Romania

"Since the establishment of diplomatic ties between Malaysia and Romania in 1969, both our countries have been able to register steady development in our relations through economic cooperation. Although our two countries are separated by geographical distance, distinct culture and governmental set-up, these have not prevented us from exchanging visits at various levels from time to time which have served to foster understanding and goodwill between us. Our ties of friendship and cooperation have been further augmented by our shared commitments to the ideals and aspirations of the United Nations Charter and by the similarity of views that we hold on many international issues. The state visit by President Nicolae Ceausescu to Malaysia in November, 1982 was a significant milestone in the development of our relations. It provided a further impetus to relations between our two countries and forged new links in various fields of cooperation that are mutually beneficial. The agreements reached between us during President Ceausescu's visit form a solid basis of our bilateral cooperation, particularly in the economic field. It is my intention not only to maintain this new momentum towards closer ties between us, but also to develop and strengthen our relations further. We already have the Joint-Commission which provides a ready vehicle to review the progress of our economic cooperation. I am certain that the Joint-Commission will be able to identify concrete areas and provide the necessary measures to increase our bilateral cooperation."

"Maize and vine thrive wonderfully in Roumania, and even the fig-tree and the almond bear in the open air under favourable conditions. The soil is extremely fertile, so fertile, indeed, that it is almost impossible to come across a piece of hopelessly barren ground. Very rarely is it necessary to use any manure, which the peasants do not often know how to get rid of. It may be said that manure is valuable everywhere."

"Formerly, the whole of Bessarabia belonged, as I have already said, to Moldavia; and it was not until the year 1812 that it was unjustly ceded to Russia. The Czar would therefore have performed a graceful act had he given back the remainder of Bessarabia to his Roumanian friends. Instead, however, of behaving with generosity, or even with ordinary fairness, the Czar put in a claim for Roumanian Bessarabia in exchange for the useless Dobrudja. Never, it is commonly allowed, was perpetrated a deed of more flagrant ingratitude; and, to make matters worse, when the Roumanian Government refused the complimentary offer, a Russian army proceeded to occupy the country, extending its ramifications, as reinforcements arrived, in every conceivable direction. Roumania is now in the position of a woman who, having deserted her husband, is herself abandoned by the man with whom she eloped. Roumania has behaved very badly; it has offended against the public law of Europe; it has sinned against every principle of generous honour; and this is Russia's return. To what purpose was all this sacrifice of blood and treasure? It is all in vain. Better far to have joined with Turkey, as honesty, always the true policy, recommended, in expelling the intruder from its gates. Loudly do the Moldo-Wallachians now cry out against the perfidy of their quondam allies."

"Romania, bridge between East and West, crossroads between Central and Eastern Europe, Romania, traditionally called by the beautiful title: "Garden of Mary", I come to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and of the Blessed Virgin. On the threshold of a new millennium, once again set your future firmly on the rock of the Gospel. With Christ's help you will play a leading role in a new season of enthusiasm and courage. You will be a prosperous nation, a fertile land of goodness, a united people and peacemakers."

"Rumania is "the land of the Romans," and the Rumanians proudly trace their ancestry to Trajan's Roman legionaries who settled Dacia, a Roman province roughly corresponding to modern Rumania, in the second century A.D."

"Ah, this is Romania. MeToo is like 50 years away."

"Rumania is essentially an agricultural country. The ores of the Carpathians are not utilised, for there are no roads which give access to them."

"history of dictatorships that began with the withdrawal of the Roman legions in the third century. Some 23 million people, 6 million more than the population of Texas, live on a land mass about one third the size of Texas. On every side Romania is surrounded by countries in turmoil—Bulgaria to the south, Yugoslavia to the west, Hungary to the northwest, and the Soviet Union to the north and northeast. Hardship is nothing new to Romania. It is as though time stopped after World War II. Factories are lit by skylights because there aren’t enough Romanian-standard forty-watt bulbs to go around. In one village a woman said that this was the first Easter in eighteen years that her family had had eggs. “We decorated them so beautifully,” she said, tears drenching her lined face. Poverty and squalor are everywhere, from the center of Bucharest, where many of the country’s 20,000 orphans live in horrific orphanages, to the countryside where gypsies and farmers travel in ox-drawn carts as if they have just stepped out of the fifteenth century."

"Bucharest was a constant irritant inside Comecon and the Warsaw Pact. Romania’s ambitious industrial plans remained in place. Ceaușescu also reinforced the collective-farm system. Like Khrushchëv earlier, he bulldozed villages and brought peasants together in new rural townships. The rationale for this was the zeal to bring concrete-slab, multi-storey buildings, tractors and electric light to the countryside. National pride was asserted and the Hungarian Autonomous Region was abolished. Opposition was vigorously suppressed by the security police. Ceaușescu was determined to secure his regime from internal subversion as well as external interference. What saved Romania from being invaded by its allies in the Warsaw Pact was its retention of the one-party, one-ideology communist state. Ceaușescu's friendliness to the powers of the West was irritating but not a casus belli. Adoption of party pluralism and capitalist economics would have been an entirely different matter."

"To my mind, imperialism is something very simple and clear and it exists as a fact when one country, a large country, seizes a certain strip of territory and subjects to its laws a certain number of men and women against their will. Soviet policy after the beginning of the second world war was precisely this. There is no difficulty in pointing this out, but the difficulty lies in the fact that when one quotes from memory one will forget one or other argument. Because the Russians, thanks to the second world war, have quite simply annexed the three Baltic States, taken a piece of Finland, a piece of Rumania, a piece of Poland, a piece of Germany and, thanks to a well thought-out policy composed of internal subversion and external pressure, have established Governments justifiably styled as Satellites, in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Sofia, Bucharest, Tirana and East Berlin - I except Belgrade where the regime is unique thanks to the energy and courage of Marshal Tito. If all this does not constitute manifestations of imperialism, if all this is not the result of a policy consciously willed and consciously pursued, an imperialist aim, then indeed we shall have to start to go back to a new discussion and a new definition of words."

"The legendary ballads and national songs of Roumania are almost unknown in Europe; they are scarcely more familiar to the higher classes of their native country; but the old superstitions and weird fantastic creeds—many of them of pagan origin—have been perpetuated and kept alive amongst the peasantry of the mountain districts, from whom they were, with long and patient research, at length collected in a chaplet of exquisite little poems by the native poet Alecsandri, who also published, a few years later, an admirable French translation."

"But the case of Roumania was far different. She knew with a terrible certainty that the moment she entered the war she would be the target for attack on a frontier over twelve hundred kilometres long. The world criticized her for remaining neutral, and yet one wonders how many countries would have staked their national future as Roumania did when she entered the war. In a short fourteen months she has seen more than one half of her army destroyed, her fertile plains pass into the hands of her enemies, and her great oil industry almost wiped out. Today her army, supported by Russians, is holding with difficulty hardly twenty per cent of what, before the war, was one of the most fertile and prosperous small kingdoms of Europe."

"Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into."

"Life must go on and trust me The world will change The lights in the darkness will shine for the people in Russia Europe will win, Perestroika from Poland to Romania The lights in the darkness will shine There's no reason to cry all day Millions of people are dreaming to live like you The better way"

"Got to get there just as fast I can A pink carnation on a mystery man A rendezvous in Romania Double agents in Australia"

"Even the city's most ardent fans don't quite maintain the old saw, the "Paris of the East." That was Bucharest's nickname in the decades before World War II, when the art nouveau palaces and architecture really were reminiscent of Paris. Decades of communist misrule and a tragic earthquake in 1977 brought much of the old city down, but there are places here and there where that former elegance can still be glimpsed."

"Like more than half the traffic lights in Bucharest, this one on the busy corner of Boulevard Nicolae Balcescu is dead. In the freezing fog, sputtering Rumanian-made Dacia sedans are lurching every which way, horns honking."

"Bucharest must have been a beautiful city once. It is now in a state of mouldering decay. The big houses on leafy boulevards look as if they have not been touched by a paintbrush for sixty years. The yards are choked with weeds. The pollution is stifling and it has stained every building in the city. After decades of oppression, however, the people of Romania now have a democracy, and the government is encouraging significant legal reform. Today's students are engaging and fluent in English. Their confidence bespeaks an optimism that Romania's democracy will succeed and that Bucharest, once heralded as the Paris of the Balkans, will flower again."