Because we are socialists

posted by Mira on 2008/12/01 14:35

[ Sofia Absurdities ]

Yesterday while I was passing in the very downtown of Sofia I was shocked to see a huge queue in front of NISIM bookstore that was almost blocking Vasil Levski Boulevard.

a huge queue in front of NISIM bookstore - something is going on

It was obvious that something interesting was going on in the bookstore and nevertheless how curious I was I didn’t guess what’s happening as I was late for a meeting and had to hurry.

Later on checking in the Internet I understood that the current Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev was there presenting his book “Because we are socialists”.

Because we are socialists - on the cover together with the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Karl Marks, Friedrich Engels and Georgi Dimitrov are also Sting, John Lennon and Martin Luter King

In fact the official presentation has taken place last weekend during the 47th Congress of the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party when Mr. Stanishev was reelected as the Party Chair. Even the former communist dictator Comrade Todor Zhivkov could envy Stanishev for his overwhelming victory - he got 97,5% of the votes, and was the only candidate!

Oddly enough (or not so oddly), as commented by Ivan Dikov, the Congress of Bulgaria's ruling party contained no debates whatsoever about some of the pressing issues facing the nation like the suspended EU funds; the corruption; the organized crime; the terrible image of the country within the EU and beyond, etc.

Bulgaria simply has no major issues which need at least to be debated. Certainly not by the governing party. People should not debate. They should read the party leader’ book and learn why they are socialists.

From the cover of the book for instance I’ve just learned that among the greatest socialists together with our Prime Minister, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Georgi Dimitrov are also Sting, John Lennon and Martin Luter King (!?!).

Even more interesting for me was the content of the book. Although I don’t have it I found a lot of published parts from the book in the Internet. Unfortunately this masterpiece is not yet translated into English so it was really difficult to decide which one of the genius ideas to translate firstly here but finally I chose the part concerning the financial crisis.

“The world financial and already economic crisis rehabilitates in a specific way the socialist idea...
…beyond the capitalism there should be fairer social constitution based on respect of labour and just distribution of its results.
…modernity is falling apart. This disintegration goes together with the decline of manners, moral and culture. In the last reckoning it’s a global disintegration that threatens to destroy the greatest achievement of modernity, i.e. the capitalism.
We, the socialists, are convinced that what is naturally coming to replace the old world order is called socialism.”
 

Well, the only thing I could say is that this book for me beside being a real apology of the Bulgarian socialists absurd ideas is probably one of the main answers of the question why for the first time, a member of the EU will completely forfeit money that it cannot be trusted to spend properly, reflecting concern among officials, diplomats and fraud investigators over the ability of the Bulgarian authorities to prevent billions of euros in European grants being siphoned off by organized crime – because we are socialists.

p.s.: pictures are taken from www.gradski.bg and www.mediapool.bg


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Welcome to the [Sofia] weblog, a part of the Kakanien Revisited weblog network. The Team - Dimiter, Assen and Mira - all three PhD students in the Department of History and Theory of Culture at the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" will try to create an image - although sometimes a faceted and incoherent one - of the Bulgarian academia, culture, ongoing events, ideas, realities and virtual spaces. All of you - our readers - are warmheartedly invited to join us in this endeavor with your comments and suggestions.
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