000), possibly the strongest assaulter on the P.R.M.'s sensibilities: a centre-right intellectual, culturally occidental, opposed to Communist values and a supporter of painful economic reforms which would diminish the power of the state and prepare Romania for market economy. In 'Let the country breathe'[182], a Corneliu Vadim Tudor editorial provides a typical catalogue of Constantinescu's faults: the privatization process is seen as 'selling to strangers the National Patrimony for ridiculous sums, transactions that brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets and accounts of your team' ; the president is also accused of having launched an attack on what Vadim labels the 'three pillars' of the Romanian society: the Orthodox Church (by conceding to Roman and Greek Catholics the buildings taken from them by the Communist regime and by revealing the collaboration between Orthodox priests and the Communist-era secret police, the Securitate), the Army (revealing corruption among high-ranking officers) and the education system (allowing courses to be taught in Hungarian - a concession to the UDMR, underfunding schools and underpaying teachers) . Constantinescu's drive to redefine the image of the country in history textbooks is also severely penalized: 'you are trying to turn the population into idiots with a stomach-driven philosophy, by saying 'the past won't keep your stomachs full' - so you've replaced the glorious History of Romanians' .

The state was, in the P.R.M.'s perception, physically and economically harmed by Constantinescu-sponsored initiatives - it lost property, and it lost the symbolic value attached to that property (i.e. provision of jobs, hegemonic position within the economy, etc.). Given the good perception that the P.R.M. is having of communist-era economy, the sums were inferior to the real value of what was sold; in addition the traditional trappings of the communist era state - the national-communist history cult, the forces of repression and the collaboration with an obedient church - were also being removed. Since the P.R.M. the communist state is the only available model, such changes inevitably lead to the downfall of Romania. The topic of the economy, often overlooked by commentators of the Romanian extremist milieu, is of high importance for the P.R.M., even more so in the context of European integration. A typical example of conspiracy theory propaganda which seeks to link the nation with the symbolic capital of the state is represented by P.R.M.'s reaction to the sale of Sidex, a major enterprise of the state marked by spectacularly inefficient administration: 'The irrational selling of this veritable jewel of the Romanian economy is an attempt to undermine national security and [is] a betrayal of our country'[187].

As seen above, charges of corruption were central to the P.R.M.'s conspiracy theory. The attacks on Constantinescu relentlessly took the form of unproven accusations at the address of the president, his son and counselors. Some of the changes included sums of money received in exchange for illegal privatization of the cement giant ROMCIM, illegal cigarettes trade, sale of planes and ships, trafficking international adoptions, fraudulent transfers of money abroad, prompting the statement: 'the current power in Romania is associated with mob-like structures!'

In the P.R.M.'s mythology, its own role as a whistleblower warranted special attention from the forces of the government: '[The secret services] have begun an incredible hunt against opposition leaders whose phones, houses and bureaus are tapped 24-7, who are pursued and for whom compromising files are made up. This doesn't look like a democracy, but like a Gestapo!'[189]; between the first and the second round of the 2000 presidential elections, Vadim Tudor complained he 'was being hunted like a war criminal by the servants of the New World Order' . As trials on Corneliu Vadim Tudor on libel charges began to mount in number, the conspiracy theory undertook a twist: the P.R.M. leader was being 'hunted' by a corrupt justice system for having had the courage to present the truth: 'The forces currently in power fear me more than a popular revolt (.) It is only in Romania, who you've run and besmirched that the Opposition is always shown the handcuffs'; addressing Constantinescu directly, Vadim was asking rhetorically: 'Haven't you already understood that I don't fear the lawsuit, I don't fear being followed together with my family and my closest collaborators by the repression mechanism you have created?'

Dehumanization of Constantinescu's regime (in an editorial Vadim Tudor labeled him a 'monster') and its members was utilized simultaneously with the augmentation of the forces aiming to secure his downfall, and implicitly, save Romania: 'For all the wrongdoings they committed, Emil Constantinescu and his gang of ill-doers have but one chance to escape the population's wrath: to commit group suicide, like Hitler and his acolytes in the bunker! Otherwise, a devastating Popular Revolution might take place, one that the lies of European commissars cannot stop. Romanians have all the rights to rise to fight for their survival and the survival of their children'[192].

Similar charges were leveled at the P.S.D. right before the 2000 elections, based upon conveniently forgetting that the last time the Social Democrats had governed P.R.M. had been a member of their alliance. The most important two counter-performances of the Iliescu regime were 'ruining the national economy (.) turning the country into a foreign colony' and 'robbing the National Patrimony mercilessly and devaluing the banks for the use of the political clientele'[193]. More concretely, the traits of the P.S.D. most criticized by the P.R.M. included the massive privatization program undergone between 2001 and 2004; charges ranged from subservience to the Mafia who had supposedly corrupted Constantinescu's reign in power ('mob-like businesses' and 'collecting dirty money' ) to leftist diatribes of social connotation ('aberrant expressions of savage capitalism' ).

The P.S.D. was also represented as a media uber-tycoon, controlling and influencing the Romanian media market with the goal to mislead the population (implicitly restricting Vadim Tudor's access to the population). Two often-quoted examples that the P.R.M. used for demonstrating such a situation were:

- the uncertain situation of the MediaPro trust, whose debts to the budget were prolonged, cited as proof that the Romanian media was not to be trusted[196];

- the temporary closing of OTV, one of Romania's few television outlets that invited Vadim Tudor to express his opinions: 'In September 2002 - at the order of your master [the prime minister] (..) - you dared to close the OTV station for two years, leaving 162 people unemployed, because of my presence on the air'[197]. OTV reopened, but was soon fined several thousand USD per month due Vadim's obscene language, a fact interpreted by Vadim himself in line with his conspiracy theory: 'The signal is clear: the station that will dare to invite Vadim will be financially suffocated!'

According to P.R.M.'s mythological account of political life in Romania, opinion polls which show the P.R.M. as weakening its position are hand-made by forces inimical to the party and, implicitly, to the destiny of Romania. They are considered part of the same manipulation effort as electoral frauds: 'I am supposedly the last politician [in the popularity standings] even though I have never eroded as being part of any government, I have never made a major error and have never been involved in corruption (.) It is obvious the field is prepared for a great electoral fraud, though which the P.R.M. wouldn't enter Parliament'[199].

On occasion, deeper and harsher conspiracy theories were linked to Vadim's supposed success in political life. State authorities are presumed to have set up plans to eliminate him from the presidential elections, if necessary by murder[200]; the Penal Code, the Constitution and a myriad of others laws are perceived to have been modified strictly in order to bar Vadim from getting to power . A specific case consisted of the 2004 elections, the party's official newspaper publishing details of a conspiracy theory surrounding the elections, the main features of which were the introduction of false data in Central Electoral Bureau computers and electric gridline failures in areas covered by TV cable operators who do not limit the broadcast of networks hostile to the government party . Just like four years before , Vadim Tudor contested the results of the elections, his speeches being focused around a fraud that had halted his success .

The post-2004 election attacks on president Basescu marked a move away from conspiracy theories. Personal insults ('dangerous madman, who has to be totally isolated'[206]), comments on public appearances ('unworthy and profoundly sick individual who, through his deviant behavior, alcoholism, and the way he shows up and expresses himself, has become shameful for Romania' ) and allusions to a supposed criminal background ('the ex-smuggler sailor who sold chewing gum on the streets of Constanta and Securitate informer who destroyed the lives of innocent people' ) took front stage. Including Basescu in the mafia whose aim is to destroy Romania is an undertaking rarely present in the pages of P.R.M.'s newspapers ('through a large electoral fraud and with the aid of irresponsible foreign forces, at the top of the Romanian State the lowest kind of mobster was installed, the one who has robbed the Fleet of Romania, a paranoid with Bokassa-like behavior' ).

In brief, the elaborate nature of the conspiracy theory can be seen as necessary for one or both of the following reasons:

- the pre-1989 propaganda, which enforced the idea of a rich, self-sustaining Romania, a perception demolished by the reality of the transition era;

- the need for public visibility: by expanding on the effects of the dissolution of the providential state, the P.R.M. hopes to capture the attention of dissatisfied individuals, the social losers of the transition game.

4.2.3 P.N.G.: The 'Communists'

The conspiracy theory of the PNG is personalized, concrete and of relatively small relevance to the party's discourse, especially by comparison with the other extremist forces present in this study. 'The communists' are Becali's indefinite enemy - they are supposed to have halted the advancement of the country by controlling the power nodes of the Romania's economy and politics: 'I don't want the death of the sinner, I want to turn him around, of course there will be some people who will never be forgiven - I told you who: those who have pillaged the Romanian banks and banking system, because this is why the country is running badly, and those ministers of transports, industry and telecommunications (..) these three cannot get away, these were the strengths of the country's economy' . All who oppose Becali's interests, all who intend to slow down reform or achieve material benefits from it are labeled as 'communists', a catch-all phrase which indicates little about the political or economic beliefs of the targets . Becali is offering a newly-tuned version of the communists vs. anticommunists debate of the early 1990s. Just like on the previous occasion, the debate is false and its purpose is psychological: Becali offers Romanians the perspective to redefine themselves and their role in relation to both transition and the pre-transition era in opposition to 'communists', a term which denotes power and privilege. Conveniently forgetting that communism existed not just through the Party elites, but also through the collaboration of society, he is whitewashing societal blame, labeling himself and his public as 'non-communists' - intrinsically heroic, well-meaning and correct.

In tune with Becali's larger platform, he presents himself as a post-communist figure, released from the bureaucratic, backwards-looking philosophy of those in power. 'Securisti' (technically - employees of the former Securitate) is Becali's second favorite target for attack. 'They' are either involved in unsavory economical maneuvers which border criminality, or in political ventures which, in Becali's view, seek to manipulate the population (such as the break-up of a dissident faction from the National Liberal Party in the autumn of 2006 ).

It should be remarked that Becali does not insist much in his public discourse on enemies, and even less so on conspiracy theories - promoting himself and his achievements is his main goal. Rather, the conspiracy theory is used creatively, through mechanisms such as:

- self-augmentation ('I am currently the most hunted person in Romania, because I am saying things as they are, [I am saying] what is bothering [people]'[213];

- attacking temporary political enemies, such as Dan Voiculescu's media chain, which supposedly aims 'to destroy true Romanians, pure Romanians (.) who want to fight for this country'[214];

- explaining the P.N.G.'s reduced appeal ('you have a television channel, a press trust and I have nothing (..) have you ever showed on Antena 1 anything on me, my opinions? You have given all your time to my enemies? (..) [unlike you] I don't have a television station, I have nothing')[215];

- mythologization of the identity of the P.N.G. leader, with an emphasis on the historical context of his family's rise: 'the name of Becali is a name built on blood, sweat and tears'[216].

4.2.4 Noua Dreapta: The 'New World Order'

Noua Dreapta's conspiracy theory is of foreign influence, resembling to a great degree the themes of New Right movements across Europe and in the United States: 'Our enemies operate at a global scale. Only Christian nationalism, built on a modern basis has the answer to 21^st century imperialism' . The N.D.'s news agency, Altermedia, freely recognizes that globalization and a supposed Jewish conspiracy are at the core of its resistance: 'The AlterMedia organization reunites hearty people, from the country and from abroad, with different ages and occupations, journalists or not, who have decided to dedicate a part of their time and resources to try and get out of the circle of lies in which politicians and oligarchs are restraining them' . AlterMedia news are almost exclusively focusing on favorable propaganda for Palestine, creating a negative image of Israel and Jewish communities world over, of globalization and of America-Israel connections.

The N.D. is adept at utilizing multiple avenues of expression for its 'conspiracy theory' message, such as 'Brigada de Asalt' (The Assault Brigade), Noua Dreapta's musical extension, a rock band with nationalistic and neo-Legionnaire lyrics. In the eponymous song, 'Brigada de Asalt' promotes itself as the solution for those opposing the system and its conspiracy to quiet nationalism: 'for those who have had enough', 'for those who fight ceaselessly' 'for those who are not afraid(..) to say we are Romanians', 'for those who still have something to say', 'for those who cannot be tamed' . In brief, the N.D. is calling for the aid of those who do not want communism or globalization (equated, or perhaps reference points: past and future) in classical political counterculture terms, such as a hinted-at hegemony of external forces

In 'Tricolorul Romanesc'[221] (the 'Romanian Tricolore') the band introduces a narrative of transition in conspiracy-theory terms. Starting off with a formula traditionally used in fairy tales ('There was once upon a time a country like in fairy tales/ Beautiful and rich like no other'), the song quickly evolves into a condemnation of the politico-economical climate in contemporary Romania along P.R.M.-like terms ('Yet the people there were unemployed and suffering/ Because all the wealth the mafia stole'). Rather than focusing on the 'mafia' which hurts the population, the narrative expands on attacking the European Union and Western European financial interests, details of which are being provided in chapter 3.3.2.

The N.D. itself focus on the more day-to-day influences of globalization. 'Valentine's Day' is for the N.D. a symbol of globalization ('foreign and artificial', 'encouraging kitsch, conformity and superficiality'), a 'cultural import' that endangers 'authentic Romanian traditions' . The common frame throughout the actions of the N.D. and its affiliates is resistance to interactions with political or cultural models of Western origin. The European Union or the culture of the United States are seen exclusively through an economic frame, according to which foreigners seek to exploit Romania while offering little or nothing in exchange. In brief, the Noua Dreapta promotes a paranoid view of foreign influence or globalization, seen exclusively as a threat to a pure stock of values and concepts (the Nation - rather than P.R.M.'s 'State' or folk traditions).

4.2.5. The conspiracy theory - conclusion

Publicly revealing a conspiracy mobilizes the ones against whom the conspiracy was to be perpetuated, re-educates them as to the moral worth of the revealed conspirators and creates the need for a 'savior' or a salvation mechanism that could halt the conspiracy from succeeding. Larger the conspiracy (high levels of government and international institutions) stronger the need for a mighty vigilante mechanism that could punish those responsible and act as a watchful guard.

Given Romania's political subconscious (as described in the introduction) this mechanism tends to be focused around one person, a replica of the medieval leaders who could impose a personal law upon the nation and act decisively. The N.D. is the only organization under study which functions along a different set of lines: it seeks an occidental pattern of extremist resistence to global changes in Romania's political and economical status, a pattern characterized by mobilization, activism and organization-centered activities.

4.3 Europhobia

4.3.1 Introduction

Due to historical circumstances, the Romanian political spectrum does not possess a strongly visible euro-skeptic movement. Integration within the European Union is seen by the vast majority of the population as being necessary for the improvement of the country's living standards. Until the early 2000s, rejecting this view implied an anti-occidental point of view and, for some, geopolitical orientation towards other hegemonic forces on the world stage.

Of course, the integration period will create the need for a euro-skeptic organization which could mobilize the energy of the dissatisfied and displaced. Organizational linkage with the senior members of the European Parliament makes it unlikely for mainstream parties to object in strong terms to the influence of the European Union. It is extremist organizations - masters of populist nationalism, as seen in chapter 3 - who will be at the forefront of the euro-skeptic movement, especially when one considers that the areas of society most affected by the integration process will be the rural and uneducated urban demographic areas.

Of course, before such a message can be widely broadcasted and distributed, the political force involved needs to prepare the potential public for its role as a carrier of euro-skeptic messages. The role of this chapter is to present traces of Europhobia in the discourse of the Greater Romania Party, the New Generation Party and the New Right.

4.3.2 P.R.M. A pragmatic evolution

The P.R.M.'s doctrine towards international matters has evolved throughout the years. For much of the early 1990s, foreign influence of any kind was resented. Two in particular were the fields of focus for P.R.M.'s nationalistic wrath:

- the economy ('Far from helping us recover, external loans feudalize us and make us dependent of multinational organisms, whose goals are very clear'[223]) and

- conspiracy theories hatched abroad and aimed at making Romania suffer (alluding to the ethnic wars in Yugoslavia, Vadim Tudor was stating in 1992: 'Today it is no longer a secret that in certain circles of world politics a shameful plot has been planned against Romania since 1989'[224]).

The P.R.M. condemned the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999. The move was inspired both by the necessity to attack the political forces ruling Romania at the time, as well as by the perception of a clash of culture between Occidental Christianity and orthodox 'brothers'[225]. Only a few years later, the P.R.M. was in favor of entering NATO entrance on two counts:

- as providing security from a geopolitically unpredictable Russia ('[entering NATO is] the only logical and efficient option for Romania's future, for its security and development on the quicksands of neighboring the unpredictable Russian colossus'[226].

- to reduce the handicap of Romania in its 'competition' with Hungary ('through the admittance of Hungary a misbalance was created in this part of Europe; today this injustice has been repaired'[227]).

The European Union occupies a decidedly more mixed place in PRM rhetoric. Sometimes they are presented as decisive factors in influencing Romanian politics, halting for instance president Basescu from promoting before-term elections due to an alarming rise of the P.R.M. in opinion polls . On other occasions they are considered impartial democrats, undeceived by the political and economical machinations of the ruling parties: 'It is of course the European Commission who is right and not the team of adventurers who lead Romania, impostors who cannot fight corruption for the simple reason they are among the most corrupt. The Romania Mare Party considers that, unless the mafia-type political regime is changed via elections before-term, the Country Report from the spring of 2006 will be a catastrophe and Romania will leave the orbit of the E.U. enlargement process completely' .

On occasion, integration provides the opportunity for pointing out the deficits and handicaps of Romania by comparison with the civilization of Western Europe: 'Mr. Ion Iliescu, it is obvious both for Romanians and foreigners that Romania is a mafia-like state. What will you do when, say, NATO bases will be installed on the country's territory, foreign officers will settle here with their wives and children, but bands of thugs will attack them, rape their wives and daughters, or even kill them? How can we adhere to such a rigorous organization if everything is a mess in Romania, everything is robbed at any time, from irrigation systems and factories to churches, hospitals, schools, cemeteries, banks, museums, the residences of foreign diplomats? Romania has become the focal point of organized crime, drugs, prostitution, pedophilia, arms sales, falsified alcohol, sales of children for organ banks, money laundering'[230]

Anti-integration discourse is rare but significant, probably preparing a swift post-2007 passage to euro-skepticism and to a revised form of the diatribes of the early 1990s: [once we integrate, we would like]'foreigners who come here to treat us as hosts, not as slaves on a plantation'[231]. More general conspiracy theories based on foreign infiltration are live and well after 2000 as well: they are blamed for the conflicts within the Gymnastics Federation , for the floods in the spring and summer of 2005 : after stating the progress made by the United States, China, Russia and Israel in developing atmosphere-altering military capabilities, party leader Funar declares: 'In 2005 a metheorological war experiment was realized in our country. The water in the Black Sea was recicled so that the catastrophic floods in Romania could be caused'

Often accused of displaying extremist viewpoints that would harm Romania's chances of accession into the E.U., the P.R.M. holds a negative perception of the European Union for that very reason: 'Absolutely all the regimes that came to power after December 22^nd, 1989 practiced the most sinister form of population torture: blackmail by mentioning the people abroad! Nobody can open their mouths and show dissent - they are immediately accused of spoiling Romania's image and being a dangerous extremist, because of whom we will remain isolated' .

Since January 2007, the P.R.M. is the member of new European Parliament political group, which reunites extremist right-wing parties from across the E.U.[236]

4.3.3. P.N.G.: The impossibilities of euro-skepticism

The P.N.G. leadership's statements on foreign policy are few and far between. In the summer of 2006, when prime-minister Tariceanu proposed to withdraw Romanian troops from Iraq, Becali accused him of populism: 'If we respect an engagement, then let's be mindful and take it to the very end'[237]. This view is relevant in the context of Becali's value system (i.e. promoting himself as a serious character with a strong morality) than with the matter at hand.

Revealing is also the fact that, in an interview with the Hunedoara Gazette (a regional Romanian newspaper) Becali declared in his quality as a presidential candidate: 'My nationalism does not lead to extremes. I don't know too much about foreign affairs, I am not very educated or extraordinarily well-read. What I care about is Romania and the Romanian people. This is why I got into politics and this is why I fight' .

It is significant to mention that Becali faces significant obstacles in proclaiming himself a euro-skeptic. Due to Steaua's reputation in Romania, which increased exactly due to its successful participation in international competitions, Becali cannot turn back on the very psychological framework that sustains his positive image: Steaua Bucharest is a sign of national pride in an international context. Successful adaptation to international standards, even in a field as minute as football, is the theme behind Becali's popularity.

4.3.4 Noua Dreapta - The Catastrophic Integration

Since 2005 the N.D. has become the premier euro-skeptical force in Romanian society. Perceiving that 'after 2007 Romania will be swallowed and incorporated in a gigantic suprastate structure, a politico-economical suprastructure which has defined its objectives and means to get to them'[239], the N.D.'s media arm, the Altermedia Association has started a massive media undertaking labeled 'Proiectul Eurosceptic' (The Euroskeptic Project). Defining itself as a means of providing information on the E.U., the Project has as a basis the notion that 'Romanians have a superficial and most often distorted image about what the European Union is and what Romania's entrance into the E.U. presupposes. Many have the feeling that, after admission, their life will automatically change for the better - when things really aren't like that' . Politicians are blamed for having presented the situation in rosy colors; the Project is introduced as the first opportunity for a real debate on the costs and disadvantages of integration. The mission of the Project is to be a 'true center of alternative resources in fields such as: E.U. laws and bureaucracy, the unique currency, multiculturalism and identity, Romania and the E.U.' .

The N.D.'s main argument against Romania's integration into the E.U. is that the Union is a 'confederation of states with its own government and administrative apparatus, and promoting its own agenda with doesn't always coincide with the interests of its component states'. Consequently, the N.D. is skeptical towards both E.U.'s objectives and future. A more detailed argument was presented by the Iasi branch of the N.D. in May 2006, in a flyer whose main graphical feature was the European Union flag with a hammer and sickle in the center, or in N.D.'s winter of 2006/07 campaign, 'From the 1^st of January you will remain country-less' (the last words surrounded by stars in an imitation of the E.U. flag). After mentioning that fact that Romania is the only candidate country whose citizens didn't decide via a referendum whether to adhere or not, the flier and campaign statement contain 'must-know information about the E.U. you will not find out from T.V.'[243] or 'that are systematically hidden from you' :

- 'Every state which adheres to the E.U. gives up a part of its independence and sovereignty.' In particular: 'E.U. laws will have priority over Romanian laws'. Romania will de facto be annexed, 'because [Western countries] need an educated work force, natural resources and markets for their goods[245]'. Thus, 'Romania will lose a significant part of its independence and sovereignty, conquered and defended with great sacrifices by our ancestors' ;

- 'The country will be invaded by immigrants from Asia and Africa (.) they will be our work colleagues and our neighbors, their children will be classmates with ours, and we will be forced to respect their traditions and customs, pull down our Christian icons and stop decorating the Christmas tree in public, so that they don't feel offended'. Additionally, 'a new political ideology will be imposed, multiculturalism (the dictatorship of minorities) through which national values will be considered generators of hatred and destroyed. Romanian history will be rewritten, so that Romanian get incriminated for crimes they supposedly have committed across the centuries and for which we will pay reparations and compensations';

- 'Under the pretext of the fight against terrorism, the press, radio, television and even the Internet will be censored, telephone calls and correspondence monitored (.) and all contrary opinions forbidden. Those who speak freely will be intimidated, thrown out of work, have their houses searched and will be called to the police station and courts, just like the Securitate did with anti-communist dissidents'.

- As a concrete consequence, 'the majority of the norms we will have to respect will be dictated to us from outside' - for instance 'in the field of agriculture, integration presupposes impossibly high standards for Romanian peasants'[246].

- The European Commission is under attack as 'an unrepresentative organism, which de facto answers to nobody'[247] .

- Working abroad will not be possible for Romanians authomatically, with several exceptions.

- Prices and unemployment rates went up after admission in the ten states which entered the Union in 2004. Without quoting a source or explaining the underlying causes, the flier states that the unemployment rate in Romania will rise to 16% after integration.

- The E.U. is 'an atheist structure whose principles contradict the Christian faith'. Arguments brought in favor of this idea include the elimination of Christianity from the text of the E.U. constitution as well as the rejection of Rocco Buttiglione's candidacy for a comissar position due to his religious beliefs

The campaign poster ends with the statement: 'It is not for this <<integration>> that youths died in December 1989'

In 'Tricolorul Romanesc' (a 'Brigada de Asalt' song) the European Union is represented by 'the greedy bankers' who provide a 'solution' for Romania's woes in unfavorable terms: 'We'll take your wealth away, defend you from the thieves/and leave some remains for you if some are left'[250]. Note the use of the word 'all', either an artistic hyperbole or an essential component of conspiracy theories in transition Romania: the country elicits great interest from a large group of evildoers due to its hinted-at wealth and resources.

The focus of the song lies not on opposing the Romanian 'mob' (i.e. the political class and its associated businessmen) to the European Union, but rather on eliciting a negative response to the integration campaign. The chorus opposes the 'Nation' (capital letters in original) to the 'Union': 'The Nation is ancient, the Union is a lie' and 'The Union will come and destroy the Nation'.

4.3.5 Europhobia - conclusion

The standard methodological division of internal vs. external enemies is not functional in the case of pre-2007 Romanian extremism. The P.R.M. and the P.N.G. are unprepared for the E.U. accession process; while they are very likely to capture the euro-skeptical vote after 2007, they have done little to prepare their potential constituencies for such a stance. The N.D., on the other hand, finds its potential public - educated individuals and college students - at odds with its vision of a malevolent E.U. engulfing the Romanian state and psyche. These are the reasons for which one cannot speak of euro-skepticism, but rather euro-phobia: an altered form of the conspiracy theory which places foreigners at the top of schemes aiming to hurt, destroy or lessen Romania's values and standing.

4.4. The Stranger: the anatomy of abjection

4.4.1. Introduction

According to the view of Georg Simmel, the stranger is not an absolute other, but rather a reference point due to the similarities and distances between him and us[251]. He is a puzzling element because of the normative order which he represents and which is alien to the local or individual social environment - the 'over here'. By unsettling the ontological security, the stranger is a vibrant vector of anxiety - right-populism viewing the stranger as a threat . By transforming diffuse and multiple forms of often scarcely definable anxiety into the fear of the stranger, right-populist discourse accomplishes two things simultaneously: first, it transforms the social stranger from a debating partner or an economic competitor into the political 'enemy"; secondly, it is able simultaneously to define the identity of the 'people.'

The enemy, as Carl Schmitt wrote in his influential book 'The Concept of the Political', is he who represents a danger to a collectivity's "whole way of life".[255] According to Schmitt the opposition between "stranger/enemy" and "us" is similar to the aesthetic opposition between "the beautiful and the ugly," the moral opposition

between "the good and the evil," and the religious opposition of "the sacred and the profane." The mechanism through which the social stranger becomes transformed into the political enemy, thus suggesting the list of oppositions mentioned above is what Kristeva calls "abjection."[256] A term borrowed from psychoanalysis, abjection in the sense of political mythology is the re-establishment of borders that have somehow been threatened by the appearance of that which should have remained hidden away but now has come out into the open. Such a re-establishment of borders comes about by way of an act of repulsion and exclusion. According to Gandesha, contemporary right-populism can be understood in terms of an abjection, an expulsion, of the stranger precisely because of

the stranger's inherent ambiguity. Thus, 'it is not lack of cleanliness or health that causes

abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order, what does not respect borders,

positions, rules, the in-between, the ambiguous, the composite'[257]. Lack of communication and desire thereof is the engine at the hard of populist abjection.

4.4.2 P.N.G. and Noua Dreapta: Homophobia

The PNG and the N.D. have a predilection for targeting the homosexual community as 'strangers'. Visible only through GayFest parades (in 2005 and 2006), the community has led to verbal condemnation from Becali and to acts of violence from the N.D. The two actually joined forces in May 2006, sending a letter to the Government in which asked a ban on the 2006 GayFest parade . However, this identification of the stranger takes place within the strict boundaries of the abjection mechanism. Homophobia is a relatively small component of Becali's public discourse; the N.D. has yet to commit acts of violence targeted at individual homosexuals or locations such as restaurants or clubs with a predominantly or exclusively homosexual clientele. The N.D. discourse includes labeling homosexuality as a component of 'the culture of death', together with abortion; chastising homosexual behavior as against nature, and a threat to the family . Yet, other than attempting to lobby against the decriminalization of homosexuality in 2000, the organization has focused on raising signatures for a law that would forbid public gay pride-type demonstrations and 'the propaganda of the homosexuals' . The stranger is not threatening or even worthy of consideration - except on a theoretical level - unless he or she exits the private space and enters the public arena: the leader of the Noua Dreapta Arges branch 'considers N.D. members and sympathizers as not homophobic, but doesn't accept public homosexual showing because they harm the education of children: Think of parents walking their children through Trivale Park and meeting a gay couple not embarrassed to kiss. How would that child react, but especially what would he understand upon seeing such a thing?'

Homophobia is motivated by a peculiar mix of scientism and religiousness: 'Dan Badea [the leader of Noua Dreapta branch in the Arges County] believes a great danger for the human race would consist in an eventual increase of homosexuality. That is because organization members take Christian teachings into account and give as examples Sodoma and Gomora, the famous biblical cities'[263].

Becali's discourse is equally guarded on practical propositions and equally bold on theoretical statements ('If they were 2 for every thousand, 20 for every thousand, it would be a problem for the Romanian nation'[264]). The P.N.G. leader seems wary of stating his position in terms of definite condemnation of the homosexual community, although he did allude to the social dimension as defined by Daniel Barbu: 'let them do as they want in their houses, but not on the street. They are abusing their rights. That's proselytism' . In a 2004 electoral debate, when asked to define his homophobia, Becali circumvented the issue by a parody of the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy of the U.S. military: 'I didn't say kill them, I don't have anything to do with them (..) I don't have to shake hands with them if I don't have to (.) It's their problem, what have I got to do with them?' The indecision on the issue was proven by his anti-adoption stance, coupled with the view that homosexual marriages should be allowed, but not performed by the Romanian state.

4.4.3. P.R.M.: Hungarophobia

By contrast the discourse of the P.R.M. rarely if ever touches on the homosexual community. While homophobia is present, the 'stranger' is codified according to different coordinates: those of the perceived contestants of the ethnic, omnipotent and centralized state that the P.R.M. cherishes. The viewpoint of the P.R.M. towards ethnic Hungarians is relatively simple: most of them, and practically all the leaders of their political party, the U.D.M.R., are plotting for a return of Transylvania to Hungary. The wording most often used is 'the break-up of the Romanian nation state' rather than an actual reference to the territory loss, a fact symbolic for P.R.M.'s reverence towards the state and for the legalese preferred when the Romanian state is referred to.

Anti-Hungarian rhetoric has been a fundamental component of the early P.R.M. In October 1991, with no ethnic conflict in the near past or foreseeable in the near future, the readers of 'Romania Mare' were inflamed with statements such as: 'Romanian brothers, please wait quietly, weapon at the ready, and see how events develop. We have the hope everything will be solved peacefully and legally. Otherwise, get ready! Romanians have been to Budapest twice before, if necessary they will go the third time to clear the heated heads of Horthyst executioners.[267]'

The anti-Hungarian offensive of the P.R.M. takes cultural forms, inspired by the need to prove the inferiority of Hungarians to Romanians via historical and cultural criteria: 'Speaking of the descendants of those barbarians, I don't think we are insulting the Hungarian nation, quite the opposite, we're circulating authentic historical texts, which show that at their origins they were primitive, which Romanians never were' .

The P.R.M. was never at the forefront of anti-Hungarian rhetoric in Romanian politics. Occasional inflammatory statements from the P.D.S.R., and in particular the rhetoric of the Transylvania-based P.U.N.R. stole the spotlight from P.R.M.'s xenophobic discourse. When the P.U.N.R.'s leader, Gheorghe Funar, joined the P.R.M. in 1999, he brought along with him the votes of Transylvanians. But the P.R.M.'s rhetoric was already focused on the 'Mafia' ruling the country; insults and unproved allegations towards the Hungarian minority in Romania remained secondary. Yet, as late as 2005, the P.R.M. press machine was still releasing statements such as 'The U.D.M.R. is an organization which functions illegally and, through their statute and program, as well as through its public behavior from the day it was set up until now, they act from territorial autonomy on ethnic criteria and for ripping Transylvania from the body of Romania' .

Any concession made to the Hungarian minority by the government, any initiative that includes among its promoters or beneficiaries the said minority is classified as an act of treason to national interests. Practical examples include:

- The C.D.R. government allowing primary and elementary school courses to be taught in Hungarian in regions with a majority Hungarian population, seen as an action that would destabilize the Romanian schooling system, seen as one of 'the three pillars of society'[270];

- Tolerating the existence of the U.D.M.R., despite it being 'illegal and separatist'[271];

- 'Losing control' of Covasna and Harghita counties[272] - a general, unclear statement for which no evidence is given;

- Providing rights for minorities in the Law of Local Public Administration, seen as a 'act of betrayal[273]', which was aiding the 'chauvinistic and anti-European' UDMR .

By comparison, the P.N.G. and the N.D. regard the Hungarian minority as a threat to the stability of the Romanian state, but given the quasi-religious orientation of their doctrine do not make xenophobia their main point of focus. Becali's only foray into anti-Hungarian emotion came into the context of football, as a referee of a Hungarian ethnicity was considered by the Steaua owner to have disadvantaged his team in an important league match. Alluding to the fact that the owner of one of Steaua's counter candidates to the title (CFR Cluj) was an ethnic Hungarian, Becali declared publicly: 'When we played Dinamo a Hungarian stole [the game] from me. I'm telling you he did it so that C.F.R. Cluj would win the championship. To have Hungarians win in our country, to make us a laughing stock'[275] or 'a Hungarian team to steal a purely Romanian one with the aid of referees would be the last cowardice and lack of human dignity a referee could show' (Becali conveniently forgot that Hungarian Romanians are a minority on the C.F.R. Cluj team and that the 'purely' Romanian Steaua has three foreign players on its roster).

When the topic of the Hungarian minority in Romania emerges, Noua Dreapta studiously mentions the historical circumstances which have led to conflict between Romania and Hungary, with a complimentary twist towards the former: 'Some Hungarians are animated by expansionism and greedily desire what does not belong to them (.) Unlike the Hungarians, we are a country born and raised on its land, on which the first of Christ's apostles once walked. We know that Romanians are the only nation not to have conquered their country through combat. Romanians never undertook a war of conquest against other nations' land. Quite the opposite, they sought brotherhood and good understanding with the neighbors, and the wars they had to fight were exclusively to defend their own' . But just as in the case of Becali, 'Noua Dreapta' does not see the issue of ethnic Hungarians as one of its primary topics of discussion, debate and persuasion. On rare occasions, such as attempts to secede from the side of the 'secui' population in Central Romania, the N.D. gives attention to the Hungarian population, labeling such political enterprises as 'irrational threats to Romanian autonomy' . It would be fair to assume that both the P.N.G. and the N.D. possess an intolerant perspective towards Hungary and Hungarians in Romania, but they hold other priorities in higher esteem and therefore do not seek to manufacture their presence in the public arena via this topic. From a more theoretical perspective, their moral code of intolerance leaves little room for xenophobia - the 'strangers' to be wary of those breaking codes of behavior within the community, rather than those culturally different.

4.5 The pariah: what we are not

Myths function also as a justification of group norms and behaviors. By re-coding group norms a mythology serves to strengthen the cohesion and integrity of society and through the use of traditional or changed images they enable a framework to be marked out that sets these narratives apart from other 'stories'. Myths have a bonding function that has been hinted at throughout this chapter - participation in the myth is a pathway to socialization and social (re-)validation.[279]

Rroma (usually referred to in Romania by the term 'tigan' or 'gipsy') are seen in extremist quarters, as well as by a large part of the population, as responsible for many of the social ills in the country. The number of rroma is unknown, due to the fact in many cases rroma social structures do not include regimentation within the canons of the Romanian state (i.e. ID card, etc.). NGOs dedicated to the Rroma cause state that approximately thirty anti-gipsy pogroms, organized mostly by individuals or groups without state sanctioning, have occurred after the 1989 revolution[280]. Their effects consisted of 'several Rroma deaths, burned Rroma houses and villages, and forced migration of the Rroma from their villages'[281]. A significant explanation for such social outbursts are the attributes typically associated to Roma by ethnic Romanians: 'lazy, uninhibited, deceitful, dirty, unreliable, and prone to theft.'

The PRM perceives the existence of the rroma exclusively in terms of law-breaking activities and thus as a sign of the state's failure to control the population and act as a guardian of the law. In the late 1990s the party proposed the isolation of gypsies in special colonies[283] and/or sending those unwilling to work in work camps ; when Rroma NGOs protested, Tudor asserted: 'we are not interested in what the gypsies want. All should be sent to prison. There is no other solution' .

The Rroma community was P.R.M.'s target of preference particularly during the 2000 campaign; during the live TV presidential debates Vadim focused on what he called 'the typology of the gipsy mob': 'Attacking as a group, controlling the markets but not raping their children and parents, because they are busy raping ours.'[286]. Several years later the P.R.M. accused the P.S.D. (Social Democratic Party) of not having paid attention to the level of crime in the nation, in particular those committed by gypsies , which made cooperation between the P.S.D. and representatives of the Rroma community for the 2004 elections more dubious.

The Noua Dreapta is taking a more elaborate approach to intolerance towards gypsies. On one hand, in official statements they claim that the main problem of the Rroma community is crime and that it should be solved via long-term educational programs. They consider the gypsies to be a 'social danger' and that integration should be attempted. The failure of such programs - the N.D. is hinting - should be leading to a harsher attitude towards gypsies: 'It's true that gypsies were released from slavery rather late, in 1852 by Alexandru Ioan Cuza. But in the 153 years that have passed they have had enough time to adapt. If they won't do it through the current programs, it means that they have this disobedience in their blood, and it is this disobedience that pushes them towards anarchic behavior' In an interview, N.D. leader Tudor Ionescu equated the Rroma community with the 'Jewish Problem' discussed by the Legion in the 1920s and 1930s: 'We are confronting a gipsy problem, due to the demographic explosion of this ethnicity but also due to the anti-social acts and criminality which constitutes for many gypsies a regrettable modus vivendi.'[290] The focus lies on demographics and crime, rather than culture and ethnicity.

The N.D. is simultaneously running a massive media-guerilla campaign, focused around the www.antimanele.sapte.ro website. University cities throughout the country have been plastered throughout 2006 with posters containing the slogans: 'Don't act like them/Don't do what they do/Don't let gypsies destroy our country' and advertising a website run by the Noua Dreapta. The favorite posting place for these posters were posters advertising 'manele' concerts, a type of music currently associated with Rroma singers and bands. Suspected of having been behind the campaign, N.D. leaders declared

'The massive presence of manele on the music market represents but a segment of the general decay and perversion within the Romanian society and culture'[292]. The statement can be read as a condemnation of all foreign cultural influences ('manele' are not part of Gypsy culture, but a mix of Gipsy and Near-Eastern musical patterns) or as an attack on a channel of wide-spread interaction between the gypsy culture and the majority culture.

The P.N.G. has taken no official stance as to the gipsy community. A documented pattern of racism exists in regards to Steaua club, fined numerous times for its players, gallery and stadium speaker leading anti-gipsy cheers[293]. Team representatives tried to explain the manifestations as being a part of the verbal conflict with Rapid Bucharest, a team which hails from a predominantly Gipsy neighborhood, or tried to point out that Steaua has several players of Gipsy origin. At the very least, Steaua and Becali are maintaining Gipsy discrimination and partaking in discriminatory attitudes towards this ethnicity. Given their status in the public arena, this aspect is very damaging and influential.

From this enumeration of intolerant acts and attitudes, it is evident that the P.R.M. and the N.D. share in the outlook of Rroma Romanians representing a threat to the stability of the state via criminality. The N.D. is also keen on manifesting awareness for a 'clean', de-manelized culture, a topic that has not received much attention from the P.R.M. For the Noua Dreapta, the secondary guilt of the Rroma (after criminal behavior) is cultural contact and expansionism; for the P.R.M., this secondary fault consists in patterns of joblessness or work which do not fit community standards - see the many references to 'work', 'work camps' and 'prison' in P.R.M.'s anti-Rroma discourse. According to the statist mindset that the P.R.M. is utilizing, such camps would both separate the Rroma population from the rest of the community and supposedly educate them on these values.

4.6. Revealing case study: anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is an important issue for determining the coordinates of Romanian extremism in the pre-2007 era. The relevance of anti-Semitic rhetoric is low: the Jewish community in Romania is relatively small, its public visibility is minute; yet, historically and culturally, anti-Semitism has been a core component for reactionary rhetoric in Romanian history, from the 1860s on. The international climate of right-wing thought, in which historically anti-Semitism played a key role, also represents a pressure on Romanian extremism to legitimate itself by propounding intolerant discourse aimed at this group.

The P.R.M. has been for many years at the forefront of anti-Semitism in Romania, continuing the trend of Vadim Tudor's pre-1989 employer, the 'Saptamana' weekly. Most often blaming and attacking Jews due to a perceived relationship with foreign capital investments, the P.R.M. presented president Iliescu in 1993 with a list of Romanian dignitaries of Jewish origin, labeled 'the gang that put the knife to our country's throat after December 22^nd , 1989, and from whom all of our tragedy begins' . In the very same article the existence of a Romanian Holocaust is denied as a plot to decrease the country's credibility and to create doubt towards history. Conspiracy theory-driven anti-Semitism continued to be an integral component of 'Romania Mare''s editorial policy throughout the years; in 1998, the newspaper presented its readers with a list of American administration officials, with the broad title: "Although Jews represent only 2% of the U.S. population they form 42% of the Clinton administration' .

According to the Romania Mare newspaper the Israeli embassy in Bucharest was 'hushing up' stories about 'Jews (..) engaging in slave-trading of Christian children in order to sell off their body-parts to hospitals (..) when the Christians protest this is said to be anti-Semitism, xenophobia, extremism'[296]. After the 2000 elections the party made a spectacular U-turn, taking action against local counselors who had published anti-Semitic joke booklets and opening a monument to Yitzhak Rabin in Brasov in January 2004 . After these changes surprised and confused the constituency, the party once again returned to anti-Semitic rhetoric, claiming that it had been 'misled'. In summary, the P.R.M. has ultimately fallen in line with modern anti-Semitism, connecting the Jewish community to its detailed conspiracy scheme and reserving them a senior place in the 'mafia' intent on robbing the country.

Similarly to Vadim, Becali utilizes the word 'Jew' as an oath on occasion - in particular in regards to press representatives. During a televisioned exchange with ProSport journalists, whom he labeled 'bastard, parrots, Jews' (as if labeling them Jewish was inherently insulting), Becali continued: 'I'll kill Banciu too, look at his Jewish face. He's definitely a Jew, I'm betting on it!'[299]. On the level of more carefully crafted public statements, Becali said that he was ready to help any religious organization except for Jews, who allegedly were well infiltrated in Romanian politics . When asked to confirm the anti-Semitic statements of a regional party leader, Becali mingled religious tolerance ('You cannot be Christian if you hate a nation, so I don't hate Jews' ) with proselytism ('I don't hate them, I have nothing to do with them, but if I could I would convince them to get baptized, to become Christians too' ). It is deviance from the cultural norms of the Romanian/Orthodox majority that represents a point of interest for Becali. However, in the summer of 2005, when football player George Ogararu left Steaua for a Dutch football club, Steaua's management didn't hesitate to sign Klemi Saban, an Israeli player, whom they presumably saw as the best option for the team. Becali, who had a virtual veto right over any Steaua transfers, didn't interfere - which may suggest that he is leaving the team management to his employees (unlikely, since Steaua was his vehicle to public opinion and the enterprise with which he is most identified with), or that he is careful not to expose his grudges over the issue publicly.

Somewhat paradoxically it is the N.D., the organization which most closely connects to the anti-Semitic legacy of pre-WW2 Romania, that is the least interested in stating, acting upon and promoting its anti-Semitism. Tudor Ionescu, the organization leader, was closely questioned in 2004 by the media on anti-Semitism and the N.D. His discourse strategy is remarkable in that it reveals the anti-Semitic principles of the N.D. but also the relative lack of interest in the matter. He began by quoting anti-Semitic statements (or statements construed to be so) from Romanian intellectuals and politicians from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, such as Vasile Conta, Vasile Alecsandri, Mihail Kogalniceanu or Nicolae Iorga. He continued by bringing the issue to the present day: 'Nowadays one cannot talk of the existence of a 'Jewish problem', in part also because of the mass emigration of Romanian Jews to Israel from 1948 to 1989' .

The notion that anti-Semitism is a matter of historical heritage and organizational identity for the N.D. rather than a topic on which to act is pointed out by a regional N.D. leader, Goran Mrakici, who considers that 'Anti-Semitism is now in Romania a waste of time, since the number of Jews in the country is under ten thousand'[305]. He was careful to legitimize himself and the N.D. in the historical framework of the Legion: 'I cannot say that I am a sympathizer of Jews!' .

4.7. Conclusion

Ontological security consists of the coherence, continuity and dependability of the relation between the self and world[307]. The two levels on which ontological security is important are self-identity and the relationship with others. Giddens contends that while these patterns of behavior have a practical dimension, their real significance lies in the fact that they become deeply invested with emotional commitments.

For Wittgensteinian reasons, ontological security requires the sublimation of fundamental questions about the self, the others and the world. In Giddens' own words:

'To be ontologically secure is to possess at the level of the unconscious and practical

consciousness, 'answers' to fundamental questions which all human life in some way

addresses'[308]. According to Heidegger, ontological security is frail by its very nature: it does not rely on objective or a priori observations about the world, but rather rests on interaction; when a tear occurs in the fabric of social interaction, the fundamental questions of life (those about the nature of existence, death, relationships with others and self identity) can no longer be contained. It is one of the premises of this study that the radical changes effected in post-communist Eastern Europe have torn this very fabric; the capacity to transmit elements that would infuse ontological security into the weltanschauung of the population was lost and misappropriated; thus, the youth - in a fashion similar to the rest of society - are seeking for means of restoring this ontological security.

According to a practical application of Haw's Paradigm[310], myths function as a means of overcoming apparent contradictions by bringing about an emotional transformation. Myths are engines of emotion - driven by and creating psychological bonds between fellow participants in the mythologisation process. More importantly energy is channeled towards the enforcer of the myth (in some cases (s)he could be labeled the producer of the myth or its 'master of ceremonies'). Due to the nature of the interaction this political figure enjoys a deeper and more overwhelming support than that gathered by traditional political means.

The quintessential trait of mythological thinking is its capacity to transform and redefine reality (`the function of myth is to empty reality: it is literally a ceaseless flowing out, a hemorrhage, or perhaps an evaporation, in short a perceptible absence'[311]) . In politics, two additional traits are added: evangelization (normative calls for public infamy) and ideological mobilization (some content is introduced with the goal of causing political action). `Myths express and deal with a people's reality postulates about the world` . They re-explain the current reality in a digestible form; they reinforce and redefine values. The way reality is transformed, analyzed and packaged by Romanian extremism can only be understood if one understands their creative effort to the meaning that `mythic truths pertain more to a moral universe of meaning than to a 'natural' one` . All political endeavors built on mythology seek to provide answers to a state of facts detrimental to the individual members of the intended audience. In the case of the P.R.M. the message is justice-driven and reparatory: social inequalities, the corruption (perceived and real) within the state structures and the lack of a coherent understanding between the political class and the population (as proven by the low confidence in the Parliament and political parties ).

For the P.N.G. and the P.R.M. the moral universe of meaning is more clearly defined - not just as a vindication of ills via quasi-legal punishment - but in the direction of a Christian society and (in the case of the P.N.G.) a Christian state. Sin, immorality and irregularity would vanish if Romania were to guided strictly by Christian morality. Both the P.N.G. and the N.D. bet on a massive mobilization, and less on a state intervention in such matter. The 'moral universe of meaning' is first to become individualized and accepted.

Both the statist justice morality of the P.R.M. and the Christian-revolutionary ethos of the P.N.G. and N.D. exclude tolerance. Vladimir Tismaneanu defines these moralities in philosophical terms: the radical mythologies of post-communism are seen as combining the 'jacobine-Leninist logic of vigilance and intransigence with the themes of the xenophobic right-wing extremists of the inter-war period' .

Fundamentally, right-wing extremism in Romania functions along the 'imaginary construction' paradigm exposed by Lucian Boia, 'having the purpose of showing the essence of the cosmic and social phenomena, strongly linked with the fundamental values of the community and with the purpose of ensuring the cohesion of the former." Socially, culturally and ethnically extremist propaganda functions by defining identity in a time when identity is questioned for the layers of population most sensitive to the downfall of communism, democratization and rise of capitalism.

5. Discourse packaging

5.1. Introduction

No sensible discussion of a political organization's public appearances can focus on the ideological grammar alone. In order to have a comprehensive understanding of the message's effect, one must analyze the medium through which the message is transmitted, as well as factors inherent to the medium and which shape its content.

This portion of the study will focus exactly on the discourse packaging techniques used by the unconventional right in pre-2007 Romania. The public presence of the P.R.M., P.N.G. and N.D. will be investigated by reference to the paths they utilize to broadcast their message (above-the-line marketing tools such as media apparitions and below-the-line marketing tools such as leaflets, posters, or Internet awareness-building enterprises). Also, the elements specific to discourse presentation that shed light on their views, ideas and audiences will be identified and discussed.

The context in which political debate is occurring in the Romanian public arena is particular in the way charismatic leadership is of greater relevance for the public than debates on given issues: 'As to what concerns the voters, they 'like' a party or a candidate and they 'don't like' another one. This spontaneous and most often irrational distinction is a form of complicity with the complete absence of public debates around major societal themes and of ethical, political or judicial values considered important enough to create unsurpassable partisan cleavages' . One may complete the above observation by noticing that Becali's radical Christian message, Vadim Tudor's violent nationalism or the Noua Dreapta's message, which combines the two albeit with retrograde nuances, fill in for 'value talk' in Romania's media-shaped political psyche.

5.2. Avenues of expression

As mentioned previously in this study, the Romanian society has been undergoing multiple stresses since 1990. The proliferation of media outlets has kept pace with the preferences and needs of the emerging social groups. T.V. stations and newspapers compete along mostly capitalistic lines, constantly adapting to consumer needs for advertising money. However, few risk extinction; the capital behind media enterprises is invested with the goal of acquiring a space in the public arena, rather than the production of profits. The influence of the Romanian media is decisive for the national psyche: not only are Romanians the biggest consumers of television in Europe, spending more time in front of the T.V. set than any other country in the continent, but they also have the highest level of confidence in television programming among all European television consumers .

Other specific phenomena in the field of communication include a proliferation of information, both in quantity and in means of transmission (ads, billboards). Also of importance is the high integration of Romania's educated elites into an Internet-driven lifestyle, punctuated by blogs, audio and video recordings of significant events within the T.V. realm or reading newspaper items over the Internet rather than in paperback form.

This chapter will identify the ways the organizations under consideration have chosen for attracting public attention by utilizing the strengths of the Romanian media environment through the 1990s and early 00's.

5.2.1. P.R.M.: The party newspaper or the newspaper party?

For many political analysts, the Romanian press is not a reflection of societal debates, but their very source: 'In practice, the Romanian press functions as a substitute of public opinion. It is not a medium of rationalization and classification of dominating tendencies within society, but the very place where currents of opinion attributed to society are produced, along with the social problems as such. It seems that, in effect, public opinion does not even exist as such, with the status of a natural and spontaneous social object '. An example of such a situation is P.R.M.'s daily, 'Romania Mare', whose readership ebbed and flowed in tune with the party's popularity: in the summer of 2000 the 'Romania Mare' newspaper had a readership of 400,000 - its largest ever and a foreboding of the spectacular P.R.M. showing in that year's November elections.

Party insiders describe Vadim Tudor's views on the relationship between the political organization and the newspaper as emphasizing the bonding of the two: 'The readers of the newspaper must automatically become members of the P.R.M. (.) Vadim believes he can become president of Romania only through the aid of his newspaper' . The emphasis on the media arm of the P.R.M. does not come only from the fact that the newspaper emerged one year before the party itself, but rather because Vadim is aware of the potency of public opinion in a media democracy: 'The party, with its central and local structures, is a complication [for Vadim] (..) he repeats this view in several occasions. He did it for instance during the P.R.M. congress in November 2001, stating quite clearly that the party is a complication for him, since he has better and nobler things to do than to control 250,000 members' . By contrast, it may presumed that the newspaper is a more effective and less cumbersome tool for drawing public attention to the P.R.M. or shaping of public opinion in the direction seen fit by Vadim.

What are then the elements of the 'Romania Mare' newspaper which shed light on the political activity of the party as a whole? A few observations are in order concerning the editorial content. The sections are constant in both name and focus: 'Romania Mare' stands out in the Romanian media by being the only newspaper to approach in each issue the topic of 'Hungarians' and 'Bassarabia and Bucovina'; attacks on individuals and phenomena form the largest party of the newspaper content (with headings such as 'Polemics', 'Controversies', 'Dossier files', 'War on Corruption', 'The War in Iraq'). 'Romania Mare' also presents educational content, aimed at reinforcing the cultural values on which the party propaganda rests: under headings such as 'Reading at the light of a cup of tea', 'Small Encyclopedia' or 'Romania and the world' individuals of historical relevance or cultural productions supporting the P.R.M.'s views are presented and praised. The very coordinates along which this selection is made are presented in chapter 3.2: individuals portrayed in this section are usually supporters of heavy-handed political regimes (such as the Antonescu or Ceausescu's dictatorships), opponents of U.S.S.R.'s hegemony, but almost always characters exhibiting religiousness or patriotic populism.

An integral part of 'Romania Mare' is the constant and perpetual attacks on personalities which has raised Vadim's ire. A typical example is the media feud between Becali and Vadim Tudor , concretely presented in the pages of 'Romania Mare' in a first page bearing Becali's photo under the title: 'Death to the bandit Gigi Becali' with the mention 'of course, from a political point of view', accompanied by a Vadim Tudor editorial calling Becali 'the monkey from Pipera' (Becali's area of residence in Bucharest), 'mentally deranged' and 'Gigi the mosquito'.

The 'Romania Mare' newspaper also serves an important role by enforcing the personality cult around the figure of Vadim: it publishes Vadim's speeches in Parliament or press conferences word for word . However, the P.R.M. official newspaper is not 'Romania Mare' itself but a daily called the 'Tricolorul' (alluding to the three colors of the Romanian flag). In the latter, relatively small space is saved for official party events, and even then the emphasis lies on the ideas presented by the speakers rather than the event itself; rather, 'Tricolorul' functions as a collector of sensational news and 'investigations', in many ways doubling unnecessarily the 'Romania Mare'. Examples of 'Tricolorul' news stories include:

- 'real' opinion polls which mainstream political forces attempt to hide from the public and which purportedly show P.R.M.'s success ;

- constant features, such as 'The tablet of Wisdom' (quotes from the bible); 'Letters written with the ink of one's eyes' (presentations of individuals in difficult social situation); 'Photo of the day' (erotica), 'The mockery at the TVR' (attacks on the actions of the management of Romania's public television network); 'The page of combat' (attacks on individuals who have raised Vadim's ire);

- special features which appeared in 'Tricolorul' during the 2004 electoral campaign, some in tune with P.R.M.'s greater themes of social upheaval ('The great change', 'The preyed-upon country'), others borrowing Ceausescu-era methods of praising Vadim ('The people are with Vadim', 'On Sunday, we have one option: Vadim' , 'Messages of congratulation adressed to Mr. President Corneliu Vadim Tudor, on the occasion of reaching a beautiful age'

It is indubitable that the P.R.M. cannot be considered without relating it to and indeed defining it through the media endeavors which it sponsors. The fusion between the party and the newspaper is fundamental to the fortunes of the ideas proliferated by Vadim. The 'Romania Mare' and the 'Tricolorul' reinforce in a direct way the central themes of Vadim's discourse: the conspiracy dangers threatening Romania, Vadim's own uniqueness on the Romanian political scene and the relevance of a nationalist/Christian doctrine to the public debates of the day.

5.2.2. P.N.G.: Football as a notoriety building block

According to a 2003 Gallup poll, two thirds of all Romanians - men or women - care about football to some degree . Nine of the ten most watched TV programs after 1989 were soccer games - at either the national or club levels .

How is this social phenomena linked to Becali? Despite World Cup achievements in the 1990s, the single most prestigious honor attained by a Romanian soccer team was in 1986, when Steaua Bucharest won the European Champions' Cup, thus gaining the title of the best soccer franchise in Europe. For decades, Steaua and Dinamo Bucharest had been the most dominant teams in Romanian soccer, winning 42 of the 61 titles that had taken place since the end of WW2[331]. While by no means the only teams in the capital (which houses 10% of the country's population), the two franchises developed a devoted following, which was unhurt by economic turmoil (according to a Gallup poll, 40% of all Romanians consider Steaua Bucharest their favorite team ).

In July 2004, Gigi Becali decided to effect a partial change the team colors. On the trademark red-and-blue jerseys the player's name and number would be printed in yellow, as opposed to the traditional silver. Since red, yellow and blue are the colors of the Romanian flag, the addition of yellow (as opposed to, for instance, green or black) had the immediate role of associating the club with the prestige of the national team and secondly assuming Steaua's role as the premier representative of Romanian soccer (and indeed Romania) on the international stage.

Becali's policies on the franchise's image management led to a conflict with Victor Piturca, the team coach. Becali's reply to Piturca's accusations of over-interference were swift and honest - after mentioning the name of a player on whose value Pitzurca and Becali had different views, the owner of the franchise added: 'The fans have to know the truth (.) I wanted the names on the jerseys to be written in yellow. I told him that I am in politics now and that it would be good to reunite the colors of the national flag on Steaua's jerseys. He didn't want that!'

Becali integrated Steaua into his 2004 electoral campaign to a large extent: the team's players were shuttled by bus around the country in concordance with the P.N.G.'s electoral needs , as well as asked to join the party and even run on its list for Parliament . The implications of the electoral were clear: since red, blue and yellow were the colors of the national team, Steaua was aiming to replace in the sentimental horizon of the soccer fans the Romanian national team, who had failed to achieve noteworthy success since 2000. To a certain extent, Becali was hoping that the following transference of frames would take place: Becali->Steaua AND Steaua->Romania => Becali->Romania, (in which '->' stands for 'identifiable with' and '=>' is the logical operator of conclusion).

Steaua plays a complex role in Becali's political strategy; all the elements below were necessary but, if considered separately, not sufficient for guaranteeing Becali's success as a public persona:

- the club is a gateway to public opinion (a goal which malfunctioned in the case of other team owners involved in politics, i.e. the unpopular owner of Rapid, George Copos);

- national pride (Romanian citizens, as members of the national in-group, want reasons to be proud of their group membership, a tactic made even more successful by the fading success of Romania's national team);

- Steaua proves Becali's success as a manager, somebody who achieves visible success (unlike other capitalist oligarchs in pre-2007 Romania, such as Dinu Patriciu or Ion Tiriac, whose performances were not visible in the public arena, and therefore didn't lead to automatic fame).

As a vector for garnishing the attention of the Romanian public opinion, ownership of Steaua has produced innumerable benefits for Becali, the most important of which are public visibility and identification with success. The importance of Steaua should, however, not be over-emphasized: without a consistent political discourse, Becali's transition from the sports world to political life would not have been successful.

5.2.3. P.R.M. and P.N.G.: OTV, the novel agora

OTV is a Romanian television station built on attracting the attention of Romanians disappointed with 'standard' television programming. OTV offers no movies or TV series; it rarely has newscasts, but rather introduces and becomes the news itself; its live showings are not football games, but live broadcasts from the weddings of the rich and influential. Central to the OTV concept is the 'Dan Diaconescu Show', a multi-hour anti-extravaganza in which Dan Diaconescu, the station owner, invites one or several disputed figures for a 'discussion' in his studio. The discussion is actually a monologue from the part of the interviewee, rarely interrupted by Diaconescu. Conspiracy theorists, 'witches', mistreated individuals or extremist politicians such as Becali or Vadim are usually the guests of the show.

Becali and Vadim utilize OTV freely because it functions fundamentally as a public ritual : presenting their public ideas is an action, rather than a mental process; their public appearance is a performance for the public; it holds some non-recreational content; is a collective phenomenon; it expresses social relationships; it is partly subjunctive ('not about what is, but about what should be'); and it is regular. OTV's viewership - the Romanian underprivileged, individuals of little or no education but with high interest in non-progressive agendas - is a boon for extremists who seek rapid legitimation and appreciation.

OTV's mission led to its having to choose sides between Becali and Vadim when the two began a fierce conflict for popularity. After Becali's proliferation of insults against Vadim in late 2005 on OTV, the P.R.M. issued a statement which considered that 'Diaconescu's behavior is unqualifiable', permanently halting OTV's accreditation to party events and halting the appearance of P.R.M. members to the station. OTV, one of P.R.M.'s few TV outlets, was also sued by the party for 600,000 euros . Rather than stopping here, the P.R.M. has decided to launch its own TV station in 2007, 'Cosmos TV' (labeling itself 'the most important and bravest TV station'). Its logo would be the Christian Cross, super-imposed on the human body; the editorial format copies freely from OTV, in that the heart of Cosmos TV would be a 4-times a week interactive show, called 'God, Protect Romanians!', which would be hosted by Vadim Tudor himself and address the problems of Romanians ('Health, Justice, Education, Unemployment, Pensions, Salaries'). Citizens 'with love of Country and Christ' were asked to buy stocks in the new TV station, which was characterized as 'popular and revolutionary, a means of fighting the Mafia and leading to the rebirth of the Romanian people' .

While after 2004 Vadim Tudor faced an almost impregnable media embargo, Becali has been invited on many occasions to other talk shows, usually belonging to 2^nd rank TV stations (National TV, B1TV) which were sagging in the ratings. Even more so than in the case of traditional politicians, extremists benefit from public exposure via the TV medium: their qualities, such as verbal abruptness or directness draw attention away from the theoretical skeleton of their beliefs and enforce the perception of sincerity. Other, more mainstream media networks over-exploited Becali not only because they considered him an interesting topic, but also because of complicated schemes through which Becali renounced cashing in debts in exchange for media coverage .

5.2.4. N.D.: More than just the weapons of civil society

The 'Noua Dreapta' movement is one of the most adroit organizations on the Romanian political scene in terms of its penetrating message and rapid rise to notoriety. The organization's website is presented in six languages; a online radio network (Radio ND) is broadcasting music and communiqus 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. The website's radio channel identifies itself as a promoter of 'Rumanian folk, patriotic songs and identity rock'[340].

The N.D. webpage serves a complex function: it draws attention to the movement's portrayal in the media, it underlines its public initiatives (such as rallies, leafleting, etc.) as well as member-only events (such as visits to Codreanu's grave, work camps or the launching of regional branches). The narrative of the website's evolution is complex, and the following two tables will mark the relevant elements of this evolution:

Table no.2: Noua Dreapta's activities from its foundation to 2006

There is a relatively simple observation to be made: the number of recorded events grows yearly, reaching in 2006 a pace of 3 reported events per month. The following table groups the above events by category, thus positing the possibility of deeper analysis:

Table 3: Noua Dreapta's activities (condensed form).

The above table points out the transformation of the N.D. website from an Internet bulletin board, informing members of organization events, into a propaganda tool which draws attention to the movement's proactive pursuit of its ideals and to its continued legitimation into the media. The marked change occurs starting in 2005: the increase of posts explaining the N.D.'s philosophy and public enterprises from 3 in 2004 to 13 in 2005 and then to 17.5 the following year is almost fully accountable for the increase in number of postings on the N.D. as a whole from 26 to 37 and then 42.

Of course, the facts could also be read backwards, which is to say that since 2005 the N.D. has increased its public presence (with internal events and participation to international events remaining relatively similar in brute numbers), and that the website is reflective of that organizational decision.

The remarkable increase of 'internal events' and participation to international meetings and conferences which occurs in 2004 must be related to management causes and thus falls outside the boundaries of this study.

The N.D. is also running AlterMedia, an alternate news source which functions under the heading: 'World Wide News for People of European Descent'. In practical terms, Altermedia broadcasts anti-Israel or anti-Semitic news and editorials("The Israeli Parliament is marking arab workers" - 10.3.2004) or conspiracy theories ("Do antibiotics favor cancer?" - 10.3.2004). In more general terms, Altermedia functions on the basis that a New World Order, closely linked to big business, masonry and the Jewish communities, is seeking to limit individual freedoms. Any person with an Internet connection can received Altermedia news on their PC via RSS feeds.

Altermedia has its own radio station. While the goals are similar to that of Radio N.D. (putting the spotlight on Romanian values and 'against the false, anti-national and destructive values promoted by the European Union' . In concrete terms, the radio broadcast consists of Romanian folk music or interviews with survivors of the Russian Gulag, former Legion members from the pre-WW2 period and fighters against the Communist system in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but also of original recordings of high-level Romanian theologians (Antonie Plamadeala, the Mitropolit of Ardeal or Dumitru Staniloae) and intellectuals (Nicolae Iorga or Gabriel Liiceanu talking about Constantin Noica).

The N.D.'s Internet footprint is not limited to Altermedia-related activities. The NGO also maintains sites such as www.codreanu.ro, a memorial to the pre-WW2 leader of the Legion which contains quotes, opinion pieces and articles of praise. The N.D. is also running an Internet shop, 'Magazinul Nationalist' ('The Nationalist Shop') which contains a wide variety of goods that can be ordered via the Internet and delivered via postal courier. The 'Nationalist Shop' contains hats, caps and T-shirts with the N.D. logo, Romanian nationalist music (such as 'Brigada de Asalt') in CD format; political theory books, with an inclination to Amerophobic or anti-capitalist, yet non-Marxist content - including such surprising names George Soros, Francis Fukuyama, Noah Chomsky, Nicolo Macchiavelli's 'The Principe', but also memoirs of pre-1941 Legion activists; mediocre conspiracy literature (exemplifying titles: 'Who rules the world'; 'The conjuncture of the Illuminati and modern secret organizations'). One of the highlights of the site is the 'Marturii Legionare' ('The Confessions of Legion Members') DVD collection - fourteen hours of video interviews with pre-1941 legionnaires.

Other sites crosslinked with those above are www.homosexualitate.ro - a site presenting scientific theories and debates against the view that homosexual behavior as natural or www.eurosceptic.ro, which have already been discussed in chapter 3.

The aforementioned 'Brigada de Asalt' is one of the N.D.'s strongest and most influential vectors of publicity. A rock band which has among its members the leader of the N.D., Tudor Ionescu, the band characterizes itself on its website as 'a form of contestation', and 'spontaneous'; it describes itself by contrast to 'artificial, decadent, message-less rock bands, who are simple products of consumerism' as one who proposes to 'spread the nationalist message among youths'. The band's music and lyrics are 'weapons'; its aims are coherent with those of the N.D.: 'denouncing the power of money, the desacralization of the Romanian society, the lack of culture among the young, the explosion of crime, social misery and generalized corruption' . The band identifies itself as part of 'the aware and active minority, determined to keep on fighting' against these challenges to which 'most Romanians have capitulated'

The mental origin for the 'Brigada de Asalt' is clear both from its name, suggesting the legacy of World War Two, as well as from its logo for 1^st album ('O Romanie Nationalista' - 'A Nationalist Romania'): two individuals giving a Nazi salute to an image of Romania Mare, with the Celtic cross in the middle.[349]

In the context of a disillusioned, cynical youth, heading en-masse towards the stereotypical capitalist middle-class, the N.D. is technologically speaking positioned in the 21^st century. The radical points of view that they hold detract their political appeal - yet the fact remains that out of all political or quasi-political forces in Romania 'Noua Dreapta' possesses the largest Internet footprint.

5.2.5. Avenues of expression - conclusion

The TV medium, the written press or the Internet posses certain strengths and weaknesses specific to their nature. The utilization of the newspaper by the P.R.M. betrays both traits of the target group that they aim to attract - the inhabitants of the urban environment who possess an average level of education (able to read a newspaper filled with long, wordy articles) but also filled with a psychological vacuum, easily populated by anger, intolerance and worship for an individual commander-figure, such as Vadim. The N.D.'s reliance on the Internet, while relying on groups of individuals of a higher intellectual caliber, and with a more defined appetite for brief and incisive information, also manifests reliance on the written word. What do the P.R.M. and the N.D. have in common that would explain their reliance on readers rather than viewers? One simple explanation would be that their schemes of understanding or their political ideologies are too complex to be transmitted effectively and completely in other mediums. The P.R.M.'s phantasmagoric conspiracy schemes, or the N.D.'s subtle positioning between neo-Iron Guardism and anti-New World Order contemporary extremism need space, attention and consistency to be explained in writing or understood via reading. Another reason consists of the Romanian mass media's behavior towards the two organizations. The N.D. is presented occasionally in the local media but finds itself in newscasts on national T.V. stations only in the context of anti-homosexual demonstrations. Starting with the second round of the 2000 elections, Vadim Tudor has been practically shut off from main T.V. channels, who perhaps fear that bringing attention to him would improve his electoral performance in current or future elections.

OTV, as an extreme example of the television environment as a means of expression friendly to all and helpful for extremists to get their message across, represented a big electoral stake for both Becali and Vadim. It is unclear why and how Vadim gave up on utilizing this channel of communication: perhaps competition with a more likeable Becali made the P.R.M. leader uneasy, or the P.N.G.'s financial contribution to the station pushed Vadim to the background. Either way, Vadim - once the master of T.V. extremism in Romania, as proven during the 2000 elections - has been forced to abandon this manner of obtaining supporters and visibility.

Becali possessed a competitive advantage in the perpetual struggle for notoriety which accompanies pre-2007 Romanian extremism. He has made the quick and successful transition from football club owner with juicy quotes to be reported in the 'Sports' section of primetime newscasts to a political figure invited to talk shows of all sorts and calibers. His pattern of communication - of which more will be said in chapter 5.3.2 - assures that a large audience will back his media apparitions, and given Steaua's seemingly perpetual presence in the news media coverage of Becali and Becali's statements is inextinguishable.

5.3. Patterns of communication

5.3.1. P.R.M. - The Social Demagogue

The P.R.M. is recognizable in the Romanian political sphere by its use of rhetorical devices, effective in that they both took into account the national-communist propaganda of Ceausescu's dictatorship but also the novel changes in the country's socio-economical environment. One of Vadim's contesters, a former member of the P.R.M., concedes Vadim's communicational skills: 'There were moments when some of Vadim's patriotic speeches caressed my soul. Actually, I believe that Vadim gained adepts not through prose, or poetry or journalism, but through the oratorical content of his speeches. Vadim made a maximum profit from this uncontestable talent of his (..) His speeches were minutely prepared, with several dictionaries on the table, and touched the sensible chord of the miserable, of the old, even of some young people who don't hear these words anymore in the speeches of national political leaders'[350].

Vadim is targeting his speeches at a select audience. In writing, he is using the ancient, pre-1989 orthography ("i" instead of "a") because he knows that his audience unconsciously associates the ancient writing style with the Communist era from which they derived so many (perceived) benefits. On some occasions he utilizes poetic devices to appeal to sundry social categories: the blue-collar worker ('your hands are deformed by work (.) you smoke cheap, bad cigarettes'), the peasant ('you've made the most sacrifices in History and you are now looking powerlessly at the earth, because you have nothing to work it with'), the intellectual ('the agile wings of your youth were broken and you couldn't fulfill your destiny, although your brain and heart are much richer than those of other glories in the West'), the soldier ('you were given to guard a flag, and an iron law, that is mounting inside your being for millennia demands that you stay, and obey and be happy that because you are protecting the country it is not wasting away, and the dear ones at home are not going to be trampled by damned hordes') .

Similarly heated imagery is utilized in the case of anti-government speeches. The populist nature of P.R.M. messages is evident in the way in which it seeks to label itself the avangarde of a national, social revolution: 'For all the crimes they've committed, [president] Emil Constantinescu and his gang of criminals have but only chance to escape the population's wrath: to commit a group suicide, like Hitler and his acolytes in a bunker! Otherwise, a devastating Popular Revolution might occur, that the lying promises of Europe cannot stop. Romanians have the right to stand up and fight for their survival and that of their children' .

Let's take the discussion beyond attacks on government authorities and into the nature of the invectives Vadim utilizes. Drawing on a statistically neutral sample (N=201) provided by Sever Mecsa[353] i.e. individuals and institutions whose names started with "A" and "Z", one can make the following observations on Vadim's insult methods and methodology:

- most characterizations are built on one or two traits, covering at least 50% of the total number of characterizations provided for the individual (i.e. Horia Alexandru's skin tone is alluded to in 11 of the 21 invectives); as a sub-phenomenon, women are defined mostly in terms of prostitution and promiscuous behavior (Gabriela Adamesteanu is referred to in this context for 7 of the 14 occasions she was mentioned in the pages of 'Romania Mare');

- when referred to as a group (i.e. 'The journalists of Libertatea' newspaper[354]), journalists face invectives stressing on the active (political analysts 'have eyes injected with hate'; Romania Libera journalists are a 'a gang of dog catchers'; journalists who supported Emil Constantinescu are 'a team of well-paid barks, paralyzed with all sorts of dossiers');

- newspapers are defined in terms relating to dirt ('Ziua' - 'the only real epidemic danger in Romania'; 'the pestilential latrine of the Romanian press') or to the ubiquous term 'anti-Romanian' inevitably linked up with true or invented non-Romanian ownership('Evenimentul Zilei', '22').

Table 4: Insults utilized by the Romania Mare newspaper

* Others = Physical traits [cu ochii beliti, vesnic tarcata la par]; Social ascension [analfabet miliardar, mic gainar transformat in mafiot de anvergura]; Under-educated [analfabet]; Financially inept [falit].

Another method of analyzing the invectives relies on the fields that the invective touches upon:

Table 5: Insults utilized by the Romania Mare newspaper (1991-2003) - (condensed form).

In conclusion, the following statements can be made about how and why Vadim utilizes insulting imagery to categorize his opponents:

- Rather than using a random approach to the assignment of invectives, Vadim is thorough in his categorization of individuals according to certain traits.

- On a general level, Vadim shows no specific preference to one specific field of categorization (four of the general categories of invectives are utilized at least 15% of the time).

- As natural for a party which thrives on perceived corruption and government inefficiency, moral failings are the most often used fault that Vadim criticizes in his opponents (most utilized field, 27% of insults).

- At the same time, more than 50% of the invectives deal with social mores (supposedly being part of an ethnic or sexual minority, having a low social position). This attitude is useful in that it gives Vadim's readers the perception that they are, in effect, superior to several social groups and not the losers of the transition period. In this way, the invectives under these headings have a strong positive aspect for the typical 'Romania Mare' or 'Tricolorul' reader.

Turning to the positive messages of P.R.M. propaganda machine, it is clear that, traditionally, the P.R.M. focuses its propaganda on Vadim Tudor himself. The party receives occasional merit, but for its organizational merit rather than for its qualities as in 1991. Political and organizational power, rather than moral strength are emphasized: 'Through the 107 senators and deputies that it has and through the 250 000 party members the P.R.M. is the one political force affecting Romanian politics in a decisive manner. No future governmental formula can be viable without taking into consideration the existence of the Greater Romania Party, which currently represents the aspirations of more than 1/3 of the country's population. While all the other parties make politics, the P.R.M. is making History' .

The party has taken a backseat to Vadim in P.R.M.'s public identity management not only because of Vadim's attempt to centralize power but also because of the various scandals affecting party members:

- a corruption scandal which led to a radical change in the Dambovita County organization. Vadim utilized both conspiracy theory, claiming that the 'criminal' was placed within the organization with the goal of compromising it[356]

- the departure of many P.R.M. parliament members to the P.S.D.;

- the 2005 break-away of Corneliu Ciontu, a senior party figure, and his supporters.

Thus, the P.R.M. has become after 2002, more so than at any time in its history, a one-man party (image-wise). The weaknesses inherent to this stance is Corneliu Vadim Tudor himself, whose appeal might be reduced by other, more potent imagological operations aimed at uplifting a political persona to public praise.

5.3.2. P.N.G. - The radical next door

'Gigi' is the Romanian diminutive for the more official sounding 'George' - the former suggests closeness and familiarity. When Becali entered politics he found this first name to be a useful tool in gaining capital. But when, in the middle of 2006, Becali appealed to the more-official sounding 'George' in official party communiques, the press noted the dissonance between the character's behavior and his intended change: 'The road from 'Gigi' to 'George' will be harder than buying a palace in cash or reaching third place among Romanian personalities. For instance, if 'Gigi' could scream to a woman: 'You tart!', 'George' will have to be more careful: 'Dear missis, you are a tart!'. Upon reaching the target, 'Gigi' will have discovered he has been spinning in a circle. 'George' is a chimera in official papers, and the only possible first name is, in fact, the one he is running away from'[357].

The complex interplay of familiarity and demand for respect is at work in every single one of Becali's public appearances. Even if show titles always try their best to present the Steaua owner in a dramatic light (i.e. 'George Becali and the nation's spiritual rebirth' ), Becali utilizes an everyday language that has rarely found its way in Romanian politics: de-intellectualized and informal, often filled with grammar mistakes, emotional interjections and oaths. Through his authenticity, Becali reaches a different type of hypnotic attractiveness than Vadim - it is relatively easy to get stolen by the wide gestures, the suddenly rising tone, the rapid stares at the camera and the familiar/conversational attitude ('bai', 'mai'). Becali is particularly interesting as an unbridled psychological case of egocentrism or, in Freudian terms, id-centered individual: the discussion is always focused on himself ('eu am facut' - 'I did' the party or the football club) or matters which affect him directly, such as 'Communist conspirators'. On occasion he launches suburban attacks against political opponents with P.R.M.-like tools: '[The Prime Minister] dirtied the leadership of the country. How could he lead us, he who has had four wives, the fourth of which he took from a disco? (.) he is a miserable bastard (.) a Very Important Parrot" . A comprehensive analysis of Becali's vocabulary was provided at the end of 2005 by a media monitoring company . During that year the five words that Becali had pronounced most often in T.V. and press appearances were: 'me' (210 times), 'Romanian' (123), 'money' (121), 'euro' (70) and 'dollars' (64). Becali averaged more than one insult or oath per appearance. It is noticeable that in 2006 Becali made a strong effort to mention the divinity far more in his public appearances.

A pattern in Becali's political expression is that he claims to be perpetually harmed by conspiracies (sometimes elaborating and n naming the guilty parties) but forgiving/apologizing eventually to those he has attacked. Rather than decreasing his credibility, this tactic serves to introduce him to the population as a flexible person, one who 'just like us' may make mistakes and take a rash course of action. This is, after all, one of the main traits of populism - decrypting the ways in which the political leader is 'just like us' rather than endowed with special responsibilities or hindsight.

The P.N.G. party website adopts a completely different attitude. It can actually be described as an awkward mixture of triumphant presentations of opinion polls which record Becali's popularity, a thorough catalogue of charity enterprises undertaken by the party's local branches and an announcement board for organizational matters. Aimed at the media and the Internet-savvy public, the website utilizes a lofty tone to praise Becali's charitable deeds. Usually bold statements are made concerning Becali's skills and capacity, often contrasted with the inefficient behavior of the state: 'In the current political system, which drives the nation towards the 'dump of national of desperation', the P.N.G. was born from the despair of the many. PNG represents and fights for those who are in need of support and help, the poor population in a rich Romania'.[361] Occasionally the flattery becomes unashamed propaganda, close to the language of a personality cult, consistent with the propaganda thesis that Becali is a man who builds and acts: 'Today's man is the man who has hope in the day of tomorrow. George Becali represents the guarantee for the future of generations' ; 'The president of the PNG acts, constructs, starts enterprises, helps not through words but through the example of deeds. George Becali represents the spiritual renewal of Romania, and this can only be done through compassion and love for the people' . Attempts are made to draw attention away from Becali's (material) fortune and to present him as a generous, warm-hearted individual: 'The Only politician who does not buy publicity in order to benefit from the needs of people is P.N.G. president, George Becali, who is among the richest individuals in the world because his wealth is measured through deeds. Where his treasure is, his heart can be found' . Attributes traditionally associated with right-wing leaders are also marked as crucial for the understanding of Becali: 'Power does not lie in the position in which you are invested, but in the power of the belief to help your neighbor. Through the actions which he starts off and concludes, George Becali represents the only chance and path of justice' ; 'Once more the reality demonstrates that the Population of Romania recognizes a Leader who consolidates his actions through Faith and Honor' . The bombastic often mixes with the philosophic in P.N.G.'s public statements: 'In Romania a New Generation of people is being born. The Generation of those who don't believe in promises any more'.

The P.N.G. attempts to be unique in the Romanian political landscape through unusual propaganda efforts: organizing elaborate town parties on the 8^th of March for women[369], offering CDs and tapes of national anthem for free , parties commemorating historical figures or religious events of significance in the Christian Orthodox calendar . All these enterprises fit the identity axis of the party as shaped by a populist integration of Christian and quasi-Christian beliefs into politics.

5.3.3. Noua Dreapta - Victors by Association

The N.D. falls under the pattern of modern extreme right wing organizations in Western Europe: political sociologists noticed recently that 'neo-Nazi activities lift the bar too high - wearing a uniform, public actions, frictions with the police - for some youths, even tempted by the political option and its use of violence, to marginalize themselves in such a way' . The N.D. is using violence as a means of legitimation and publicity in relation to gay rights marches in Romania's capital; but the discourse is relevant exactly because it allows many individuals to become supporters of the movement's intolerant concepts without participating in its actions themselves.

The N.D. faces additional difficulties in getting its message across. Much of the organization's arguments can only appeal to an intellectual elite, a difficult task in a nation with less than 10% of its population being holders of college diplomas.

In a fashion symptomatic to the N.D.'s notoriety-gaining initiatives and difficulties, all the movement's communiques end with a remark as to the media coverage on the movement's actions. The 2006 Gay Parade represented a premier opportunity for the 'Noua Dreapta' organization to raise its popularity and public awareness of its existence. If a year before the response of the neo-legionnaire organization to the gay rights event had come in the form of isolated acts of violence (with only several counter protestors arrested by the police), in 2006 'Noua Dreapta' organized a 'March for Normality' which previewed the homosexuality rights' organizations. Symbolically, the 'March for Normality' started from Patriarchy Hill, the seat of Romania's Orthodox Christian leadership, suggesting an implicit endorsement from the Romanian Orthodox Church. Such support was not formal, yet priests and church sympathizers joined the Noua Dreapta in its action.

Legitimation via association is a potent tool for the N.D., especially considering that it claims to be the inheritor of fascist traditions in Romania. Carrying on a recent trend in neo-fascism, the Noua Dreapta website lists a long series of political organizations abroad with which the Romanian group is connected in the National European Front (links to sites of organizations such as Forza Noua, Fiamma Tricolore or Renouveau Francais are provided). The largest number of available links, however, connect to Christian Orthodox websites, from the official Patriarchy website to blogs and informal networking points (suggestive names: Miscarea Ortodoxa de Reinviere Monahala (the Orthodox Movement for Monastic Rebirth), Miscarea Ortodoxa Rugul Aprins (The Burning Pyre Orthodox Movement), Rezistenta Ortodoxa (The Orthodox Resistence)), some being defining for the anti-abortion movement in Romania (Provita Craiova, AVORT.ro).

The N.D.'s most spectacular success in the field of public legitimation and approval was the 'Basarabia pamant romanesc' ('Basarabia Romanian land) campaign, which ended with a concert in University Square on the 30^th of August 2008. Among organizations of small public visibility, whose name hints at radical Christian or nationalist motifs (YMCA Valahia or the Civic Forum of Romanians in Harghita and Covasna) one can also find allies of the N.D. of remarkable social caliber, such as 'Alianta Civica' (the Civic Alliance, an intellectual forum of the early and mid-1990s) or the '21^st of December 1989' Association, an NGO which reunites individuals who participated in the anti-Communist demonstrations of that day.

By labeling themselves in official manifestos 'Noii Golani' ('the New Wretches'), the N.D. also sought legitimation by association with the anti-Communist manifestations in the spring and summer of 1990, 'golani' being the term used by the president of Romania at that time to demean the civil society effort of those demonstrations.

The N.D. is trying to shed any accusations of extremism encouraged by its worship of Legion-era cultural artifacts. At the level of public appearances and demonstrations the N.D. is indeed somewhat successful in its attempts to collaborate on sundry issues with legitimate actors of the Romanian civil society. However, the existence of commemorative members-only events, such as marches to the burial place of Codreanu (as noted in chapter 2.4.2) demonstrate that initiatives such as those described in this chapter are part of the organization's marketing and PR campaign, rather than a sign of the break from neo-Legion patterns of thought.

5.3.4 Patterns of communication - conclusion

It is technically impossible to develop a comprehensive study of communication patterns in the case of all the three organizations under study. Becali's TV appearances in 2005 alone cover hundreds if not thousands of hours and P.R.M. publications since 1991 have produced several billion words.

After an in-depth study of what is being said by the Romanian extremist forces and how, it is clear that patterns emerge. Vadim Tudor is often appealing to communication techniques borrowed from the toolkit of Communist Romania: his refusal to adopt the new orthography or the sudden derailing into social ballads sounds familiar to an audience that grew up during an intense national Communist indoctrination period. Vadim's own position in the communication game is that of 'revealer', a 'prophet of the past' who uncovers malevolent deeds committed by those in power. Not only a provider of information, but also a vigilante-type 'corrector' who will bring normality to a country beset by evildoers, Vadim relies on the power of this status to wipe all his mistakes from the consciousness of his constituency.

Becali is addressing or trying to become likeable to a different constituency: his pattern of communication often borrows elements from rural Romania, or from the areas of urban society that have stayed loyal to rural values (first generation of city-dwellers, or members of families who never achieved total mental urbanization). If Vadim relies on his status as a savior, Becali 'blames' his frankness and sincerity for the mistakes that he occasionally makes.

The N.D. is feeding on both sources of anxiety - corruption in a transition country and religiousness - to elicit the attention of a media-driven youth. Use of alternative means of communication (leaflets, postings and web-based initiatives) mingles with a profound effort for legitimation (by associating the N.D. with Christian N.G.O.s or authorities or with patriotic ideals such as the unification of Bassarabia and Romania). The N.D.'s main struggle is to get the two coordinates of its propagandistic effort to coexist and enrich each other. The difficulty of this undertaking sets the N.D. apart in the spectrum of extremist communication patterns in modern-day Romania.

5.4. Conclusion

It is an axiomatic statement that mass parties, that can mobilize dozens of thousands of adherents are disadvantaged in the context of a media democracy by comparison with 'political parties with a flexible organization, with dynamic activists and militants, who can answer the dense political and social provocations of the current context quickly'[374]. In the pre-2007 Romanian context, this statement must be quantified and extended. Romania is indeed a 'media democracy' in that political participation is limited in the population as a whole; the attractiveness of information-providing outlets has quickly turned the electorate into spectators rather than participants, a jury asked to deliver every four years rather than conscious debaters of, and participants in the political process.

It is particularly true for the P.R.M. and the P.N.G. that a political statement or action which does not receive media coverage does not exist at all. The tactics and strategies utilized by the two parties differ: Vadim Tudor limits his media influence to one newspaper chain which he holds; thus he can guarantee a perfect and total personality cult. Vadim's withdrawal from OTV points out his fear of channels of communication that he cannot fully control. The disadvantage of this tactic is that Vadim Tudor consciously restricts his political appeal to a select group of electorate members: those purchasing his magazine and sympathetic to his rare media appearances.

Becali on the other hand is more adept at playing the media game; without holding any outlets of his own, he has managed to capture the attention of traditional and non-traditional news channels. His populism is a mix of public Christianity and outbursts of anger, a composition milder than Vadim's sentencing of political figures. By doing away (at least at a surface level) with nationalist-Communist themes, Becali is offering a new identity to Romanians, removing them from the myth of the providential state and instead banking on more fundamental political themes, such as the ruler endowed by God with virtue and the charismatic, benevolent dictator.

The N.D. is seeking alternate means of legitimation and publicity. Its goals are to gain sympathy and approval; it is unclear whether its 'guerilla marketing' campaigns, constructed around flyers, concerts or rallies will have as effect the mobilization of an otherwise calm youth in the direction of a Christian, anti-capitalist, intolerant platform. While the means of communication are plausibly attractive - use of technology and marketing techniques above those of the P.N.G. or P.R.M. - the endeavor of the 'Noua Dreapta' may be hurt by the very ideas it is promoting, which are by nature running against the historical course envisaged by its young potential constituency.

6. Conclusion

As far as it can be ascertained, this study is the first to incorporate the N.D. and the P.N.G. in a meaningful analysis of extremist discourse, either in the 1989-2007 timeframe or as part of a broader understanding of the themes and values of anti-modernism in Romanian political history. While the focus of the study has been on the former, it has led to sensible conclusions on the latter. Natural companions to this study would be:

- a sociological analysis of the appeal of Romania's contemporary extremist forces, with a focus on the broader elements which could apply to the future states of Romania's demographic and sociologic structure;

- an in-depth portrayal of Romanian anti-modernism, seeking to elaborate and refine the points mentioned at the beginning of this chapter and thus provide an ahistorical framework for the understanding of political and social resistance to modernization;

- an analysis of mainstream political discourse as it sought to present modernization in a favorable light in the pre-2007 period;

- a study of post-2007 extremism in the Romanian political arena, with an emphasis on the strategies utilized to garner public support via a euro-skeptical value set.

The differences between the organizations which have been studied can be attributed to genetic causes: the context of their formation and the biography of their seminal leaders has led to their touching upon the themes above with differing strength and in differing contexts.

The 'Romania Mare' Party has proved to be a successful successor to the national-communism of the Romanian Communist Party's later years. Its nationalist themes are unashamed country-worship, intolerance and distrust of 'the foreigner(s)', in all his interventions and actions. It sees the state as the guarantee of economic safety, an administrative behemoth which trades social consensus for the citizens' liberty. Its future seems limited to the lifespan of the constituency which has been educated by the deceased national-communist state. One must remark, however, that the success of either radical left-wing or right-wing organizations will, in the future, depend on their capacity to blend the two themes together. Cohesive, coherent and well-spoken extremist organizations can only emerge in a modern society; the existence and performance of political groups which mix politically contradictory values is guaranteed as long as Romania is still caught in the throes of modernization.

'Partidul Noua Generatie' represents in many ways the natural counter-weight to the P.R.M. At a first look, the similarities are astounding: both are led by charismatic leaders who are not ashamed to promote their own moral righteousness; they seem to be fighting for the same constituency of disendowed, disappointed social groups which have lost the most from the fall of communism; and they are addressing in similar tones the issues of 'The Nation', religion and social protection. Yet the angle utilized by Becali in his public discourse is in many ways inherited from the pre-Communist era, and somewhat paradoxically more capable of capturing the imagination of Romanians. Religion is the fundamental axis of values for Becali; the economic intervention of the providential yet impersonal state bureaucracy is replaced by individual and individualized acts of charity, more appealing through their directness to Romanians who never got fully attached to the narrative of modernity proposed by the Communist state. As a person who publicly seeks to restore the economic balance between the rich and the poor, Becali is likely to gain popular support in the post-2007 era as well; his rejection of communism as one of the greatest evils to have hit the Romanian society is also a refreshing feature for the electorate fatigued by Vadim Tudor's association with Nicolae Ceausescu.

The 'Noua Dreapta', perhaps the single most representative right-wing extremist organization in pre-2007 Romania, is also located at the crossroads of political paradox and philosophical dilemmas. It seeks on a programmatic level to continue the legacy of the 1920s Legion, and in some respect carries on an identical struggle against modernization, atheism and occidentalization; yet it lacks the ingredients which gave Codreanu's movement its appeal: a charismatic leader, a political presence and the desire to attack the parliamentary status quo. More importantly, unlike in the 1920s, the ideas which it promotes carry almost no weight among Romania's most modernized, most atheistic and most occidentalized social group: the educated youths who live in the country's large urban centers. The difficulties of the N.D. also lie in its discourse being immutable due to its status as a historical legacy and path to legitimacy. Unless a radical change of strategy occurs, the N.D. is bound to become little more than a fringe group, occasionally brought to the surface by its public manifestations against 'undesirable' social trends or by its vibrant euro-skepticism.

However, the existing differences cannot overshadow the elements which the three organizations have in common. In a broad sense, Romanian extremism has certain traits which have remained relatively stable throughout the country's modern history. Either while marginalized in democratic status-quos or assumed willingly by authoritarian leaders or totalitarian regimes seeking to connect with the populace, the core of the nationalist discourse has maintained a recognizable identity, defined by a number of views and approaches to the national problems which are characteristic and unique. The Romania of the pre-2007 era, and the political organizations which have formed the subject of the current study, is only an exemplification of the trends and values which have animated anti-modernists for the past one hundred and fifty years. The layers of previous extremist endeavors have played a role in focusing the language of post-communist extremists on certain issues which have become, in their perception, important and relevant for the country's evolution. 'Ceausescu's nationalism," states Martyn Rady, "was a product of historic nationalism; it was not invented by him, but was discovered and exploited by him instead. For this reason, the more extreme manifestations of Romanian nationalism did not perish with Ceausescu, but continue to beset post-revolutionary Romanian politics."[375] A similar argument can be made for the legacy of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's legion, at least seventy years removed from contemporary Romania, yet still a source of inspiration for a number of leaders and organizations seeking to assert what Romania is and what it should be.

In identifying the shapes and contours of what Romanian extremism stands for, foreign observers have focused excessively on the ethnic nature of its ideals. The values of extremism have been seen as rooted in an obsolete form of national identity. The same Martyn Rady considered that "Romanian nationalism is unmitigated by civic notions of national identity. It is rooted in ethnicity rather than in a concept of citizenship and rights."[376] Probably due to the country's muddled involvement in the Holocaust or due to the closeness of former Yugoslavia, ethnicity has become the focus of attention for scholars seeking to characterize and label Romanian extremism in the context of similar European movements.

Yet extremist organizations in Romania operate in a rich landscape of values and concepts which cannot be understood simply in the context of political identity. Cultural, religious and social considerations force the evolution of Romanian extremist discourse along certain well-specified paths, such as:

- the disjunction between the us and the them, a difference which is almost always made in moral and economic terms. In a democratic regime, extremists remark the power distance between the mainstream political class (through its appendage, the Parliament) and the population at large. In the totalitarian Romanias which have existed throughout the 20^th century, the 'them' is a social class or ethnic group which is considered harmful for the country's evolution and thus a prime candidate for forceful extinction. Given Romania's social formation and formidable lapses of equality - usually a product of different speeds of modernization for the sundry social groups - the 'us' is always numerous, poor and upright; the 'them' is small in number, prosperous, immoral and (implicitly) modernized and occidentalized;

- the recovery of Romania's 'lost provinces' is a theme of varying significance depending on the country's historical situation and competing themes. At the basis of this idea is the Romanian nation as a Westphalian entity defined by the extent to which the state can exercise its power geographically and bureaucratically;

- the forces of modernization pose a continual and thorough threat to fundamental social values, such as the family, through initiatives such as decriminalizing abortion, homosexuality, etc. Extremist forces introduce themselves as the guardians of the Romanian weltanschauung, usually against the innovative initiatives of the Romanian state. No link is usually provided; the values of tolerance and individual decision-making are seen by default as less relevant than the inherited modus operandi of the mythologized Romanian community (most often a redefinition of the rural world);

- the values of religion, usually understand in the narrow frameset of submission, tradition and public displays, are another point of coagulation for the Romanian extremist discourse. The country's 'perpetual' modernization has as a side-effect the proliferation of values which make religion - as understood by conservatives - less of a mental and social force than it was. Thus, the conflict which ensures the existence of a radical force or several at the fringes of Romania's political spectrum;

- the influence of the foreigners and foreign enterprises is always doubted. The sense of historical and geographical remoteness from the West, while still being in the influence of Western ideas and actions, has created in the mind of some Romanians this paradoxical and paranoid view of what 'the outsider' can bring to the community. The intentions and initiatives of the non-Romanian are to be mistrusted first, and critiqued next. Be it in the inter-war form of the Legion's Russophobia and Westophobia, or under the contemporary mask of anti-globalism and the myth of the New World Order, distrust of foreign influence is an element that extremist forces can count on in obtaining the attention of the Romanian population;

- reliance on the individual and not on the institutions when it comes to is a central matter for Romanian extremists. Good-hearted authoritarians, stronger versions of the 'enlightened despot' are seen as the magical solution to the country's numerous ills; their Christian values and self-proclaimed morality are justified by reference to the medieval Romanian kings, unwisely promoted by the Romanian state in its own quest for legitimacy;

- the role of the state as a provider is a substitute for the above proposal: the state should give, but not encourage; provide, but not embolden; hand out, but not arbiter. This perverted definition of the welfare state has become relevant after the fall of communism, when the ideals of individual action and initiative proved unnerving for much of Romania's pauperized population and conservative political class. Sometimes the state is perceived as an appendage of the 'enlightened dictator', a massive police organization seeking to expel, imprison or kill the 'them'; for other extremists, the state should simply act as a perpetual safety-net, regardless of economic realities, reducing independent initiatives to a minimum;

- no extremist organization in Romanian history can achieve public awareness without inventing a conflict between it and the state, usually on the grounds of public modernization efforts. The legal systems, opinion polls or parliamentary initiatives to curb extremism are seen as attacks on the true Romanian self, and often as initiatives inspired by malevolent circles abroad;

- undivided worship of the country (usually spelled with a capital C). This attitude is usually backed by strong resistance to measures that would seek to improve the economic or social situation without a political counterpart: how can one improve on something which is divine?

7. Bibliography

7.1 Field literature

ANDERSON, Bob and Robert DARDENNE, George KILLENBERG, The Conversation of Journalism: Communication, Community and News, Praeger Publishing, Westport, Connecticut, USA.

ANDREESCU, Gabriel, Extremismul de dreapta in Romania, Cluj-Napoca: Fundatia CRDE (Centrul de Resurse pentru Diversitate etnoculturala), 2003.

BARBU, Daniel, Politica pentru barbari, Bucuresti: Nemira & Co., 2005.

BARBU, Daniel, Republica Absenta, Nemira, Bucuresti, 1999.

BARTHES, Roland, Mythologies, Vintage, 2000.

BERLIN, Isaiah, Adevaratul studiu al omenirii. Antologie de eseuri, editie ingrijita de Henry Hardy si Roger Hausheer, Editura Meridiane, Bucuresti, 2001.

BERLIN, Isaiah, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, Penguin Books, New York, 1982.

BETZ, Hans Georg and Stefan IMMERFALL, The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, St. Marti's Press, New York, 1998.

BOIA, Lucian, Istorie si mit in constiinta romaneasca, Humanitas, Bucuresti, 1997.

BOTEZ, Mihai, Lumea a doua, Editura Du Style, Bucuresti, 1997.

CARREY, James (coord), Media, Myths and Naratives, Sage Publishing London, 1988.

COMAN, Mihai, 'Mass Media si Ritual', Polirom, 2003.

DE WAELE, Jean Michel, Partide politice si democratie in Europa centrala si de est, Humanitas, 2002.

DURANTON CRABOL, Anne Marie, Europa extremei drepte, din 1945 pana in zilele noastre, Institutul European, 2002.

FRIDENSON, Patrick, Les organisations, un nouvel sujet, Annales ESC, 6, nov.-dec. 1989.

GALLAGHER, Tom, Furtul unei natiuni, Humanitas, 2004.

GANDESHA, Samir, `The Political Semiosis of Populism`, The Semiotic Review of Books, volume 13 (3).

GAVRILESCU, Adrian and Marius TUDOR, Democratia la pachet. Elita politica in Romania post-comunista, Compania Publishing Press, Bucuresti, 2002.

GIDDENS, Anthony, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late

Modern Age, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1991.

GIRARDET, Raoul, Mythes et mythologies politique, Ed. De Seuil, 1986.

HAW, Kaye, 'Myth, Mythology and 'Myth-demeanors': The Role of Emotions in Risk and Resilience', in Talking Across Paradigms: Debating risk and protection in late modern society', Pennsylvania State University Conference, 2004.

HEIDEGGER, Martin, Being and Time, San Francisco 1992.

HOBSBAWM, Eric, Nations and Nationalisms since 1780, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991.

HOLMES, Leslie, Postcommunism. An Introduction, Duke University Press, Durham, 1997.

HOSKING, Geoffrey, SCHOPFLIN George (editors), Myth & Nationhood, London: Hurst & Co, 1997.

HUIU, Iulia and Dan PAVEL, Nu putem reusi decat impreuna. O istorie analitica a Conventiei Democratice, 1989-2000. Polirom, Iasi, 2003.

HUME, David, Essays. Moral, political and literary, edited by Eugene F. Miller, Liberty Fund, Indiannapolis, 1987.

IONETE, Constantin, Clasa politica postdecembrista, Editura Expert, Bucuresti, 2003.

KRISTEVA, Julia, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Columbia University Press, New York, 1982.

KYMLICKA, Will, 'Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights',

Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996.

MECSA, Sever and Ilie NEACSU Ilie, intre presedintie si ospiciu, Editura Universul, 2002.

MUNGIU-PIPPIDI Alina (editor), Doctrine Politice. Concepte Universale si Realitati Romanesti, Polirom, Iasi, 1998.

NEUMANN Franz, 'Angst und Politik', in Demokratischer und autoritrer Staat,

Frankfurt am Main: Fischer 1986.

PATAPIEVICI, Horia-Roman, Politice, Humanitas, 1996.

POP-ELECHES, Grigore, Whither Democracy? The Politics of Dejection in the 2000 Romanian Elections, Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Working Paper Series, 2001.

RADY, Martyn, Romania in Turmoil: A Contemporary History, IB Tauris, 1992.

Rothenbuhler, Eric, Ritual Communication: from Everyday conversation to mediated ceremony, Sage Publishing, London, 1998.

SALATTI ,Alessandra, Hatred and Nationalism in Romania: Explaining Anti-Roma Violence, Stanford's Student Journal of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, p.1, Volume 1, Spring 2005.

SCHMITT, Carl, The Concept of the Political, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996.

SEILER, Daniel, Partidele politice din Europa, Institutul European, Iasi, 1999.

SIMMEL, Georg, 'The Stranger' in On Individuality and Social Forms, editor

Donald Levine, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1971.

TANASIOU, Cosmina, Post-Communist Political Symbolism: New Myths - Same Old Stories? An Analysis of Romanian Political Mythology, Political Studies Association-UK 50th Annual Conference, London, 10-13 April 2000.

TANASE, Stelian, Revolutia ca esec - elite & societate, Polirom, Iasi, 1996.

TISMANEANU, Vladimir, Fantasies of Salvation. Democracy, Nationalism and Myth in Post-Communist Europe, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1998.

TISMANEANU, Vladimir, Fantasmele salvarii; democratie, nationalism si mit in Europa post-comunista, Polirom 1999.

VADIM TUDOR Corneliu, Scrisori Deschise, Editura Fundatiei Romania Mare, 2005

VALENAS, Liviu, Miscarea Legionara intre adevar si mistificare, Ed. Marineasa, 2000.

VOICU George, Zeii cei rai. Cultura conspiratiei in Romania postcomunista, Polirom, Bucuresti, 2000.

VULCANESCU, Mircea, Tendintele tinerei generatii, Univers, Bucuresti, 1934

ZAMFIR, Catalin, Politici sociale in Romania, Editura Expert, 1999, Bucuresti

7.2 Newspapers and written media

22, no. 41(244), 12-18 October 1994, p.13 and 42(245), 19-25 October 1994,

Adevarul, 2^nd of September 2004; 9th of October 2004; 3^rd of September, 2006.

Atac, 6^th of April 2006.

Averea, 30^th of May 2005; 17^th of April 2006; 27^th of September 2006.

Banateanul, 28^th of September 2004.

Bihoreanul, September 19^th, 2005.

Cotidianul, 16^th of November 2005; 9^th of February 2006; 11^th of February 2006; 18^th of April 2006; 22^nd of April 2006; 4^th of June 2006; 25^th of October 2006

Cronica Romana, 22^nd of August 1998

Evenimentul Zilei, 20-21^st of June 1998; 6^th of December 2000; 23^rd of November 2005

26^th of May 2006; 19^th of October 2006.

Gandul, 25^th of August 2006; 14th of November 2006.

Gazeta Sporturilor, 2^nd of March 2005; 13^th of July 2005; 18^th of August 2006; 20^th of September 2006; 10^th of October 2006; 27^th of November 2006; 9^th of February 2007.

Impact de Pitesti, year III no. 15, 14-20 February 2005.

Informatia, 11^th of August 2006.

Libertatea, 18^th of August 1998.

Monitorul Expres, 6^th of October 2006.

Nine O'clock, 4^th of December 2000.

Obiectiv, 22^nd of April 2005.

Politica, nr. 11, 25^th of April 1992; nr. 25, 8^th of August 1992; nr. 26, 15^th of August 1992; no. 67, 5^th of June 1993; no. 84, 2^nd of October 1993; no. 190, 21^st of October 1995; no. 360, 20^th of February 1999; no. 411, 12^th of February 2000; no. 412, 19^th of February 2000; no. 418, 8^th of April 2000; no. 419, 15^th of April 2000.

Romania Libera, 29^th of January 1999.

Romania Mare, no. 68, 18^th of October 1991; no. 78, 27^th of December 1991; no. 126, 4^th of December 1992; no. 147, 30^th of April 1993; no. 180, 17^th of December 1993; no. 241, 17^th of February 1995; no. 275, 13^th of October 1995; no. 389, 26^th of December 1997; no. 407, 1^st of May 1998; no. 467, 25^th of June 1999; no. 474, 21^st of August 1998; no. 475, 29^th of August 1998; no. 426, 11^th of September 1998; no. 485, 29^th of October 1999; no. 555, 2^nd of March 2001; no. 560, 6^th of April 2001; no. 567, 25^th of May 2001; no. 576, 27^th of July 2001; no. 581, 31^st of August 2001; no. 600, 11^th of January 2002; no. 615, 26^th of April 2002; no. 619, 24^th of May 2002; no. 627, 19^th of July 2002; no. 636, 20^th of September 2002; no. 646, 29^th of November 2002; no. 651, 3^rd of January 2003; no. 655, 31^st of January 2003; no. 685, 29^th of August 2003; no. 704, 9^th of January 2004; no. 741, 24^th of September 2004; no. 757, 14^th of January 2005; no. 760, 4^th of February 2005; no. 774, 13^th of May 2005; no. 779, 17^th of June 2005; no. 780, 24^th of June 2005; no. 783, 15^th of July 2005; no. 784, 22^nd of July 2005.

Tricolorul, no. 11, 8^th of April 2004; no. 150, 20^th of September 2004; no. 206, 24^th of November 2004; no. 207, 25th of November 2004; no. 215, 4^th of December 2005; no. 241, 8^th of January 2005; no. 261, 1^st of February 2005; no. 262, 2^nd of February 2005; no. 270, 11^th of February 2005; no. 337, 30^th of April 2005; no. 341, 7^th of May 2005; no. 361, 31^st of May 2005; no. 369, 9^th of June 2005; no. 399, 14^th of July 2005; no. 488, 26^th of October 2005; no. 658, 24th of May 2006; no. 688, 29th of June 2006; no. 843, 8^th of September 2006.

Ziarul, 31^st of May 2006.

Ziua, 17^th of August 1998; 5^th of January 2007.

7.3 Websites (all checked and valid on the 6^th of March 2007)

https://antimanele.sapte.ro/?cmd=stiri&id=17

https://new.themoneychannel.ro/stiri/Economic/Romanii-_mari_consumatori_de_TV.htm.

https://www.antiprostutie.ro.

https://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/12/08/tudor.profile/

https://www.altermedia.ro/radio/

https://www.becali.ro/?section=interviews&page=interviews_items

https://www.brigadadeasalt.ro/index.htm

https://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/presa.site.revista_data?dt=17-01-2004

https://www.creationism-stiintific.ro/

https://www.curs.ro

https://www.dezvaluiri.ro/site/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=51

https://www.eurosceptic.ro

https://www.fcsteaua.ro/index/section/articles/article/884

https://www.fgmanu.net/doctrina.htm

https://www.gallup.ro/romana/poll_ro/releases_ro/pr040108_ro/pr040108_ro.htm.

www.gazetasporturilor.ro/index.php?a=2878&shift=1

https://www.gigibecali.bro.ro/biografie.htm

https://www.hotnews.ro/articol_15368-Cei-sase-candidati-pentru-Primaria-Capitalei.htm

https://www.hotnews.ro/articol_15675-Becali-a-intrat-in-razboi-cu-presa.htm

https://www.hotnews.ro/articol_62607-Cadoul-Romaniei-pentru-UE-infiintarea-grupului-de-extrema-dreapta-in-PE.htm

https://www.imas-inc.com

https://www.jurnalul.ro/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article& sid=16482 &mode=thread&order=0&thold=0.

https://www.mediafax.ro/articole/Comunicat-al-Partidului-Noua-Genera--355-ie-142641-8.html

https://www.nouadreapta.org/cinesuntem.php

https://www.onlinesport.ro/Html/Fotbal/Romania/Statistici/campionate/index.shtm[377] https://www.ournet.md/~sobo/lei.htm

https://www.png.ro

https://www.prosport.ro/index.php?c=92&pg=6&a=27976.

https://www.protv.ro/stiri/social/top-story-becali-a-achitat-datoriile-rau-platnicilor-din-cartierul.html

https://www.radionouadreapta.com

https://www.realitatea.net/18074_BECALI-INCREZATOR--Francezii-au-aflat-cum-e-cu-becalizarea-Romaniei.html

https://www.regionalanalysis.org/aboutus/articles/shmarg.pdf

https://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/12/468a2a20-b5b5-41db-8066-96737eaeb8ce.html

https://www.ziarultricolorul.ro.

7.4 TV broadcasts

'Cursa spre Cotroceni', TVR1, November 2004.

'Doresc sa fiu Presedinte', PRO TV, Bucuresti, 14^th of November 2000.

'Gigi Becali', 10^th of September 2006, 23:00, OTV.

'Miezul Problemei Electorale', National TV, Gigi Becali Dezlantuit, 26^th of November 2004.

'Observator', Antena 1, 6^th of October 2004.

'Romania Mea' de Emil Hurezeanu, Antena 1, January 2004.

7.5 Radio broadcasts

Radio Europa Libera, South-East Europe Newsline, 16th October 2000.