We have elections these days in Romania. The country has turned completely upside-down, that’s my feeling. Politicians and journalists alike have lost their sense of humanity.

Accusations, lies, blunt lies, shameless lies, vulgarity, obscenity, hate speech. All for the sake of winning the power to control public money. That’s what money turns us into, or strives to turns us into: gremlins. Ugly little gremlins.

But maybe it’s not just us, not just this country; maybe it’s the whole world. The whole world’s political system has turned into an endless carnival, as professor Arpad Szakolczai put it, and it’s just now that it became conspicuous.

I was talking with George Jiglau about what happens now in Hungary, with Viktor Orban’s new policies and abandonment of the post-1989 ideals of pursuing the values of Western democracy. ‘Many people in Hungary have a feeling of urgency that they should leave the country, that something bad is on the way,’ he said. There is this feeling in Romania, too, though perhaps not as poignant as in Hungary.

Something bad is on its way, but not only here; it’s erywhere. Is the West still the lighthouse of ‘civilisation’ and ‘democracy’? Look at the UK or France, with UKIP and Ms Le Pen’s party winning the elections for the European Parliament in 2014. Racism and xenophobia rules, dominates their public discourse and motivates their life-plans.

That’s so sad for you, West! No wonder many now turn their faces away from you. How can you expect the small nations to follow your values when you’ve squashed them yourself with your arrogance?