Referendum
Last Sunday, Hungary had a referendum to see if Hungary should extend citizenship to Hungarians living outside of Hungary. There was a poor turn-out but the end result was "no".
I was pretty interested in this referendum. Hungarians make up Romania's largest minority and in the north along the Hungarian border, are close to the majority. I knew a Romanian girl in high school, but come to find out, she was actually Hungarian. Romania also has a Hungarian political party to represent Hungarian interests in politics.
I've read that a Romanian mayor (from Cluj?) once threatened to paint all the lampposts in red, yellow and blue (Romania's national colours) and all the garbage cans and stray dogs orange, green and white (Hungary's national colours). I don't know how true this story is.
So ethnic Hungarians outside Hungary are now not eligible for Hungarian citizenship. Hungary lost something like 2/3 of its territory and the surrounding countries of Romania, Serbia, Croatia and the Ukraine have significant Hungarian minorities.
There are pros and cons to both decisions. Giving ethnic Hungarians citizenship would recognise those living abroad *as* Hungarians. As one voter who voted "yes" said, it was merely symbolic. However, were they given citizenship, Hungary, as a new EU member, could be flooded with immigrants from the poorer surrounding regions.
I discussed this with Adriana, another volunteer here at the Institute. We both agreed that citizenship is where you are born and lived. We know another volunteer who is ethnic Hungarian. He's lived his entire life in Romania and speaks Romanian as a first language, yet considers himself Hungarian before Romanian. His family became Romanian when Romania gained Hungarian territory after the first World War, 80 years ago.
Then there's that whole deal over whether he's a Romanian Hungarian or a Hungarian Romanian. There *is* a difference, even if I don't understand it.
But the Hungarians abroad, who go to Hungarian language schools and still maintain a traditional Hungarian lifestyle...I don't know. It's one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of decisions.
With Hungary, those who lived in lands which were surrendered to other countries had no choice over their new nationalities. However, that happened 80 years ago.
It's taken me all afternoon to write this post and I *still* can't reach a conclusion!
I hope I didn't offend you, Peter M., with this post. I'd be interested to know your views on it!
10 Comments:
Hi Karla!
I know that I'm not one of the people you made this post for, but I figured I'd say hi anyways :) And I have a question for you as I found your opinion on citizenship interesting...if you think that a persons' citizenship should be where they were born and raised, what should my citizenship be? I was born in Japan and have moved every 3 years or so, so that sort of leaves people like me homeless! :P Hope all is well and keep up with the posts, interesting stuff!:)
Mariko
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Karla: No, you did not offend, but the national colors of Hungary are red, white, and green.
My entire (well...a bit more than my immediate) family lived in Bratislava (Pozsony) and Kosice (Kassa) that were both once part of Hungary. To this day, my last remaining grandmother lives in Slovakia. She is as nationalistic as she ever was. She longs for the day Slovakia is once again part of Hungary, but we all know that that day will never come. So, I can understand both sides of the debate.
The fact that Hungary is now a member of the EU makes the matter a bit more complicated since Serbia, Romania, and Ukraine are not members of the EU, while countries with other sizable Hungarian populations (Slovenia, Austria, and Slovakia) are now members.
Additionally, Hungary has signed bilateral agreements with several of her neighbors to protect their ethnic minorities. These agreements would be jeopardized if the law would have been passed. Imagine if all of Hungary’s neighbors pass a similar law. Hungary recognized 13 official minorities; the political and societal chaos that would develop would be difficult to control.
I do favor the law for this reason: Ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries who feel themselves discriminated against in the areas of health care, social security, and education would be allowed to travel across the border into Hungary to receive those services for free without the belief (whether real or made up) of feeling like a second-class citizen. Those who say discrimination does not exist, is lying.
I think the referendum was sponsored by those with families in these neighboring countries and a strong lobby from these same neighboring countries Those who voted against it were probably those who don’t have such family members abroad and who are afraid that the influx of these “foreign” Hungarians will cause their current services to decline in quality and their taxes to rise to cover increased costs. There is a saying that those Hungarians who live abroad are TRUE Hungarians, as they know what it means to work hard at remaining true to Hungarian customs and traditions, while those who live in Hungary merely take advance of it.
So, in the end, although it is hard to admit, I agree that it would have been a bad idea for the law to pass. We don’t, or at least shouldn’t, live in a world where one nation can dictate the policies of another. That now is the role of diplomacy (bilateral, regional, and EU) and the judicial system (national and EU). Look at Germany and France...how long did they fight over their boundaries??
One day, when borders will no longer be given a second thought, this matter will be resolved. Laws and rights, and even borders, will have become uniform, and ethnicities will be hopefully recognized, protected, and treated with equality.
Until then, however, the debate continues.
http://www.fsz.bme.hu/hungary/history.html
Hungary as a state disappeared in 1526. Back then, Canadians and USA-ians were Spanish speakers. We seem to return to those days, but that's not the pint. Those frontiers were irrelevant.
Then Hungarians were part of some empires that moved the borders, some of those movements being made to make them calm down in their struglle for independence which never succeded.
In 1918 Hungary became independent, almost in its comtemporary borders.
See? No "Hungary lost this and that", because there was no real Hungary. Their territorial claim in 1940 supported by Hitler had no reason - in those areas were also catholic and protestant Germans. Were they lost from Austria or, for that matter, Switzerland?
Anyway this turnout of the referendum is in the interest of their socialist rulers (protecting their social security budget), our socialist rulers (who may use their votes again, those 6% needed for a majority), their nationalists (having some hungarian inhabitants here makes more cerdible their pledges for a bigger country) and our nationalists (which seem to be happy without a logical reason).
Lucisandor:
Yes, you are correct that the independent "Kingdom" of Hungary ended with the death of the last "Hungarian" King, but that alone does not mean Hungary does not have a valid claim to lands where millions of Hungarians reside. Look at the Slovaks, Czechs, Slovenes, Croats, ect. There is no connection, as you refer to it, between "State[hood]" and land. Look at present-day Palestine, East Timor, Eritrea, Sudan, and countless other examples. Hitler, I am sad to admit, was correct; he gave back the land to Hungary where the majority of the inhabitants were Hungarian.
Moreover, Romania only became independent in May 1877 when it proclaimed Independence from Ottoman Empire. The “Kingdom of Romania” only came into existence in March of 1881; so, your arguments are here nor there.
Oh, I can care less about parts of Romania that are not inhabited by Hungarians. I care only about Transylvania (and parts of the Banat), which was only incorporated into Romania on Jan. 11, 1919.
You also forget to mention, in your brief analysis, the “Austro-“Hungarian” Empire. This co-union was valid in the eyes of both Hungarians and Austrians. Look at any map from that era, Hungary is clearly defined. Romania? Not so much.
I recommend you read some unbiased, objective texts on this matter. I suggest you read about the Paris Peace Conference following WWI, and specifically, how the Romanian representatives behaved and the grand misrepresentation they made.
Your point? I haven't said Romania has more rights over Transylvania, but I pinpointed that we cannot draw conclusions from the imperial district borders or from the 15th century.
I've just googled for the internal divisions inside Austro-Hungarian Empire. You can see that in 1895 there were regions called Galicia or Arinthia, which AFAIK have no equivalent in today's world, that Slovakia was known as the Upper Hungary and that regions that formed Austria are today no longer parts of Austria (and I haven't heard of territorial claims from Austria nationalists).
http://www.iarelative.com/maps/ah_1895/
Please note that I haven't draw any conclusion from the Turkish or Brittish Empire map either.
Let's just hope Romania will join soon enough EU and regional authorities will get bigger powers. As a soon-to-be-American-citizen with a hungarian name I couldn't care less about moving the borders in favor of Hungary if I wasn't convinced that in a normal world this is an anachronism driven by low income and education.
I believe both Romanian and Hungarian nationalists, resembling Tutsi and Huttu, are day by day out of history.
Thanks for the interesting comments. I appreciate what all of you said, especially the "debate" between Peter and Luci.
As for you Mariko, good question! There are always exceptions to the rules! If you were born in Japan and lived your life like the Japanese, speaking Japanese as a first language, attending Japanese schools and being immersed in Japanese culture, then I would probably consider you being more Japanese than Canadian.
However, as you've grown up in "compounds" (for a lack of a better word), attended international schools and generally maintained as "Canadian" a life as possible while being overseas (or at least maintaining links to those from a Canadian culture), I'd have to say you're more of a global citizen than anything else. That doesn't make you "less" Canadian (or does it?) but I am very envious of the life you've lead :)
It's not about being able to cross borders. Romanians and Hungarians can easily cross the frontieres into both countries and neither nation requires a visa from the other.
I hope Peter M. and LuciSandor (who know way more about this than I ever will) will correct me if I'm wrong, but this is about giving ethnic Hungarians in other countries the same rights as Hungarians inside the country. I assume this will be medical services, being able to buy land, take advantage of financial institutions, etc etc.
For example, when I was living in France, I had to provide a whole slew of documents proving I had enough money as a foreigner, a place to live and was a registered student before they would open me up a bank account. Had I had dual citizenship with France and Canada, I bet opening up a bank account would have been much much easier.
But then again, this is France, the country where bureaucracy is a way of life, so who knows?
Am I on the right track or am I way off?
I can't tell about the exact situation in Hungary, but Romanians don't need visas for visits shorter than 90 days in the so-called Schengen space which is smaller than EU and does not include Hungary AFAIK. For longer visits or for for work permits a Romanian citizen has to apply for a visa. I think Hungarians, already in EU, but not in the Schengen convention's common space (there are multiple levels of union in Europe, e.g. Scandinavians and Brits are not in the monetary union), may have similar, but not identical requirements.
Of course, if one becomes a Hungarian citizen, he is waived of those requirments, whatever will they be.
Hi... some people on this chat more or less want to say that romania became a state only in the 18th century while hungary became independent before... so that would mean that hungary has more rights on trasylvania than romania... but let us not froget that romanians were there long before hungarians (daco-romans in dacia), and they always made up the majority in the area including the time during the austro-hungarian empire.... it's just that under austro-hungarian occupation they had no rights and suppressors tried to assimilate the romanian majority... however they failed.... and finaly, let us not forget about the principates of glad, gelu and menumorut which existed before the hungarian invasion in transylvania....
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