“Good Morning” – The Protester’s Manifesto

This post is a reprint and translation of an article by Georgi Deyanov that first appeared on Bulgarian journalist Ivo Indjev’s blog last year, in connection with the ecology protests of 2012. It is a precursor to my extensive analysis of the situation in Bulgaria and the current protests.

Good morning!

One generation woke up starved for civil life. These past few days it screams with lungs burning from painfully invading freedom.

We are unhappy because we’re under-slept. No, we cannot be drugged with inane Turkish soap operas. It’s inconvenient, but we do not think through the TV. The Internet provides infinitely more fitting content on request, our reporters are thousands and constantly transmitting on location. Your desire to meet and “reason” with our “organizers” makes us laugh.

Your worst nightmare has come true – the dragon of the majority is able to self-organize. Spontaneously, sporadically, rapidly, efficiently. Without the possibility of countermeasures.

Your mistake was to go for the forest.

The Bulgarian’s relationship with the forest and the mountain is close and magical. Forests and mountains have always been the last refuge of freedom. Our villages, plains and rivers have been conquered, but our forests – never. What do you expect from the beast of the disgruntled majority, placed in a deadlock? Survival instinct drove us out into the square. And this time it’s serious.

You tried to deceive us and to carve up our forests, but we did not allow it. We sunk our teeth ferociously into the bulk of the status quo and tore off a big fat piece of lies. We quickly developed a taste and a hunger for more. We’re raging intelligently.

Today we’ll save our forests from Tzeko Minev. But those like him, like Dancho Lazarov, like Chorbadji Neno have collectively occupied normality. We do not want to change one elite for another. It does not matter who rules, what is important is what the rules of the game are. Joyful, elated, we take a breath. We have no rebellious experience, but we carry the DNA of revolution makers. We live in interesting times, today’s battle is not in the forest over who will rule the square, but in the square about who will keep the forests. Today prevented the destruction of the forest. United we stopped the dissemination of another privilege. Tomorrow we will stop another attempt. The day after tomorrow we’ll take something away. The protest is a matter of principle. We shout against falsehood and dishonesty.

We refuse to believe in the boogeyman. Some vague evil, some pre-religious creature that stole normal life and is hiding it. We refuse to believe in Santa Claus, Big Brothers and other heroes who will gallantly save us from the problems. No, guys. This story sucks.

The battle is different and we are ready to start it. It is not against individuals, because they are secondary. The battle is against the system that produces Tzeko Minev’s. It relies exclusively on two pillars – privileges and monopolies. We are against the oligarchic elite standing above the law and to monopolize all sectors of the economy, politics and public life. We’re on the streets against non-transparent decision-making and allocation of pies behind curtains, at the table, at sunset or at ceremonial clubs. We are against any restriction of freedom of access to opportunities.

Privileges and monopolies fight against transparency and competition. Publicity and permanent intolerance to the transgression of the rules that we have all agreed to abide by. Rules that benefit as many people as possible, never a bunch of oligarchs at the expense of the majority. And we race, race, race. It is not true that the transition is completed. Prosperity and the rule of law were supposed to be waiting for us at the other end. Instead, we got a miserable reality, flattened by monopolies and privileges. The fight is only beginning.

It is now more complicated. The enemy is not easily recognized by his hat. Our parents did not understand. They were deceived by self-proclaimed shamans with good stage presence. The struggle aims to change the rules.

But we are the new players. Pragmatic. Adaptable, tough, smart. We survived and our time is here. We work, we do not expect handouts. We are energetic. Well-informed. Freedom-loving. We grew up in a troubled time without authorities on good or evil. Half-abandoned. You didn’t teach us how to work with computers, yet we are now among the best. You did not teach us how to be productive citizens in an open society, but do not doubt that in this too we will excel.

We are the children of the transition. Children who will adopt their parents and teach them. We are here, grown up, returning home. And we are prepared. We are lawyers – we know our rights when you arrest us. You can’t lie with us with new laws either, we can write our own laws. We are economists – we know that poverty is caused by the distortion of market competition by monopolies and cartels. We know how to fully allocate our resources to multiply and improve our organization.

We are empathetic – we understand that progress comes only in competitions where the best win, but we stretch out a safety net for those of us who stumble. We are responsible, we will not abandon them. We’re proficient with information technology – we use new platforms to exchange information, news, expertise, experience in a volume and speed that we don’t know if you can understand. We are programmers – we will create new platforms and environments for organization against your monopolies and privileges.

We are also entrepreneurs – we see where and what the people need and we are willing to give it to them. We create new needs. We are creative – we had to become so. We speak many languages, we​have learned from friends in other countries. We are athletes, we are ready to compete and we are convinced that the best should win in a fair and open race. We travel – we communicate actively, absorb best practices and bring them home. Too often you don’t allow us to apply them. But this too shall pass. We are cameramen and directors and we will make a catalog of your outrages. We are 200+ drummers. We are your doctors of tomorrow. We are dancers – we dance the dance of protest.

We are historians, artists, scientists, philosophers, detainees, advertisers, mathematicians, we are born of the mountain. People.

We are the grandchildren of The Lucky One, we are pure, our relationship with nature is important and significant. We are protesting because we know what needs to be changed and how. We are united and we are electrified with emotion, intoxicated by victory and we are sexy. Now we have another reason to wake up in the morning. And to smile.