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Golaniad

The Golaniad (Romanian: Golaniada from the word golan meaning hoodlum) was a protest in Romania in the University Square, Bucharest. It was initiated by students and professors at the University of Bucharest.

The Golaniad started in April 1990, before the election of 20 May, 1990, which was the first election after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Their main demand was that former members of the Communist Party (4 million adults out of a total population of 22 million) should be banned from standing in elections.

Background

Ion Iliescu and Frontul Salvării Naţionale (FSN) seized power during the 1989 revolution. The FSN organization was meant to act as a temporary government until free elections were to be held. However, on 23 January 1990, despite its earlier claims, it decided to become a party and to run in the elections it would organize. A part of the dissenters and anti-communists that joined the FSN during the revolution (including Doina Cornea) left following this decision.

Many of the FSN personalities, including its president, Ion Iliescu, were ex-communists and as such the revolution was seen as being hijacked by the FSN.

The FSN, which was widely known from the revolution and associated with it, won 66.3% of the votes, while the next party – the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania – obtained only 7.2% of the votes (followed by PNL 1- 6.4%, MER- 2.6%).

The protests

On 22 April 1990, the PNŢCD and other parties organised a demonstration in Aviators' Square. After the peaceful demonstration, groups of people marched towards the Romanian Television (TVR) station, calling for its political independence. They continued their protest in the University Square and decided to sit in overnight. Two days later, they were still there, their numbers growing, on the evening of 25 April, their number reaching 30,000. Soon, the number of protesters reached 50,000 each evening. They stated that they will not leave the Square until Romania would be free of Communism.

President Ion Iliescu refused to negotiate with the protesters and called them "golani" (meaning a hooligan, a scamp, a ruffian or a good-for-nothing — which later gave the protest its name) or legionnaires. The ending "-ad" ("-ada" in Romanian) was used ironically, since many of Ceauşescu's Communist manifestations had endings like this (in order to compare them with an epic, like the Iliad). The protesters also composed their own hymn, "Imnul Golanilor":

Mai bine haimana, decât trădător

Mai bine huligan, decât dictator

Mai bine golan, decât activist

Mai bine mort decât comunist"

lyrics by Laura Botolan; music by Cristian Paţurcă

The song can be translated to English as:

I'd rather be a tramp than a traitor,

I'd rather be a hooligan than a dictator,

I'd rather be a hoodlum than an activist,

I'd rather be dead than communist"

Many intellectuals supported the protests, including writers like Octavian Paler, Ana Blandiana, Gabriel Liiceanu, Stelian Tănase or film director Lucian Pintilie. Eugen Ionescu supported them by sending a telegram from France in which he wrote he was a "Golan Academician" (Hooligan Academician).

Their main three demands were:

the eighth point of the Proclamation of Timişoara: leading members of the Romanian Communist Party and the Securitate not to be allowed to be candidates in the elections
access to the state-owned mass-media for all the candidates, not only for FSN candidates. A 1975 law of Ceauşescu (which was not yet repealed) allowed the president of Romania to directly control the Romanian Television and Radio.
postponing of the elections, as the only party that had the resources for the campaign was FSN.

The protesters also disagreed with the official doctrine of the FSN that the Revolution was only "anti-Ceauşescu" and not "anti-Communist" (as Silviu Brucan declared in an interview given to the British newspaper The Guardian). They also supported faster reforms, a true market economy and a western-type democracy (Ion Iliescu argued for socialism "Swedish-style" and an "original democracy", considering multi-party system as being antiquated.

After the elections the protests continued, the main goal being the removal of the newly elected government.

Violent ending

Main article: June 1990 Mineriad

After 52 days of protests, on 13-15 June, a violent intervention of the miners of Jiu Valley violently ended the protests, beating thousands of protesters and bystanders and killing up to one hundred people according to some sources. Official figures say only seven people were killed.