Maracz: Hungarian Revival

Rumanians are quite different from those of Hungarian politicians who simply seek spiritual 'reunity', like Jozsef Antall in 1990 the first democratically elected prime minister who said that "in spirit he felt like a prime minister for all the fifteen million Hungarians everywhere in the world." It was not only the Rumanian politicians that were lobbying for the recovery of South Bessarabia and North Bukovina, but also Rumanian religious leaders. The head of the Rumanian Orthodox Church, the patriarch Teocrist, declared on 19th November 1991 that "the plea of the Rumanian people" in these areas, their "basic human rights" and the "right to be part of their native country" had been ignored.(165) In these cases, no further qualifications. This contrasted sharply, for example, with the label 'extreme nationalist' that was instantly given to the spiritual leader of Transylvania's Hungarians, bishop Tokes, as soon as he called for autonomy for his people.

Another strategy of the Trianon apologia, alongside of the strategy to perpetuate Hungarian/non-Hungarian asymmetries, is the neutralization of the Hungarian question of which there are many instances. I shall discuss here two particular examples of neutralization. The first relates to the fact that Hungary's neighbouring countries behave as though Hungary has or has had the same minority numbers as they have within their borders. The second example has to do with the fact that in an official respect the legitimate representatives of the Hungarian national communities are equated with extreme right organizations in neighbouring countries.

The issue of the number of Slovaks living in Hungary provides a good example of the first neutralization strategy. The former Slovak minister of Foreign Affairs, Milan Knazko, said the following when once interviewed: "I would be glad if this myth about the repression of our Hungarian minority could be banished. Slovakia is the only country where the Hungarian minority is increasing. After the First World War there were 400,000

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Hungarians left behind in Slovakia and in Hungary a similar number of Slovaks. At the moment, there are 560,000 Hungarians living in Slovakia, but Hungary has no more than 9,000 Slovaks. These statistics surely demonstrate what the policy towards minorities is like in the relevant countries."(166) As Slovaks in academic circles share this opinion it would seem that what Knazko said was not just something of the spur of the moment. Ladislav Deak who is affiliated to the Slovak Academy of Sciences wrote the following in his article entitled Die slowakische Minderheit in Ungarn von 1918 bis zur Gegenwart: "According to estimates around half a million Slovaks were left in Hungary making them, together with the Germans, the country's biggest national minority."167 The anti-Hungarian ploy underlying such assertions is obvious. First, the number of Slovaks left behind in Hungary after Trianon is inflated in relation to the number of Hungarians who, after the Great War, suddenly found themselves living in the First Czechoslovakian Republic against their will. The next conclusion to be drawn is that the number of Hungarians has remained more or less stable whereas the number of Slovaks has fallen 'spectacularly'. This can only imply that the policies employed by the Slovaks towards the Hungarians have been extremely humane while Hungarians have forced Slovaks to assimilate. The whole argument does not hold water, because the first assertion is not sound. The Slovaks are unable to produce a single document proving that hundreds of thousands of Slovaks were left behind in Hungary after Trianon. The most likely conclusion surely is that the Hungarians living in Slovakia constitute a resilient and closely-knit community which, after 75 years of state nationalistic oppression, is still intact.

The tactic of neutralization in order to control the Hungarian problem is not only used by Slovak Trianon apologists, but also by international political 'mediators' who readily fall back on this same method. In a letter sent by the High Commissioner for National Minorities of the OSCE, Max van der Stoel, to the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geza Jeszenszky, the High Commissioner made a problem of the Slovak minority living in Hungary.168 The High Commissioner's experts found out that

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Slovak language education had suffered at the hand of the assimilation policies enforced by former Hungarian administrations and that the Slovak cultural and linguistic identity had been significantly watered down in the assimilation process that had taken place after Slovak national consciousness had started to manifest itself more clearly during the course of the 19th century. This would in fact explain why Hungary's Slovak minority has such a poorly developed national identity. The High Commissioner's experts had also managed to unearth a number of representatives of Slovak organizations who had made it quite clear that they wanted to receive guarantees that Slovak culture and, in education, the Slovak language would be preserved.

By appealing to the Hungarian's 'sense of guilt' the High Commissioner argued for implementing a generous Hungarian law for national and ethnic minorities related to Hungary's Slovak minority. Van der Stoel put the following propositions to the Hungarian government: (1) the above-mentioned law would have to be explained better to minority groups, (2) the Hungarian government would have to see to it that the additional clauses needed to make the law on minorities acceptable be quickly passed through parliament, (3) the Hungarian government would have to adopt a generous financial policy, so that the laws for minorities could be successfully brought in and (4) the Hungarian government would have to give special attention to the status of the Slovak language in the Hungarian education system. If necessary, positive action should be taken to promote Slovak as a teaching language for Slovak pupils. It is especially this last point that is rather amazing, the suggestion that the Hungarian government should stimulate the use of Slovak. Surely it is rather so that a minority must apply to its own government for mother tongue education. Van der Stoel's 'recommendations' strongly create the impression that in Slovakia the Hungarian question must be neutralized by increasing the status of the Slovak minority in Hungary, if need be with the support of the Hungarian state. This was painfully illustrated in the reply of the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geza Jeszenszky.169 In his letter Jeszenszky mentioned that he had studied the history of Hungary's

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Slovak population in detail during his university career. He, furthermore, added that he knew of no possible legal or financial obstacles standing in the way of using Slovak as a language in which to teach. Professor Jeszenszky explained that Slovak organizations had voluntarily chosen to have a bi-lingual Hungarian/Slovak school. According to Jeszenszky the biggest opposition had come from Slovak parents who preferred to see that their children were taught German, English or French rather than Slovak. For years teachers had been doing their utmost to persuade Slovak parents to let their children be taught in Slovak. Apart from anything else such a move was financially attractive to the school. The government gives more than a 40% subsidy per child for pupils who receive education in minority languages.

Another example of neutralization was the 'Neptun scandal' that was directed by the American Project on Ethnic Relations (PER). Three top members of the RMDSZ: Gyorgy Tokay, Laszlo Borbely and Gyorgy Frunda met a number of times in 1993 with the Rumanian government for secret negotiations. Their meetings took place in the Swiss town of Gerzenzee and in the country residence of the former dictator Ceausescu at the resort of Neptun on the Black Sea. These secret negotiations had been convened by the PER without the RMDSZ presidium knowing about them. Once knowledge of the secret meetings had leaked out the chairman of the RMDSZ, Bela Marko declared that "negotiating on behalf of the RMDSZ might only take place, if permission was received from the chairman. These politicians had not been given such a mandate in Neptun."170 PER was supported in these activities by the American ambassador in Bucharest, John R. Davis, the man 'known' from the book written by David F. Funderburk, also a former US ambassador in Bucharest (1981-1985).171 Funderburk whose reports of the shameful acts of the Ceausescu regime were ignored by his own State Department noted that at that time Davis had been director of the Bureau for Eastern European Affairs and that he had been a supporter of the Conducator's regime (p.23). It would now seem that he had supported the secret negotiations for which the Hungarian participants had received no mandate from their own party.

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Bishop Tokes who was the first person to write about the PER scandal argued that these talks did not have the character of private discussions. From the press reports that came out towards the end of July 1993, it was obvious that those who participated in these talks regarded them as official. Traian Chebeleu, the official spokesman for president Iliescu, commented during one press conference that "during the talks solutions had begun to emerge".172 On 23rd July 1993, one Rumanian newspaper reported that a "Rumanian-Hungarian settlement" had been reached in Neptun. Tokes wondered what exactly had taken place during those meetings.173 What Tokes is certain about is that the three representatives had worked together for a long time with high representatives of the Rumanian government without the RMDSZ having knowledge of this. We, furthermore, know that this illustrious group was allowed to use the country house of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Gerzenzee and what was formerly Ceausescu's country residence in Neptun. The New York Times also gave its full support to the Neptun negotiations. The journalist David Binder wrote a positive article about the negotiations in that paper on 21st September 1993. The RMDSZ leadership tried to rectify the article, but the New York Times refused to publish any such amendments. Once knowledge of the secret negotiations in Neptun had leaked out John R. Davis, US ambassador in Bucharest, tried to convince representatives of the RMDSZ that it would be better to support PER's moderate line than to go for 'autonomy' and 'unrealistic demands'.

In his above-mentioned article Laszlo Tokes summarized the negative effects of the PER deliberations as follows:

Tokes first of all blamed the 'Neptun trio' and the PER delegates for being prepared to come to an agreement with the Rumanian authorities. The problem is that the Rumanian leaders do not seriously entertain the possibility of establishing a compromise. The Americans and the Neptun trio had absolutely no idea that in Byzantine culture the aim behind negotiating is often to trick the opposition into accepting agreement points only to later on flout them. Tokes rejected the pragmatism and political realism of the PER representatives, because the politics of taking little steps will

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not lead to a compromise, but rather to a naive form of capitulation. According to the bishop, this political approach has been taken only too often during the past decades and it has never led to anything productive. The only way forwards is through adopting a political approach based on internal self-determination for the Hungarian community.

In the second place, Tokes believes that the secret negotiations have deprived the RMDSZ of the opportunity to put pressure on the Rumanian government to take the Hungarian question seriously. The RMDSZ could have been recognized as a partner, because in the summer of 1993 Rumania was waiting to be admitted to the Council of Europe and was in line for being hailed 'the most favoured trading partner' of the US.

Finally, Tokes claims that Rumanian foreign politics is based on a method of institutionally and expertly misleading the Western world. For a long time, the Ceausescu regime relied on this well-tested method. In this way, the Rumanians were able to conceal their domestic problems and the way in which they were keeping down the Hungarians until the fall of Ceausescu. PER supported this politics of disinformation as well. In April 1993, the go-ahead was given to start up a propaganda campaign targeted at the West with the intention of creating a positive image of Rumania so that it would be accepted in the Western organizations. What also fitted into this campaign was the notion of creating an image of Rumania as a state that was prepared to reach compromises with the Hungarian community. From July 1993 onwards, the world was, therefore, bombarded with enthusiastic articles on the 'Neptun agreement' which the Rumanian government claimed to have settled with 'moderate' Hungarian minority representatives. For instance, AP and New York Times correspondents reported on 20th July 1993 that "Rumanians and the Hungarian minority have agreed on the steps that need to be taken to improve minority rights" and "Official representatives have agreed to the improving of rights for minorities". In Munich, George Stein reported on PER on 21st July 1993 stating: "Ethnic agreement places a small, hardly known group in the spotlights." Not only the American

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papers and the press agencies were involved in this whole propaganda campaign on the Neptun 'agreement' but also government representatives and the Neptun trio. It was Tokay who beat the lot when he proclaimed: "I shall tell my people that we are making constructive progress and that we have been able to prove that Rumania is no Yugoslavia." As far as Tokes is concerned, all three Neptun participants also contributed as private persons to losing respect and to destroying the RMDSZ's chances because of legitimizing the success of Rumanian fake politics that is diametrically opposed to Rumanian reality. One could easily fill many pages with such examples.

This fake agreement also boosted courage in international political circles. John R. Davis, US ambassador in Bucharest was very enthusiastic about Rumania when he said: "It is a fantastic country with a great future ahead of it."174 Asjborn Eide, member of the UN Human Rights Commission noted in his report to this commission by referring to 'positive developments in Rumania'. Most of what he knew was based on the Binder article.175 Max van der Stoel, High Commissioner for National Minorities declared that he was "satisfied with the progressive nature of the democratic efforts of the Rumanian government". The High Commissioner even said that he expected that "the Rumanian nationality question would be resolved within a year" and that he, therefore, found it "motivated" for Rumania to be accepted as a member of the Council of Europe. The PER collaborators were also satisfied. Livia B. Plaks claimed: "Rumania is one of the countries that is in a position to resolve the problems surrounding minorities."176

Finally, bishop Tokes noticed that while this positive Western image of Rumania was carefully being created by important Western press agencies, newspapers, the PER and by certain politicians of the Hungarian community and the RMDSZ at the same time a negative Hungarian image was built up. Tokes wonders why the Rumanian government did not negotiate with the legitimate RMDSZ representatives. Why had they never organized a Rumanian-Hungarian round table conference to resolve all the problems? According to him, the answers are simple. Rumanian

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nationalism is still not prepared to recognize the Hungarian question and, in connection with its 'national unitary state' doctrine it, therefore, pursues, where the Hungarian community is concerned, a politics of homogenization, assimilation and discrimination. With a degree of bitterness Tokes concludes that the whole PER shake-up has at least achieved that for the first time ever the Rumanian government has acknowledged the Hungarian problem.

This 'success formula' of PER's that was set out by George Stein was based on the doctrine that "ethnic tension is stirred up by militants who invariably do not represent the opinions of the majority", PER, furthermore, "sought out the moderate opposing party representatives and brought them into contact with each other". The implication here is that the Rumanian government representatives and the Neptun trio were viewed as 'moderates' while the legitimate Hungarian delegates who were looked upon as 'radicals' were rejected from the negotiating process.

In this way, Hungarian discussion partners were 'selected' by the Rumanian government and by outsiders while all the rest were regarded as 'extremist' and cast on one side. Thus, the RMDSZ was discarded as well as illustrated in many press articles of the time, here below are just a few such quotations from David Binder and John R. Davis. For instance, Binder wrote: "There is also an extremist element on the Hungarian side in the form of the RMDSZ that makes no secret of the fact that it wishes to see Transylvania reunited in the way that it was before the First World War."177 The ambassador to the US, John R. Davis, told the RMDSZ that they were to support the PER approach and he called up the RMDSZ leaders who "hold on to unrealistic demands" and who make "extreme comments" to "give up their radical points of view". He had "difficulty understanding the demands for autonomy" and warned that "no tension should be created that might lead to a Yugoslavia-like situation." The threats of the Hungarian 'radicals' were also taken seriously by Le Monde Diplomatique: "If they do not respect our rights then the radical wing of the Rumanian Hungarians might well resort to taking up arms."178 According to Tokes it is not difficult to see where this

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image of the "bloodthirsty" Hungarians comes from, namely from the Securitate and its successor organization, the SRI. The aim underlying this whole smear campaign was, to keep the West from offering help to the Hungarian community in Rumania, which was portrayed as being "rebellious", "destabilizing" and "poised to shed blood" so that the Hungarians would be seen in an unfavourable light in the eyes of the "civilized", "freedom-loving" world.

The PER affair perfectly illustrates how the tactics of neutralization work. The legitimate Hungarian representatives were labelled 'radicals' and compared to extreme nationalists and fascists. In the case of Transylvania, those were the Hungarian representatives who sought autonomy and on the Rumanian side the extremist parties like PUNR and Romania Mare. In Hungarian circles the political discussion partners selected were people who were prepared to go along and 'play the game'. Such politicians were depicted as 'moderates' and allowed to engage in official talks. In the PER affair they were the Neptun trio and delegates from the Iliescu administration. The overall effect was that the legitimate Hungarian representatives in Rumania were put on one side and official Rumanian politics were upgraded. The bogus negotiations are used to legitimate the anti-democratic and nationalistic regime as 'salonfahig' for the outside world and to sow the seeds of internal discontent among Hungarians. This kind of neutralization is also established by means of deliberate and co-ordinated press campaigns which, consciously or unconsciously, affects international politics. It is clear that the PER actions had the approval of a certain line within the State Department, probably the same faction that had embraced Ceausescu's politics in the eighties. Such neutralization scenarios are easy for other countries with big Hungarian minority communities to reconstruct. The aim of neutralizations is to paralyze the Hungarian struggle for emancipation and to maintain the status quo in Central Europe.

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Maracz: Hungarian Revival