Introduction

Returning to Transilvania 5 years ago to establish the Ratiu Democracy Center in accordance with my late father Ion Ratiu's and my family's wishes, I have been taking a crash course in what it means to attempt to live democratically, ever since.

Although my father Ion Ratiu was passionately committed to democratic principles and behaviors in all his affairs, I have been a slow learner. In this blog I hope to formulate some of the lessons I am slowly learning in my own and my colleagues' attempts to live democratically within our own Transilvanian community and thereby engage in dialogue with all and anyone interested in such grass-roots democracy experiences.

My late father's favourite dictum was (paraphrasing Voltaire): "We have not begun to grasp what democracy is about until we become willing to fight to the last for our opponents' right to disagree with us" What an order! What about when our powerful opponent will not even let us speak?

So these and many other related issues are among the topics that I will be addressing here, based on our own direct experience of grass-roots democracy as we attempt to practice it in our daily affairs at the Ratiu Democracy Center...

You will not find anything theoretical here because by profession I am a management consultant and former journalist. But you will find a growing interest in the writings of political scientists and others as my colleagues and I strive to make sense of our day-to-day grass-roots experience of living democratically in an environment that is FAR from democratic.

And this where we hope you too will join in the discussion...