The power of community - Lori Bertișan-Pop
“What do you take with you when you leave a city that has shaped you? Lori lived in Cluj for 10 years and there she learned what involvement, solidarity, and collective courage mean. Now, she is trying to plant the same seeds in the northeast of the country, in a place where the soil seems less fertile.
Keep on fighting the good fight
When I left Cluj almost three years ago, after ten years of living here, I never thought it would be so hard to say goodbye. But even less did I expect it to be so hard to recreate, in another place, what I have learned here.
In Cluj I got to learn, truly, how important a community is. What it means to have people around you who believe in the same things you do. People who dream, sometimes madly, of change. Who howl when there is injustice. Who stand up for the ideas they believe in. Here I've learned that energy spreads when we sit together and talk about education, about justice, about what needs to be done. That you're never alone when you say “it's not ok what's happening” - someone, somewhere is standing up with you.
When I came back home to Suceava, I took all these things with me. The meetings. The projects. The late-night dialogs on the Citadel. And most of all that simple but so rare feeling: that together we can.
I know your city isn't perfect. I know the fatigue is piling up. That sometimes it feels like you're pulling the wagon alone. That it's hard to be an active citizen in a context that moves slowly and often seems to ignore you. That the city lacks essential things that are part of our rights as people. That it's hard with day-care centers, traffic, green spaces. I don't deny all that and I don't minimize it. But Cluj has something that many other places lack: a culture of involvement. Of collective courage. The idea that change comes from small steps taken together.
I'm trying to put down roots in a place where there doesn't seem to be fertile soil - in the Northeast of the country. But you have something very valuable here, and with nerves, solidarity and a bit of stubbornness you can do wonderful things both for a Cluj closer to its people and for other parts of the country too.
That's the only way to build communities that don't slip into extremes. Only in this way can we keep alive the feeling that we are not alone.
A big thank you to our hosts at the Cinema Teatru Florin Piersic and the Hampton by Hilton Hotel. To the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation - Rule of Law Program South East Europe, our partners from Aqua Carpatica, the Cărturești bookstores where you can find the People of Justice bookshelf, and which you can also find in the foyer with a selection of books recommended by the people who have been on stage with their hearts out, our media partner TVR Cluj and my friend journalist Vasile Hotea Fernezan, to all those who made this evening happen and to you for being here.
You can support us on Substack or by buying our merch on Printado.
At the exit you can take a postcard to write us a thought after tonight. After the Eyedrops, we'll be waiting for you in the foyer for a glass of wine from Domeniile Sâmburești.
Keep on fighting the good fight!
