Anthropologist Claude Karnoouh, a specialist in human sciences (philosophy, social anthropology, sociology and linguistics), and also the owner of a degree in physics and chemistry, came to Romania in 1971, in 1973 conducting ethnographic research in Maramures.He lectured at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj and at the University of Bucharest and he is the author of several works on Romania. In a dialogue with the Cotidianul daily, Claude Karnoouth drew a cruel radiography of the latest 20 years Romania.
The sins of the Romanian capitalism are the sins of capitalism in general, representing a single Weltanschauung: the profit, says Karnoouh. Nevertheless, the specific of the Romanian capitalism is the following: citizens benefit of no legislative protection. The laws do exist, but their validity has no chance against the mass corruption. And I am not the only one saying this, the EU is saying it too.
‘In the case of Romania, it seems to me that the elites have always thought they were being more clever than the people. After all, they were blinded by their own immediate interest’, Karnoouh said, also adding: ‘Why should the Western countries get involved, when the Eastern countries, the ‘former communist countries’, have behaved so nicely, the same as very loyal servants do, without protesting too much? […] Paying properly a few well-trained elites, as some circus dogs […] everything looked exactly like the West wanted it to look’.
