Dead Man\u2019s Capitalism <\/b><\/p>\n
by Mihaela Michailov<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
The discussions around gold exploitation in the historical mining site at Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 (in the Western Carpathians) have brought about the formation of an alliance between the Romanian state and Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 Gold Corporation (RMGC). Both the state and the corporation have obsessively promoted a discourse of job creation, sustainability, high wages and a better future for the children of Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 in order to camouflage the drive for excessive profits and the destruction of community and environment alike. In the name of \u201cdevelopment\u201d, President Traian B\u0103sescu has been one of the most ardent supporters of the exploitation project put forward by the Canadian company Gabriel Resources (the company behind RMGC). One of the most cosmopolitan areas in Transylvania in the 19th<\/sup> century, Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 holds the largest gold ore in Romania, evaluated at roughly 300 tons of gold and 1.600 tons of silver. The ore has been leased for exploitation to RMGC.<\/p>\n In august 2010, dramAcum<\/b> directors Radu Apostol, Gianina C\u0103rbunariu and Andreea V\u0103lean, together with playwright Peca \u015etefan and video artist Andu Dumitescu undertook a two-week-long research in Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 for the play About<\/b> Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 \u2013 Physically and Politically<\/b>, a co-production between the Hungarian State Theatre in Cluj and dramAcum<\/b>. Every scene in the performance is conceived as a chapter in the town\u2019s daily life, both past and present. As a whole, it takes a radical political stand against the double manipulation of state and corporation, exposing as fraud their deceitful portrayal of the area as a magical land of opportunity where young people would never have to leave to work abroad. The pro-community discourse aims to mask the antisocial abuses of the state\/corporate initiatives which aim at transforming the area into a commercial space, regardless of the consequences for the environment.<\/p>\n The performance opens with a series of questions which focus on the manipulative mechanisms of both state and corporation: \u201cIf someone gave you 800.000 euro, would you move?, How much did your vote cost?, So what if a mountain vanishes? Is the Romanian state mentally retarded or what?, How much does an exhumation cost?\u201d All of these hint at the stake of the performance: where are the people in this web of economic interests and how can they prevent the exploitation of an area where they would have to move their dead to make way for the cyanide mining?<\/p>\n What you can leave behind<\/b> is the most confrontational scene of the performance. A sick father rejects his son\u2019s negotiations with RMGC for the relocation of his wife\u2019s tomb. For the father, Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 is where he buried his wife and he refuses to move her to another cemetery, as the RMGC representative suggests. This scene is relevant for the confrontation between the symbolic capital of the place \u2013 its emotional value \u2013 and financial capital \u2013 treating the place as a source of profits. For those buying, every parcel of life and death costs and must be made profitable. You only matter if you become a quantifiable amount.<\/p>\n About<\/b> Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 \u2013 Physically and Politically<\/b> was staged for several months before being cut by the Hungarian State Theatre due to \u201clow attendance,\u201d while Gianina C\u0103rbunariu has been told by several people that they could not buy tickets to see the performance because it was allegedly sold out. Tompa G\u00e1bor, the director of the theatre, also interfered in the composition of the trailer, removing the statements \u201ca theatre performance against Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 Gold Corporation\u201d and \u201ca theatre performance against the Romanian state which has abandoned its citizens\u201d because they allegedly sounded \u201cbombastic\u201d and \u201dcheap\u201d (to whom?). This paternalistic concern represents an infringement of the freedom of speech, since an artist has the right to be pathetic, sentimental or wrong as long as he acknowledges it. An institution cannot make \u201cadjustments\u201d without the artist\u2019s approval.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dead Man\u2019s Capitalism by Mihaela Michailov The discussions around gold exploitation in the historical mining site at Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 (in the Western Carpathians) have brought about the formation of an alliance between the Romanian state and Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 Gold Corporation (RMGC). Both the state and the corporation have obsessively promoted a discourse of job creation, sustainability, high wages and a better future for the children of Ro\u015fia Montan\u0103 in order to camouflage the drive for excessive profits and the destruction of community and environment alike. In the name of \u201cdevelopment\u201d, President Traian B\u0103sescu has been one of the most ardent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[93],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3483,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/3483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}