Leaving from JFK to Europe less than a month ago, there seemed to be as many or more police/customs/security officers in the airport as there were passengers. There were even officers in the bathrooms watching me pee. What the hell?!?! The land of freedom?!?! And we’re going to export that to Iraq, North Korea, Cuba or anywhere else we think people need democracy?

I mean really: can anyone say that the US has NOT become a militaristic facist state on the verge of some cataclysmic military/political disaster, either externally or internally?

Whatever…

Since my arrival in Europe, including Romania, I haven’t once been hassled by police, and have largely been ignored by any and all officers of the law, the way it should be. I mean: shouldn’t a law-abiding citizen be free from the same stresses that criminals face when encountering police?

(Oh yeah. There was that one time in the Bihor courthouse where an officer got miffed because I was taking pictures inside the building without a permit. But after he watched me erasing the relevant pics from my digital camera, everything was fine. He didn’t even have to pull out his taser.)

Here you are: Bănel “Jardel” Nicoliţă.

I’m not sure where the Scots get off arresting people over that kind of curry when they adore haggis. ;-)

At least it wasn’t curry.

I’d agree with your description of unlikely to pay attention to you. Oh, they might look a little, but it’s no more than the average pedestrian might do when encountering an obvious foreigner. Amazingly, I actually saw police here last night. Sure, they had driven a couple squad cars over, but they were braving the city streets, out amongst the riff-raff, on foot and seeming to guard the favorite corner of our pesky golani (who were, of course, thus nowhere to be seen).

Goddess be praised.

Csiki – It does seem a little odd that there’s such an imbalance of police ethnicity both in general and in specific communities where the composition is at odds with the make-up of law enforcement.

To head ideas off at the pass, I would not be in favor of mandating the police force mirror the precise demographics of a given jurisdiction. It would be a step in the right direction to voluntarily diversify the police force by introducing great numbers of ethnic minorities and, yes, probably assign more heavily weight that in areas with a greater number of minority residents. Lest I forget, I’d also like to see a bit of the opposite — make some modicum of effort to place ethnic minorities in “all Romanian” jurisdictions under an equal opportunity schema. If the communists could force people to get along, then…

I am familiar with one anecdote from the general Cluj vicinity where a high concentration of ethnic-Magyar are clustered and the police force is exclusively Romanian. In that case, it seems the youth suffered what I would certainly describe as discrimination and harassment, although it must be said the Hungarian population merely saw it as a little sandpaper of the generic “people versus police” variety. It was a surprise to me they didn’t interpret race as a factor when I definitely did.

Bogdan – That sounds like a wise policy. I do hope some consideration is given to the notion of pairing up cop partners of different ethnicities (e.g., Roma with Romania, Roma with Hungarian) as I see some benefits if blurring some of the ethnic distinctions in situations where one has no cause to separate unnecessarily. Translation: I think it would be bad if “only Roma” policed Roma neighborhoods just as I think it would be bad if Roma officers were practically sidelined from patrolling Romanian neighborhoods.

In the meantime, I, for one, look forward to entertaining myself with the hysterical indignity outbursting when Steaua gets its’ inevitable first Roma star…

They’ve always been very nice to me when I’ve been going through my various residency requirements (which, for whatever reason, seems to be police business here)

1994-1996: Likely to stop you and ask you for your I.D. when you stumble home under varying degrees of inebriation at 1 – 4 AM. In fact, two of them had fun stopping me in the 500 feet between my friend’s apartment and my block at 1 in the morning while carrying a big pot of soup made by his friend. Naturally, I was nervous because I didn’t yet know at that time what they did or did not do in the absence of spectators with slightly inebriated foreigners, let alone ones carting food items in the pitch dark. So I got the 2nd degree for about 10 minutes as to what I was doing in Romania and in my neighborhood. :-7

1997-2000: Likely to give you a prolonged stare, 10% chance of asking you for an I.D.

2002-present: Unlikely to even pay attention to you unless you walk by their neighborhood station during their donut break like I do. Even then, they don’t stop me…

The $64,000 question, though, is whether they’re finally getting off their duffs to do something about the neigborhood găşti of golani. Used to be you didn’t bother to call the cops about any golani, or anyone else trying to rip you off. Neighborhood security? What is this strange moon language you speak?

Which reminds me. Don’t ever, ever, ever do business with a (half-?) Armenian-Romanian asshole named “Bobi,” owner of “Acasa 2000″ out in Sector 6. That thug still owes me $150 after I came back to tell him his garsoniera was way below acceptable for me to rent it. Went so far as to threaten to cut my throat if I gave him any more crap about getting the money back, and dared me to call the Financial Police. (In retrospect, I should have…)

But, on balance, the soup was pretty damn good. :-)