Ears, too many of them, catching any accidental voicing of free thought, the tragicomedy of spraying trees with green paint during the Leader's visits... The deadly denial of the existence of serious "imperialist" diseases, three hours of TV broadcasts per day, food rationing, power cuts... Then, the Romanian Revolution of 1989 - the swapping of communism with democracy, stability with chaos, external threats with internal tensions, power with corruption, religion with greed... and one dread with many new fears.
It is a personal journey of someone, who was a Transylvanian-born child of Hungarian minority during Ceausescu's dark 1970s, a teenager during the suffocating Romanian '80s, a student during the surreal '90s, and an emigrant during the more recent decades.
His journey from a world that Kafka imagined, but Ceausescu created, to a society that is still fighting with its numerous ghosts reveals parallels between facets of a totalitarian society of the past and those of a rapidly Westernised society.
The post-Revolution Romania is still struggling with the regime's echoes, with numerous paradigm shifts, and with a vast corruption that has permeated every aspect of daily life.
Having completed his PhD in the United Kingdom, the author has also had the opportunity to experience and meditate on the tectonic shifts in British politics - and on their surprising social side effects.
The powers of the author's former homeland had tried to police every sentence and every action, in an attempt to protect the system against a faceless and ubiquitous enemy, via measures that violated fundamental human rights on a daily basis. His adopted home, too has obsessed about a very different enemy, and has used many electronic ears and eyes in the name of creating a safer society.
A brand new culture of fear has led to poster campaigns in the UK that used to ask people to report on suspicious activities. It has also led to casual arrests of amateur photographers and to anti-terrorism measures that were deemed illegal by the European Court of Human Rights. These events and socio-political transformations reveal surprising parallels between two very different societies and political systems.
There is also special attention given to the realities of ethnic minorities during the Ceausescu regime and the detrimental transformations that the minority communities, their political representation, and even their outlook have gone through in the post-Revolution period.
This second, extensively revised, edition contains numerous updates that take the reader through the changes witnessed in both societies since the book's first publication in 2008, now including the period leading up to the 25th anniversary year of the Romanian anti-communist Revolution.
