Catania           While the Organizers’ Forum was in Bucharest and Sofia, everyone talked about politics, but it was hard to get our arms around all of what we were hearing, despite in a rarity for our dialogues we had meetings with three journalists with experience in radio, print, and television, including in the public-state controlled stations, whose job it was to cover contemporary and political events at different times.  Overall, our impression was that most saw the current situations as strained and the outlook as somewhat bleak.

In Romania, as has been widely reported, there were off and on elections recently.  The Supreme Court of that country had nullified the first balloting because of Russian interference, and in the final contest the relatively liberal mayor of Bucharest had been elected.  Many has worked with him as mayor and reported some positive experiences, but no one seemed to believe that the far right was not in a position to win the next election.  There was a lull before the storm feeling in what people told us.

If anything, the situation in Bulgaria was even more grim.  As best, I could unravel what we were hearing, the anti-corruption party that had seemed to offer so much hope at one point in what some called “the Harvards” taking over, now seems to have gone conservative.  One described the dominant political parties as moderate right and far right, leaving little space for formerly liberal-left parties.  A tech entrepreneur that I had met on an earlier trip to Sofia who had excitedly read Nuts and Bolts was reportedly still active and trying to create an alternative.  His first efforts depending on technology to mobilize people had not been successful, but he and others were now trying more direct engagement.

There seemed to be no waiting for the storm in Bulgaria.  It seemed to have already come.  One former reporter for state TV, who was now working in a 100-person national journalistic collective as a freelancer, reported a conversation with her editor saying essentially that “you used to bring us controversial stuff, but now who cares, there’s controversy every day.”  The journalists we met in Sofia were worried about declining free speech and harassment.  One only used Signal and had no email.  Another could only be reached via Instagram.  Some of them seemed as cautious as the women we had met who were organizing protected events and spaces in feminist and LGBTQ communities.  There was a running narrative of Bulgaria politics and government being run by oligarchs and with impunity.

For those of us coming from the United States, we could only listen.  Many of the people we met over the week feared even trying to visit America, suspecting problems getting visas in the current climate.  A similar feeling was expressed by Canadian members of our own delegation.  People in both countries were worried about the negative reverberations that might embolden the far-right parties in their countries as the US presents itself increasingly as a rouge and failed state where the rule of law is ignored and autocracy is celebrated.  People were following politics in the US more closely than usual, and it was dampening their view of the future in their own countries.  The European Union was seen as a continued beacon for human rights and social policies, but also seen as relatively powerless to impose its standards on member nations, and unable as mandates for military spending and defense increased within the EU to make up for the social and aid investments they had made previously or fill the gap from reduced US expenditures.

Maybe it was hard for us to get our arms completely around the politics in these countries, because it is also difficult now in our own as well?