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The Last Peasants
Challenging TV at its best?
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Cathleen Catt
9th Mar 03
Tonight's programme on the last peasants was a truly thought
provoking contribution to the debate on migration and made clear
the human decisions and illusions which have driven people since
time immemorial to seek a better life. I would like to see a
reverse operation - not the Englishman in Provence, but a couple/family
seeking to recover a rural idyll - in a country like Romania,
genuinely untouched by modern capitalism - or only very lightly.
We all try to realise our dreams and these take many forms.<
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Feargal
9th Mar 03
Anyone who reads and believes that asylum seekers are all nasty
terrorists should be forced to see this programme and note two
things. One using the generic term asylum seeker to class everyone
who comes into the country is wrong and we need to define the
difference between asylum seeker and economic migrant. Two that
we need to help and shelter all asylum seekers and we need to
give visas and protection from unscrupulous “middlemen”
to economic migrants, who wish to come for the purpose of work.
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Karen Davies
9th Mar 03
Congrats - a compellling story, beautifully shot, I was transfixed
for a whole hour. C4, please commission more of this type of
documentary, enough celebs and their vacous house hunts. This
is the real thing. Best wishes to all involved and thanks for
making it worth switching on my telly.
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Rhoda MacManus
9th Mar 03
It's probably too early in the series to give a definitive judgement.
But on the strength of the first programme, I am most impressed
and intend to catch the other two. I have visited the former
USSR and Lithuania prior to the end of the cold war. I recall
being frustrated by the way in which ordinary people believed
that the streets of the west were paved with gold. Very glossy
propaganda magazines had wide circulation there (printed in
Russian but published in the UK, USA and W.Germany)which gave
the impression that all of "us" lived like the English
royal family or president of the USA. But; to get back to your
series, I'm sure I'm not alone amongst your viewers when I am
left mystified as to why these people would give up such a beautiful
country and peaceful lifestyle and swap it for a lonely bedsitter
and a mobile phone.
When you think of it, the only items the two children considered
they needed were "a mobile phone and a mountain bike".
Would you consider those to be part of life's essentials?
Perhaps the next programme will delve into the precise financial
realities of their Romanian rural life. Because it would appear
that the only debts they have, were incurred by loans to pay
the mafia for false papers to get to the West, and not for general
living expenses in Romania. And finally, I hope that there will
also be some examination of what was lost by ordinary Romanian
people in the headlong rush to embrace the "free"
market economy.
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John Atkinson
9th Mar 03
I work for an organisation that welcomes asylum seekers. I explain
their rights and entitlements. I was not in a position to question
their journey to the UK, but appreciate the hardship and sacrifice
people make to escape poverty and oppressive regimes. Your programme,
'the last peasants', gave me a valuable and informative insight
into what people leave and hope to achieve. The gutter/tabloid
press have us believe that everyone who enters the UK to claim
asylum are just here to claim benefits and send the taxpayers'
money back to their country of origin. Would you really want
to leave your family behind in Countries like Afghanistan, Zimbabwe,
Somalia, Iraq Kurdistan etc, to end up in a Hotel next to Haydock
Racecourse? We need an intelligent and informative debate to
address the asylum issue which is potentially an election winning
issue. I would like to see more factual programmes with regards
to refugee and asylum issues on Channel 4.
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Julianna Lees
9th Mar 03
The film maker meant us to see that these Romanians are living
in an earthly paradise, surrounded by beautiful country and
wildlife which they do not appreciate. They are willing to risk
their marriages and even their lives to pursue their dream of
earning money and having an easier life. Meanwhile, on another
TV show - "A Place in the Sun" - rich Westerners are
thinking of snapping up the kind of farm these folk are trying
to flee, for only £4500! Instead of letting the Romanians
fall into the hands of the Mafia, cling to the undersides of
trains for 5 hours, etc., why not organise cultural exchanges,
houseswaps, etc.? The Westerners could pay their transport costs
and after a few weeks in the West the Romanians might decide
that they were happier at home. If not, they might find a way
of working in the West without being illegal. I write as a former
Hungarian, with Romanian relations. My English husband and I
are economic migrants from expensive English housing costs.
We live much better for less in France. Our youngest son lives
not far from here. He and his French girlfriend are probably
as poor as the Romanians in your film, but they are happy here,
having understood that money isn't everything, and there are
some things that money can't buy.
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Ruth Moor
9th Mar 03
Having lived in Romania for some 18 months, I was impressed
by how realistically your programme portrayed 'typical peasant
life'. As a follow up, I strongly suggest that you consider
a documentary on the work that Anneka Rice's charity 'The Romanian
Challenge Appeal' are doing with some of Romania's most disadvantaged
young people, in the remote and impoverished northeast of the
country, in Siret. They are working with the University of Newcastle
to teach the young people basic life skills and vocational training
in agriculture. They are also benefitting the local community
- helping them learn sustainable agriculture techniques, combining
traditional methods and modern best practice. We need to help
the Romanians to learn how to help themselves - and demonstrate
that actually, there are many of them who do want to stay in
their own country but lack of access to the opportunity to do
so is what forces many of them to leave. Sadly for the young
people who have been institutionalised all their lives, they
will never get the chance to make the decision to seek their
fortune elsewhere. Yet they are rising to the challenge of making
a new life for themselves in their own town
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Malcolm Turner
9th Mar 03
I write with the authority of someone who spent a year living
in a Northeastern Romanian village, and who married a girl from
that village and consequently have revisited Romania on numerous
occasions. With that authority I commend 'The Last Peasant'
broadcast on Channel 4 at 8pm last Sunday night. The programme
was true to its subject and concurred closely with my own observations
of why Romanians are desperate to seek a better life and why
they are prepared to take such enormous risks in the pursuit
of that goal. The understated and apolitical presentation allowed
the viewer to focus acutely on the plight of the individuals.
If nothing else it has caused a tabloid reading neighbour of
mine to moderate his attitudes to asylum seekers.
In the limited time the programme had, the core problems that
form the 'push factors' that drives a Romanian to leave his
wife and family and go from the only life he has ever known,
were highlighted succinctly. There are so many others that could
have been revealed and they are: -
The bucolic Romanians belief that all Western Europeans are
endlessly wealthy as evidenced by the lifestyles depicted in
soaps such as 'Dallas' and 'Howards Way'. An impression reinforced
when every foreigner they meet is dressed nicely, affords local
produce and services easily and probably drives a car of a type
better than can be afforded by high-ranking officials.
The belief that legal systems in Western Europe are better and
relatively free of corruption.
The belief that politics in Western Europe is better and relatively
free of corruption.
The belief that officialdom in Western Europe is better and
relatively free of corruption.
The belief that social benefits which in monetary terms exceed
the value of the average Romanian income, will enable the asylum
seeker not only to survive but also to thrive. So huge is the
gap between Western European and Romanian costs that it is beyond
their comprehension. They cannot understand how it is not possible
to subsist on a sum that exceeds not only a doctor's salary
but also their own monthly income by a factor of four.
The fact that most of those that have been successful in post
communist Romania and have established businesses or acquired
nice homes, have at some stage derived their wealth either from
a spell abroad or an association with a foreign enterprise.
The belief that Romanian industry is incapable of competing
in World markets so that job losses will continue unabated.
There is a general belief in Romania that anything produced
there such as the Dacia and Oltcit cars are inevitably faulty
and unreliable. For this reason it is easier to sell a twenty-year-old
Mercedes than it is to sell a two-year-old Dacia.
The belief that cultural differences are less great than they
are in actuality. A Romanian will greet and welcome a stranger
into his home. They cannot understand why it is not the same
in England.
The belief that the fall of communism has been of no benefit
to ordinary working people and that matters will only get worse.
The belief that in the Romanian economy as it is currently structured,
only those engaged in clandestine activities such as prostitution
and people smuggling can forge ahead.
All of the foregoing contribute in the Romanian psyche to a
deep sense of gloom and what it boils down to is that if surviving
is not an option at home then it worth any risk to try elsewhere.
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Cristian Romocea
9th Mar 03
What the producers of this programme have achieved with “The
Last Peasants” is a distortion of the social realities
inherent in Romania. The enterprise has potential in that it
depicts the difficulties of the rural life in the post-Communist,
post-macro-industrialized Romania, and what would be some of
the reasons why a number of peasants have left their ruined
villages to adventure in the West dreaming of rapid economic
advancement.
However, major questions arise from the very connection between
the story of the three peasant families and the topic of asylum
seeking. As the dialogue of the peasants actually indicates,
they are willing to: “… get there… no matter
how... in the end” not to seek to settle in Paris or Dublin
but to have access to the ‘enticing’ economic resources
which the West is able to supply. For that matter, they are
immigrants rather than asylum-seekers. In the last Saturday
edition of the Guardian (1 March, 2003), the Home Office charted
the number of asylum-seekers who have applied for asylum in
Britain between 2001 and 2002 and ranked them by nationality.
Romania does not even appear in those charts, because most Romanians
do not intend to remain in the West, but aim at making a fortune
and returning to a better life-style to their place of origin.
The headline may mean many things but in reality makes little
sense in the same way in which the grave pronouncement about
”the death of a [rural Romanian] culture … which
has survived two World Wars and half a century of communism,”
is an erroneous idea. Romanian rural life has been critically
deteriorated by a complexity of reasons and facts, among which
the idiotic ambitions of the Communist regime that led to Collectivization
and Urbanization Projects have been just one important factor.
For that matter, the Romanian village did not survive but was
kept on life-support until 1989. The presence of the horses
and carts is no big mystery, as during the 1970s Ceausescu forced
the Romanian peasants to use horses as cheaper means of transportation
and agricultural work, in an attempt to save as much oil as
possible in order to prevent the deficient industry from collapsing.
The proper Romanian village was long ago condemned to destruction,
and it will take severe social reforms to re-shape the deteriorated
face of the Romanian rural life.
As for the minority of emigrant Romanian peasants who abandon
their miserable life and attempt illegal entrance in Western
countries, one must understand they are seeking for an interim
solution. Moreover, from my own experience with a group of Romanian
immigrants (most of them hate the English weather) in London,
I found them more focused on getting good jobs, even though
illegal, than being a plight for a British society already riddled
by so much crime. Talking with the employers of these people,
one discovers that Romanian workers are sought on the “black
market” in London for their hard work, dedication, honesty
and trustworthiness. This is the kind of aspects the programmes
should emphasize, instead of cheaply dramatizing the struggles
of a minority of immigrants in the West who make a profit with
very hard work in order to provide an income for their families
back home.
In the end, while I commend the minimum concern that “The
Last Peasants” has for representing the human side of
the “faceless horde” which is formed by the immigrants
in the West, I wish the producers were sensible enough to be
able to see in these stories the reflection of their own ugly
faces, distorted by the possessive materialism and individualism
which the Western society truly celebrates.
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Raluca Danciu
9th Mar 03
I am Romanian.I am sending this comment to you, further to your
documentary ("The Last Peasants") about my country.
I am proud to say that I'm Romanian, some people might say that
I should be ashamed of what you have shown, but I AM NOT. I
am Romanian and again I say that I am very proud. We, Romanians,
were not so lucky to be born into a free country from the begining,
we had to strugle and fight a lot for a decent life under the
communism and after that the democracy left a lot of people
under the same situation,some even worse. I am proud to see
and for others to see that there are a lot of people still fighting
for a better life and that they are not giving up at all. They
would do anything to offer a better life to their children,
to their families, to theirselves. It was a pleasure to see
a documentary about Romanians but it hurt me a lot to see that
there are so many people still suffering, so many children living
without a secure future. We all have to suffer a lot to give
ourselves a better life, some of us abroad have families, children
left home, not having seen them for a long time. Fortunatelly,
I am legal here and even if I haven't seen my family who I love
very, very much, I'm surviving with the thought that I am going
to see them soon. Being legal, gives me the chance to go back,
see them and come back here safely. And I will see them soon.
Unfortunatelly, there are so many abroad, all over Europe, ilegally,
who have to survive and live without their beloved, just hearing
their voices over the phone from time to time. And all that
because we are Romanians. We are fighting, we are strugling
and we will survive. We will never give up. Someday we are all
going to have a better life, we are all going to be happier,
to smile together next to our loved ones. Thank you for giving
us the chance to see our beautiful country, thank you for reminding
us about our interesting culture. Thank you for showing this
documentary. I look forward to seing a lot more...
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