Vivid First Editorial
EDITORIAL FROM Vivid 1 --
APRIL 1999
by Andrew Begg
Editor
What does the world know of Romania? That is a country in Eastern Europe? Probably. That it is one of the poorest countries in Europe? Possibly. That it has thousands of homeless orphans? Almost certainly. The world knows most of these things.
What else does it know? That Romanians are the direct descendants of the Roman empire? Probably not. That Romania has a rich and diverse culture? Again, not really. That Romania has a richness of natural resources unparalleled elsewhere in Europe? Certainly not. The world knows few of these things.
Why is that, exactly?
The answer is simple. It is about self-promotion. It is about getting up and telling the world how wonderful you are. The United States and Japan do it well. The United Kingdom does it even better. Germany does it the best of all. It has never been something that Romania was very good at.
This creates two problems. Firstly, if you cower coyly in the corner, nobody gets to know how wonderful you are. This, in turn, creates problem number two: if all people hear about you are negative things, that is the opinion that will linger in their consciousness. That is where stereotypes come from.
People with little knowledge of Romania may be forgiven the impression that it is little more than a warring sea of blue and grey-jacketed men shrouded in clouds of tear gas, running at each other. For these images - coupled with pictures of malnourished children, customers queuing outside banks, and drivers arguing around a petrol pump - are those that linger in the international consciousness, the vision that comes to mind at the mention of the word “Romania”. Similarly, guide book pictures of gypsy families and of Vlad Tepes' birthplace merely reinforce the stereotype, and do little to promote our understanding of the country.
The aim of Vivid is to question, confront and eventually tear down these stereotypes, and to show the world what lies behind them. Seldom recognised for its transparency, our hope is to raise the profile and understanding of Romania , to present the country in a vivid, more clear light. To do this we will focus on others who are making similarly bold efforts to alter stereotype.
Our first cover story is a case in point, where the spotlight is cast over three young, brilliant minds as far removed from the stereotype as it is possible to be. Elsewhere, we feature personalities, whose very different contributions to an evolving society cannot be questioned. Regular features such as the Diary, Questionnaire and Working People will be written by or about personalities whose lives add colour, depth and substance to the course of daily life.
We also hope that Vivid expands to become a forum through which readers feel their opinion may find an audience. Accuracy in our coverage of stories is absolutely necessary, but if you have another perspective, we would love to hear about it. We at Vivid are far more interested in emphasising the positive side of Romania , and to highlight its negative aspects only if constructive change might come from doing so.
If you are reading this, there is a strong chance that you are either Romanian, an expatriate, or someone with a strong personal commitment to Romania but stationed outside it. Your interest in promoting Romania probably equals ours. The country's stock has seldom, if ever, been lower - but a line has to be drawn in the sand somewhere, so lets draw the line here and now.
