The Fable of the Shepherd, the Wolves, and Our Flatbread Once upon a time, as in the tales told by the fireside, there was a great and beautiful sheepfold named Romania. The sheep of the fold, gentle and hardworking, lived as best they could, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but at least they knew the fold was theirs. At the head of the community in the Capital of the fold, there was a shepherd named Nicușor. A quiet shepherd, who would measure ten times and cut once, or sometimes not at all. And as the time approached when his shepherd's crook had to be handed over or renewed for another five years, a piece of news thundered throughout the fold, so loud that even the lambs began to gambol: "Baaaaa!" cried a television station, disguised as a fat ram. "The Great and Rich Dominion from the West is sending us 65 billion gold coins! Real gold, no joke!" The sheep stopped grazing. 65 billion? You’d think that by tomorrow the pastures would be made of emerald and the springs would flow with milk. But the lame lamb, who stood off to the side, bleated softly: "But... why right now? Just when we have to choose our shepherd again? Isn't this a trick? Are we to understand that if we want the gold coins, we have to keep Nicușor to guard the flock?" The fat ram from the TV pretended not to hear and continued to bleat about the bright future. But the trick had an even deeper layer, like a fox's den with two exits. The word crept to the ears of the sheep: The Great Dominion had set a condition. These many gold coins were not for buying what the fold needed from its own craftsmen. No! All the fences, all the pens, and all the new troughs had to be made by only two packs of wolves: one from Germany and one from France. In other words, the gold coins barely even reached the fold. They just traveled on paper. The Dominion would theoretically send them to the shepherd, and the shepherd would send them directly into the mouths of the wolves from the West. The wolves licked their chops with joy, and the sheep were left only with the noise of the hammers and the debt. And now, listen to the part that beggars all belief! From a special pouch, filled with a billion gold coins, the Dominion gave a clear command: "This money is set aside! With it, you have the duty to bring and keep in your fold other flocks, of sheep and goats with darker wool, come from the hot plains of Africa and of Asia. You must give them shelter, food, and integrate them." The sheep looked at one another, perplexed. You understand, don't you? And so an old ewe, with gray wool, stood and thought with a heavy heart: "This whole affair is as if I were to make my own flatbread in my own yard. I knead it with my own hands, from my own flour, I bake it on my own hearth. It's good, it's tasty, it costs me next to nothing, and I know what I put in it. I am the master of my own bread! And the Dominion comes and tells me: 'Old woman, from this day on, you are forbidden to eat your flatbread! You are obliged to renounce this independence of yours and this good taste. In exchange, I order you to buy, at a price 20 times higher, a dry and tasteless bread from the wolf pack. Why? Because we say so! Goodbye, independence!'" And looking into the distance, towards the West from where the commands and the wolves came, the ewe sighed. These decisions no longer felt like help, but like sabotage at the highest level. A slow betrayal, one in which your head is not taken, but only your soul and the freedom to bake your own flatbread. And the flock remained silent and swallowed hard, in a typical Mioritic resignation, as if this was its fate.
