Traian Băsescu Quotes

Six decades after the U.N. was created as a bulwark against abuse and terror, basic human rights and liberties are still baffled around the world as a not so uncommon occurrence. Many regimes still get the shivers at the mere utterance of the word "democracy".

I myself have often criticized the imperfections of our political system, the inefficiency of certain institutions. But it is not the institutions of the state that are guilty, but the manner in which we make them work, the manner in which many think they should utilize them for the achievement of their own interests.

We have the permanent duty to react, using all the political and institutional tools at our disposal, for combating the expression of intolerance and discrimination, in any form. We have the democratic obligation to act so that every citizen feels that he is protected by law therefore having the proof of the solidarity of his fellow citizens. Democracy is the only political regime where diversity can truly be respected, for the common benefit.

The education has the main vocation of conveying, through moral and pedagogic instruments, a message of accountability for the lessons of the past, and knowing the history, the traditions and the culture of the ethnic groups living in our country is the first step towards a progress in good understanding and cohabitation.

Imported from the USSR, the communist ideology justified the assault against civil society, against political and economic pluralism; it justified the annihilation of the democratic parties, the destruction of the free market, extermination by assassination, deportations, forced labor, and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of people. Behind the mask of "socialist humanism" lay concealed the most profound contempt for human beings as individuals.