Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary

North Americans trying to understand the minority problems of Carpathian Europe may find the effort a little exasperating. Often. the cause of confusion is a six letter word: nation.

In North America the words state and country are interchangeable with the word nation, which the dictionary defines as: "an aggregation of people organized under a single government: a country."

The European concept of that word is different - and here lies the crux of the problem. To Europeans a single state or a country does not necessarily mean a single nation, and the political state should not be confused with an ethnic nation. These two are not always the same. Within a state or country there may live several ethnic nations or parts of ethnic nations. The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. for example, was composed of several nations, including Austrians. Hungarians. Croats. Slovaks and Czechs, and parts of ethnic nations such as the Poles, the Serbs and the Wallachians (Rumanians). These nations and ethnic groups, the latter being called nationalities or minorities, jealously guarded their own languages and ethnic heritages lest they be swallowed up by the dominant nation.

Previous chapters have described the worldwide clamor raised by the Slavs and Rumanians against the Magyars' assimilation policy which. they claimed, threatened their ethnic survival. But survive they did; ultimately they were able to carve out for themselves large provinces from historic Hungary through the Treaty of Trianon.

The dismemberment of Hungary was heralded as a triumph of self-determination for the peoples concerned, but the process itself actually violated the Wilsonian principles. No plebiscites were held and millions of Hungarians were torn away from their mother country to become minorities in the successor states against their will. The peace treaties following World War II just confirmed this anomalous condition, with the result that the Magyar ethnic nation now extends beyond the actual frontiers of the mother country in every direction. Thus, the Hungarians have practically become a nation without boundaries.

To mitigate this anomaly, the Treaty of Trianon contained a Covenant for the Protection of Minorities recognizing the inalienable right of the Magyar minorities to ethnic and cultural self-preservation. In other words, the fact that these Magyars had become citizens of another state did not require them to give up their language and thousand year-old Magyar heritage.

In Europe, and especially in Danubian Europe where frontiers of political states shift frequently, such ethnic self-preservation while in a minority status is an important prerequisite for the survival of the ethnic nation as a whole. Thus, should the four million Magyars living as minorities in the neighboring states become victims of assimilation, the loss would be a catastrophe for Hungary - equivalent of a family losing almost half its members.

And so, the word "minority" has one meaning in Europe, where it implies a forced status, and another in North America, where minorities usually result from voluntary immigration.

The immigrants who come to the New World from Europe and elsewhere do so with the purpose of becoming permanently integrated into the society of their adoptive country. After going through a transitional "minority" period during which members of the first generation may keep their language and national heritage, one, two or three generations later the inevitable happens: they become assimilated in the "melting pot."

However while assimilation in an adoptive country may be a natural and desirable development, it is a dreaded word among minorities in Europe rope. If assimilation is pushed too hard by the dominant nation, it may lead to cultural ethnocide and human tragedies on a large scale. Nowhere in the world today is the struggle for ethnic survival more intense than in the Carpathian Basin where Rumania is striving to assimilate millions of Magyars living in Transylvania. (See Appendix).

The extreme distress of an ethnic nation like the Magyars being subjected to forced assimilation can be illustrated with this imaginary scenario:

Following an already established trend, the

Hispanic population in the Southern United States increases to the point where the original American population becomes a minority.

There is a war with Cuba and Mexico joining forces against the United States. The United States loses, and becomes the victim of a peace treaty which gives Florida to Cuba and California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana to Mexico.

The millions of Americans living in these states are then declared by their new masters to be Mexicans and Cubans. With this, their forced assimilation into the Hispanic nation begins. Speaking English in public places is forbidden and English language education is gradually replaced by Spanish. All traces of American rule and culture are gradually erased, and those Americans still seeking to retain their ethnic heritage are silenced. Through a campaign to force their assimilation many of them are transferred to pure Hispanic hinterland to cut them off' from their roots.

While this scenario would never become reality in North America, something similar has been a bitter reality for millions of Hungarians since the dismemberment of their country in all four geographic directions.

Their cry may he muted, their adversaries more powerful, but their cause is no less valid. They are forced to live as second class citizens, deprived not only of human rights, but of their ethnic rights as well.

Still, they cling to the hope that someday, somehow, the day of deliverance will arrive, possibly through the influence of the United States.

But then, dreaming "impossible dreams" is a typically Magyar trail...

A Victory That Wasn't

The voters who elected the new, free parliament in the spring of 1990 did so in the expectation that the conservative, anti-Communist coalition government would vigorously carry out a true change, eliminating the communist influence from Hungarian politics and society. In addition, their utmost desire was to have the 22 billion dollars of foreign debt amassed by the Kádár regime eased from the taxpayers' shoulders.

The Antall government missed this historical chance. Instead of a complete change of regime, replacements were made only on higher levels, while former communists in the lower echelons were allowed to maintain positions of influence. First of all, the country's media networks - the most influential segment of Hungarian society - skillfully adapted to democratic rules and thus escaped a purge, while echoing the socialist-liberal line of the opposition parties. This was to give the government coalition a permanent political headache, if not worse.

Psychologically, the most upsetting omission by the government was its total failure to bring those who had committed crimes against humanity to justice. Even the chief of the dreaded former secret police (ÁVO), Gábor Péter, was allowed to remain free in his luxurious villa and draw a generous pension until his death.

The Antall regime's softness may have had its origin in a pre-election pact concluded in the fall of 1989 between the reform-seeking communist leadership still in power, and the emerging democratic opposition parties. The communists - in exchange for their assistance toward a peaceful transition to democracy - were assured that the country's constitution, written in the Kádár era, would remain unchanged. This enabled the communist hierarchy to wriggle out of legal responsibility for their former wrongdoings. A follow-up deal, concluded in May, 1990 by the victorious Democratic Forum and the Alliance of Free Democrats, the strongest opposition party, provided that major bills must have a two-thirds majority in the parliament. Since no such majority could have been formed without opposition votes, the opposition parties practically gained veto power over important legislation. Further, the president would be chosen by parliament from the Free Democrats' party, and not by popular election. This is how Árpád Göncz became Hungary's head of state.

Such concessions - rumored to have stemmed from international threats of credit withdrawal - practically pre-ordained the new government's doom in the long run. Exacerbating the situation, Antall's cabinet consisted mostly of former schoolmates and relatives from the academic world who lacked the political experience and dynamism necessary for carrying out the reform the voters mandated. Having an elitist background and attitude, they were also unable to establish close rapport with the common people, a shortcoming which was to cause a severe backlash in the next election.

The re-privatization of family properties and the transfer of state-owned companies into private hands proceeded slowly and unevenly, and some times corruptly, as officials sold them at bargain prices, often to foreign buyers, in "under the table" deals that allowed their managers to retain their positions, now under the cloak of capitalism. Such former communists, left in key positions in many places, hindered the government's progress not only economically, but also in the field of education. Four years after the collapse of the communist system, students were still using history books written in the era during which two entire generations had been brainwashed and "de-magyarized."

Agricultural production, always the most profitable branch of Hungary's economy, but now hindered by the snail's pace re-privatization of farmlands, sharply declined. All these contributed to the growing deficit and foreign debt. By 1994 Hungary owed 28 billion dollars, a situation somewhat ameliorated by the government's success in attracting foreign investment and building a currency reserve of 7.8 billion dollars. Nevertheless, the people saw unemployment rise to 13%, and inflation reach 24%. Three million people - almost one third of the country's population - lived under the poverty line, while the small minority of the super-rich flaunted the repugnant excesses of capitalism.

It is no wonder that Antall's government, in which neither industrial workers nor the peasantry were represented, gradually alienated itself from the people. It was also disinclined to build a meaningful relationship with the strongly anti-Communist Hungarians living in the Western world, those who always fervently worked to someday see their motherland free. But now they found themselves quasi politically "quarantined" by Budapest where, they felt, many former members of the communist nomenclature had found shelter in the Democratic Forum and in various ministries.

Still, Antall's coalition government could claim many positive achievements. First, in 1990 it was able to persuade Moscow to withdraw Soviet troops from Hungary. Then, it successfully established a democratic, multiparty system with Western-style freedoms, including the practice of religion. Long suppressed Christian and national values began to re-emerge in society, though without achieving significant influence in the present climate where the socialist-liberal media still predominate. Hungary's foreign policy, directed by Prime Minister Antall until his untimely death in November, 1993 succeeded in gaining many new friends in the world, which saw Hungary as an island of stability compared to her neighbors, Yugoslavia, Romania and Slovakia.

Three cornerstones underlay Antall's foreign policy: to join the European Union and NATO; to establish friendly relations with Hungary's neighbors; and most importantly, to help secure the ethnic survival of close to 4 million Magyars who live as suppressed minorities in the successor states. Although raking over old grievances such as the Treaty of Trianon and the fate of Hungarian minorities had been taboo themes in the Communist era, the Antall government held the Magyar minorities' fate closer to heart than perhaps any other problem facing the nation.

However, it was more the economic situation than any other problem in the Hungarian people's mind in the spring of 1994, when new elections were held. By that time Antall's successor, Péter Boross, had been at the helm for only eight months, not sufficient to make up for the failures of the Antall government, and to change the anti-Democratic Forum sentiment of the voters who were tired of broken promises and unfulfilled expectations.

The new elections produced a dramatic turnaround: the Socialist Workers Party, led by Gyula Horn, won an absolute majority of 54%; the Free Democrats came in second with 19%. The other parties of the former coalition were left far behind; the Hungarian Democratic Forum received only 9.8%, the Independent Smallholders 8%, and the Christian Democrats 5.7% of the votes. The parties of the far right, in habitual disarray, suffered a devastating defeat, without being able to win a single seat in the parliament. Thus, accusations trumpeted by the media abroad about anti-Semitic danger threatening the country from the right, have turned out utterly groundless.

Although the Socialists could have governed by themselves, they chose to form a coalition government with the Free Democrats, with the two parties having a two-third majority in parliament. Another reason Horn entered into this coalition was his desire to have the country's media, dominated by Free Democrats, in his new government's camp.

By the spring of 1995, almost a year after taking over the helm as prime minister, Gyula Horn and his cabinet hit rough seas. Perhaps it would have been easier to govern alone than with the Free Democrats, with whom the coalition had become tenuous. (Attempts to discredit the prime minister abroad in the media were attributed to intrigues by Free Democrats.) In addition, Horn's foreign policy became the target of sniping by the small parties of the opposition which accused the government of betraying Hungary's long term interests through "basic treaties" with her neighbors - a theme dealt with elsewhere in this book,

These problems were, however, dwarfed by the country's almost catastrophic foreign debt which in the spring of 1995 reached 30 billion US dollars, and an unbearable deficit, both inherited largely from the Kádár and Antall governments. It was a tragic paradox that the same party that had always professed to be the flagbearer of social welfare for the masses, on March 12, 1995, felt it imperative to order unprecedented cuts in social benefits that would hurt mostly the working classes. While the International Monetary Fund, a watchdog over Hungary's economy, applauded this draconian step, public opinion promptly branded its very date "Black Sunday." The people's optimistic attitude toward Horn's government plummeted, foreboding critical times for his coalition.

Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary