Well I don’t know if Kyiv is going to fall tomorrow, but it is obvious there is a lack of…
Orbán’s Minority Policy: From one Ghetto into Another
Segregation was “eradicated” in Nyíregyháza by moving Roma from one ghetto into another with EU funding.
The European Commission withdrew more than 1.7 billion Forint of EU funds, because the social urban rehabilitation project of the Nyíregyháza in Northern Hungary would have eliminated segregation by moving people from one segregated settlement, mainly inhabited by Roma, to another, discovered 444 ►HU.
The municipality won the grant in 2017 for moving families living in poor housing conditions from a segregation called Keleti telep, for a total of officially 204 residents, probably more, since likely not everybody was correctly registered with the authorities.
In order for families moving from the Keleti telep away, the municipality renovated apartments in a part of the city called Huszár telep. According to the municipality, 49 families have moved to the Hussar settlement, but local civil organisations know more than 60 families. The problem is that the Hussar settlement is considered a segregated area in the “city’s strategic document” ►HU. This was even described in the tender’s summary as “a physically segregated by a railway line separating from the city’s main areas”. Additionally here operates a church school, whose segregation initiated an EU infringement procedure against Hungary in 2016 ►EN. This is most important because many children who went to state schools of mixed composition before moving out and had now to go the a Roma majority school in the Huszár telep. The formerly used free school bus to the city’s centre schools is now no longer offered to the inhabitants.
László Glonczi, vice-president of the local Roma self-government and president of the national association of disadvantaged families, filed a complaint with the EU commission, which found that the use of the subsidy was allocated at segregated in the residential and educational levels, contrary to the support goals and the EU core value.
The European Commission has asked the Hungarian authorities and the municipality to remedy the problem. The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights has also initiated proceedings in Nyíregyháza, which is still ongoing. László Glonczi sees the current decision of the board as setting a precedent in similar cases.
Obviously the European Commission’s current decision has to be seen as a precedent for Hungary and the entire region, that the use of EU funds for Roma integration mustn’t be used for segregation instead, which is in Nyíregyháza likely not just an isolated case.
Voila, the “Council of Judges” (OBT) has already submitted to Orban's "reorganization" by the afternoon. https://obt-jud.hu/sites/default/files/ulesek/Osszefoglalo_2024.11.20.pdf
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Current US situation: https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/commercial-backyard-flocks
Unfortunately “minority policy” doesn’t have a very good track record in Hungary and is probably not a very popular issue even among Opposition-leaning voters. For politicians of all parties there are more votes to be won through short-term “divide and rule” measures than a well thought-out, long-term development strategy aimed at integration of all communities, which in any case is difficult to achieve…
I think it’s very good that the topic of Roma is also on the table, I missed that a bit with Eva. Finally, the poor Hungarians do not share the segregation, it affects only Roma. A sign that the racism in Hungary is very deep.
The Kallia Report of 2012 describes very precisely how the oppression of the Roma is carried out by the state and its citizens. A summary for those who are interested. The EU, to which numerous complaints were submitted, responded to the Kallia report … as usual.
Really this story on National Public Radio in the USA https://www.npr.org/2022/01/05/1070471242/young-roma-writers-find-inspiration-in-amanda-gormans-poetry is relevant to today’s topic and is very interesting. The Roma translator featured in this radio story is named Rozalia Galambica and because most US citizens, even the most progressive, know little or nothing about the situation of Roma in Hungary and in Central Europe the story devotes a good amount to explaining the situation of the Roma to it’s listeners. For example this passage “The Roma are one of Europe’s largest ethnic minorities and its most marginalized. They were known for years as gypsies, a term Galambica says is loaded with the racism she faced growing up in Hungary.”
Of course just the name gypsy is as Rozalia Galambica indicates is problematic and loaded with racism. This discussion of the etymology the word gypsy https://www.etymonline.com/word/Gypsy is interesting in that it comes to Hungarian from Old English word Egiptisc. Meaning “the language of Egypt” is from 1550s, although one of my Hungarian dictionaries states the word is brought into Hungarian from French use of bohemién. The French used bohemién since 15c. to also mean “Gypsy.” The Roma were wrongly believed to have come from there, perhaps because their first appearance in Western Europe may have been immediately from Bohemia, or because they were confused with the 15c. Bohemian Hussite heretics, who were driven from their country about that time to also mean “Gypsy.” The Hungarian “gipsy” is just the use of the English word. My grandfather used “cigány” when discussing Roma, but also vagrants here in Chicago as I recall. Eva was very insistent in several posts that the Roma in Hungary called themselves gypsies.
I actually never challenged Eva on that because her knowledge of Hungary was simply light years ahead of my own, also because in the my Hungarian language instruction which was part of my Catholic upbringing we were taught to use the word “gipsy.” All I can say now is when you look at the most commonly used on line English to Roma dictionaries this will come up for the word “gypsy”: “(pejorative, offensive) Of or having the qualities of an itinerant person or group with qualities traditionally ascribed to Romani people, including suspected of making a living from dishonest practices or theft etc.”
During my visits to Hungary over the years I have been stunned by Roma ghettos all over Hungary. Eva did do many good posts on that reality. Honestly, I should not have been stunned at all by seeing those ghettos because I saw similar things in the rural South of the USA still in the early 1970s where many of these African American settlements were just off of state highways more often than not without indoor plumbing. Indeed just a few years ago in Louisiana I saw a slightly more modernized rural African American ghettos composed of aging trailers that at least did have indoor plumbing, but some poor whites were honestly not living any better.
This is one of Eva’s better articles on the situation of the Roma in rural Hungary https://hungarianspectrum.org/2010/02/01/the-roma-gypsy-situation-is-the-gravest-social-problem-today-in-hungary/. As was her practice she almost always felt entitled to use the name gypsy. Which I do not think Rozalia Galambica would be willing to grant her. But if she read many of the Eva’s articles on the Roma she would recognize her deep concern for their ghettoization.
In the essay linked to Eva made a comparison to the situation of African Americans in the USA placed in public housing ghettos. It was in my opinion a very valid comparison.
Eva’s friend David Baer has a very interesting translated interview posted with Zoltán Fleck who was appointed by Péter Márki-Zay, the leader of Hungary’s democratic opposition, to head up a working group tasked with examining constitutional questions. It can be read at https://hdavidbaer.com/2022/01/05/interview-with-zoltan-fleck-chair-of-peter-marki-zays-constitutional-working-group/.
Istvan good that you bring it up, I have already read a few disputes about the use of Roma Sinti or Gypsy. I for myself don’t find gypsy negative it has also something romantic that’s why I use Roma. Basically in this case we are talking about Hungarians who have been living here for a few hundred years. When you talk about poor Hungarians a disproportionate share is also Roma. A sure sign of a pecking order along ethnic lines.
Allow me to pick only 2 details.
Don, telling that most Roma are poor, are suffering under discrimination, and way to many are segregated is such a commonly known fact that it doesn’t make an article without going into some additional details. That the Orbán regime or here a local FIDESZ government, so proud of its “Roma strategy,” abuses EU funds for a combination of renovations of public owned properties and even stricter segregation is of course reason for writing a post. Somehow it is even good, if the weakest part of the Hungarian society is not in the news, because it is in nearly all cases bad news for them, making their general living circumstances even worse. And Éva definitely did not avoid writing about a topic with Roma involved when she found the topic interesting enough. I understood in the past that you wanted to push the topic once in a while. I think we both live in pretty comparable villages and don’t close our eyes against injustice. Where I regard something as relevant I will write about, regardless the colour of skin the involved persons.
And Istvan, the term Gypsy has in English (or the translations in German or Dutch, to lesser extent in French) another co-notation than cigány in Hungarian. In Hungarian it is used for self-description, from the minority self-government, to several parties, from a famous orchestra to people talking about themselves. My personal experience is when talking Hungarian that these people developed a fine sense, whether someone from outside their group is using the word Gypsy for description or for degradation. And although the majority of Hungarian Gypsies are Roma, not every Hungarian Gypsy is a Rom. There is more than a dozen peoples in this group, there is (mustn’t be) an official statistic about them in Hungary, but quite a number is here in the country as well. Makes the political correct term pretty complicated – and long. Why did I use in this post exclusively the expression Roma? Not just because of the co-notation in English, but also because the sources did so.
I see here no criticism of Eva only because my wish would have been to read a touch of mention … and yes I sometimes wanted to mention the absurdity when you walk around a post and the agitators change. A circumstance that has little understanding in conservative minds. I think Eva knew her readers very well and her concern was to shake them awake … while I already watch awake all the time.
Of course having been educated in the Hungarian language as a child in a Church program in Chicago in the late 1950s and very early 1960s I was led to believe the word “gipsy” was a Hungarian word, so completely oblivious was I. I do think at least here in the USA the Romani communities are attempting to purge the use of “gypsy,” except by members of their own community. This is similar to the use of the infamous “N-word” that is used within African American communities but if used by non-African Americans is actually legally now a problem.
In fact at the recent trial of the killers of Ahmaud Arbery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Ahmaud_Arbery) in the USA the fact that at least one of the white defendants used the N-word was evidence of racism by the defendant. The admission of an email into evidence using the N-word not in reference to Arbery, but as evidence of pre-existing racism. Of course in the US Army the use of the N-word by both whites and African Americans is a violation of the Indecent language provision of US military law and has been for many years.
So here in the USA this is a complex situation in terms of language especially in the context of politically correct language.