NOVEMBER 8 — We like to think that we live in a world which contains at least a semblance of order. A world that we can predict, analyse, understand and mould to our wishes.

Some of humanity’s greatest chroniclers have gone even further, claiming that the path of history is entirely predictable, even inevitable, if you know enough about what has gone before.

Perhaps foremost among these was Karl Marx, whose theory of dialectical materialism led him to believe that the processes of history would ensure the unavoidable overthrow of capitalism and the subsequent rise of communism.

Marx was wrong, however, in large part because society and human life are actually nowhere near as predictable as we like to think. Rather than x leading to y leading to z, the way the world really works is x leading to y but then the random and unexpected intervention of g and c suddenly sends everything in a completely different and entirely unanticipated direction.

Take the current example of Romania. One of Europe’s cultural and geographical outposts, it has been largely out of the global headlines for the last couple of decades since the removal and execution of the brutal dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who will be remembered as one of the communist era’s greatest villains.

Like many ex-members of the Soviet Union alliance, Romania has spent the last quarter of a century struggling to adjust to the new demands of a capitalist market economy with mixed success.

Overthrowing one system which didn’t work is relatively easy, but implementing another which does is far more complicated. One of the most serious obstacles commonly experienced by nations in that position is corruption, with selfish and ambitious egotists taking advantage of weak societal structures to further their personal wealth and power.

Romania’s embattled Prime Minister Victor Ponta addresses journalists as he gets out from the governmental coalition meeting at the Parliament Palace in Bucharest November 4, 2015. — AFP pic

This has happened in Romania with particular force in the last couple of years, with Prime Minister Victor Ponta abusing his privileges so brazenly that he has been formally charged with fraud, tax evasion and money laundering, and repeatedly called upon to resign by the country’s President, Klaus Iohannis.

Until now, though, Ponta has been confident enough of his power to ignore all calls for his departure, repeatedly blocking moves to tackle the endemic corruption which has been holding back the development of the Romanian economy — by many measures it was the second-worst performing economy in the European Union in 2014, ahead of only Bulgaria.

Last weekend, though, Ponta’s grip on power was finally loosened by a tragic accident: a fire in a nightclub in the capital city Bucharest, which was started by a rock band letting off fireworks, resulting in the death of 32 people.

The consequence has been a huge outpouring of national anger, with tens of thousands of Romanians taking to the streets on a nightly basis to state a simple message: enough is enough.

Even though he has survived months of political pressure, this is a battle that even Ponta realised he cannot win and on Wednesday he succumbed to the protests of his people by resigning.

On the face of it, the fire is only very indirectly connected to the corruption charges which have been levelled against Ponta. He was not, of course, personally responsible for the poor management of the facilities which allowed the fire to break out: that crime was committed by the nightclub owners, who have been arrested.

But it was an event — an unexpected and random event — which has served to suddenly derail everything that Ponta had fought to defend (chiefly, himself) by prompting a mass public outpouring of disapproval.

The general sentiment of many Romanian people is that their country is not working, and that change is needed.

The fact that the tipping point, the catalyst for the huge demonstrations and protests which have ended Ponta’s regime, was a fire in a nightclub could never have been predicted.

The fire did not happen, directly, at least, because Ponta was corrupt. But it appears to have been interpreted by Romanian people as a tragic indication of the failings of their government, which they believe has been more worried about serving the personal ambitions of its leaders rather than doing what it should be doing: allowing the country to function well and preventing tragedies like this one.

Nobody knows what will happen next in Romania. Hopefully, the fight against corruption will continue to be emboldened and eventually create a country where the leaders do their jobs properly instead of seeking to enrich themselves and their associates.

Similarly, nobody knows what would have happened in Romania if the fire hadn’t broken out. Maybe something else would have come along to send Ponta over the edge, but equally perhaps he would have survived, bribed his way out of the corruption allegations and taken the country further downhill.

We can surmise and analyse and theorise, but the truth is that nobody knows.

And it is the same everywhere in the world: our best laid plans can always be shattered in an instant by the intervention of a tipping point we could never have predicted, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

That’s just how the world works.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.