Thursday, August 16, 2007

Strandja seems to be safe, for now

(This post is about old news, as often happens in blogs that are updated not when it is due but when the author has the opportunity to write.)
Strandja mountain which was about to be stripped of its protected status by an investor eager to build (http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2007/07/strandja-mountain-in-danger.html) seems to be out of immediate danger, at least for now. After continuing protests, the National Assembly (Bulgarian Parliament) hastily changed the law, so that acts establishing protected territories now cannot be appealed in court.
This law is an emergency measure and isn't a perfect piece of legislature. Worse, it cannot protect the Kamchia river which had already been removed from the list of protected territories. If the National Assembly decides to do something about Kamchia, it must be by a separate act. It can be voted no sooner than September (the Assembly is now in summer vacation) and surely much will be already built around the river by this time.
Still, things around Strandja developed better than I expected.
The Strandja protests allowed me to find a number of interesting Bulgarian blogs. I have put links to the ones I like most (unfortunately for the non-Bulgarian reader, they are all in Bulgarian, excluding the short English version of the Optimiced blog). I started blogging after the Danish cartoon story last year, inspired by other blogs covering the events. So it was natural for my blogroll to contain mostly Arab blogs. Every time when something important was happening in the Bulgarian political life (e.g. elections), I was searching for good Bulgarian blogs. Now at last I have found some. I am glad that many of them are conservationist - a favourite old cause of mine.
Now, let me translate parts of Michel Bozgounov's July 21 post(http://www.optimiced.com/bg/2007/07/21/feeling-tired/) to satisfy my incurably pessimistic nature. Michel is the blogger who was "cautioned" by police for supporting the Strandja protests (http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2007/07/bulgarian-police-intimidating-blogger.html).

Feeling Tired
I haven't blogged for quite a while.
The reason is: feeling tired. I've even lost some weight. I feel strained. I don't sleep well.
The events of the last few days confronted me suddenly so I couldn't even say "Oh!". I haven't yet even read everything posted in the Web about the recent incident with me...
A rally was held to defend not only Bulgarian nature but also freedom of speech. It was said to have been attended by many people. True, I saw photos :). But I was hiding home. I somewhat didn't feel like it. Perhaps due to exhaustion. I haven't slept normally for - I don't know, possibly 5 or 6 days...
I've learned from Capital newspaper that my case isn't at the police anymore but at the Sofia District Prosecution. So, we are waiting now. I have no wish to write about it...
I understand the law and still, when I saw the prints of my blog posts at the police department, I felt wronged. Now, a week later, I am feeling just tired...
I heard that Strandja will remain a protected territory, after all. This is good, isn't it. So we won and our efforts as citizens were not in vain? :-) Then, why am I feeling so down-hearted now... I don't know.
A little sleep would be good for me. Or at least it's worth trying.
Yours sincerely, Michel

I understand Michel very well. In my already not too short life, I have had many causes, all noble (at least I've thought so), most lost. And even in the few cases when things turned out as I wanted, it was after so much efforts that at the end I was unable even to celebrate. I just sat quietly in some corner and asked myself whether the result was worth the efforts, whether anything in life was worth... anything.

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