When in Rome, do as the Romans do, says an old saying. And when you want to live in the United Kingdom, respect the rules of the United Kingdom, would be the modern application after the monstrous scandal caused by a group of Romanian citizens (ethnicity doesn’t matter) in Leeds, where they attacked the police, overturned a police car, and seem to have been involved in setting a bus on fire.
Perhaps the reaction of British authorities was exaggerated to the suspicion that a child of a Romanian family was assaulted or mistreated. Perhaps, as the defenders of the family in question claim, there was no aggression against the minors.
I would maintain a dose of skepticism considering the Romanian parenting tradition, which includes all kinds of violence.
On one hand, we are horrified from time to time by news about children being assaulted in all ways, including sexually, about children being physically and psychologically mutilated by their own parents. But when authorities from other countries react quickly and harshly to minimal suspicions, a large part of the public opinion is on the side of parents suspected of violence.
But, again, it is possible that the British authorities were wrong in substance or at least in their course of action.
Errors cannot be fought and corrected with violence. And, above all, it must be understood that choosing to live in another country does not only involve advantages.
When you decide to live in a place that offers you significant opportunities, far beyond those in your home country, you assume not only the advantages of that place, but also its rules, some of which may not only be different from the laws in Romania, but outright contradictory to the mentality and culture of origin.
You cannot economically shelter yourself in a country trying to change its rules, to live equally in two countries, taking from each what suits you.
What happened in Leeds may also be the consequence of perceptions turned into labels and sometimes the source of discrimination against Romanian citizens, especially those of Roma origin. But this kind of reaction certainly does not help to change them, on the contrary.
On recordings, you can hear warlike shouts in Romanian, incitements to acts of vandalism and violence in Romanian. Just like Diana Șoșoacă's roars in the European Parliament, they are already all over the media, contributing to the consolidation of a "brand" that we cannot seem to shake off.
But this type of behavior has an explanation
Diana Șoșoacă did much more in the Romanian Senate than what she did in the European Parliament. But no one evicted her from the room in Romania, and no one sanctioned her. She always went all the way and managed to get 5% in the European elections.
"Let it remain in history! Let the masked police from Bucharest come because we'll take them down too," is heard as the crowd overturns the police car. Why? Because in Romania, the fight against street violence, against the clans, has long been lost by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Those people have gotten used to the inefficiency of institutions in Romania, which apply fines never paid, if they take bribes, which negotiate through churches with the mobsters to whom they provide SPP-type services.
Romanians take abroad not only Romanian customs but also the effects of the impotence of the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as the inefficiency of child protection institutions.