If that surprises you, may I ask how long you live in Csíkszereda and where you come from?
Understanding nationalism is central to understanding my region. Modern nationalism was born in France, based on the idea of replacing the absolutist king (who replaced the semi-autonomous aristocracy) with "The People" as the definer of the State. The problem is, which group of humans should be "The People"?
In France, there was a 400-year process of the Paris centre culturally assimilating the rest of the population of the State, often against violent resistance, and not without border changes. In Eastern Europe, things started later and are more problematic - there were different movements proclaiming different, intersecting groups of humans as their "People", and making a claim to different, even more intersecting lands. Especially after WWI, the clash of these national movements led to a lot of ethnic cleansings, repression, forced assimilation - and false historical mythologies, and lots of chauvinistic ideas. (While some nation-ideas failed: say, the more wide Chechoslowakian, the even wider Panslavic and the narrower Moravian ones.)
Thus, ethnic minorities (=adherents of the idea of a different nation) still not ethnic cleansed are viewed in a hostile manner by parts of the nationalistic part of the majority population, who think they should move to the state that has their ethnic as majority.
It is all very ugly. The EU (both its semi-federal and regionalising tendencies) could change things for the better here - making borders and country-level authorities less important. *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
Your comment didn't surprise me, I just found it intriguing that if you are correct (and I don't know if you are, but I don't have any reason to doubt it), then there is a serious paradox in the thinking of those people who think that (a) Transylvanian Hungarians should leave; and (b) they should learn Romanian (which of course they already do). (Not that the far right and bigoted people aren't riven with paradox anyway)
Frankly, the 1.5m Hungarians who are still in Romania are the ones who want to be here (as you know many people left in 1990). (And having spoken to many people here the overriding impression you get from the Transylvanian Hungarians is that they are comfortable with being part of Romanian, though they'd like more Autonomy along Catalonian lines, but are most pissed off at Hungarians from Hungary who they accuse of patronising them as their "poor oppressed Magyar brothers" but look down their noses at them if they go to Hungary as "Romanians")
A lot of generalisations there, to be sure. This feels like it's turning into a post all of its own. :-) Musings on life in Romania and beyond
Maybe it's instructive if I tell some things about how my ancestors fared. The leadership of the newly risen countries after WWI also wanted to create its own national elite. (Elite, in a wide sense as educated people, not as company owners/aristocracy.) In Romania, this meant ethnic quotas at higher schools (which hit my grandmother and her siblings who came to Budapest for that reason), and job offered to people in fields like foresty manager only away from home, in ethnic Romanian-majority areas (which hit my grand-grandfather). In Chechoslowakia, a similar ethnic rule was imposed on public servants. My multi-lingual grand-grand-mother (on another branch) chose to be Hungarian (tough her writing shows that wasn't her best mother tongue of three) and was fired, her son too, but all her brothers and sisters chose to be Slowakian and kept their jobs. Letters I have prove the old people continued to stay in touch, mostly in Hungarian, but the descendants fully assimilated to the respective nation.
I looked at your blog, and happened upon an earlier post I can't now find again where you and a lot of commenters discussed the intra-Hungarian xenophoby and the double citizenship vote. (BTW, the existence of such xenophoby is another proof that nations and ethnics aren't as straightforward things as people usually assume.) If you are interested, I wrote a diary here about the double referendum - tough it was focusing on the hospital privatisation issue, I go on detail on the other too. (I was a stop-privatisation-Yes, double-citizenship-No voter, but for none of the arguments all the parties shamefully campaigned with.)
If you read that, let me emphasize some things. The far-right Hungarian-Hungarian commenter with the 'Varangy' handle was way off blaming a leftist No vote for their failure: "Yes" won, the referendum foundered on participation, not a No vote, with the majority of Fidesz voters staying at home. So he should have looked at the target audience of the government's xenophobic campaign in his own camp. So much so that while normally I'd ask whether your observations of two behaviours correspond to the same sub-set of people, I feel fairly sure that the "poor oppressed Magyar brothers"-talkers and those who look down their noses are often the same. (Hungarian 'leftists' are more likely to not travel at all to Erdély, or only for tourism or visiting relatives rather than observing an ethnic reservate.) *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
Anyway, having read the link you posted on the healthcare/dual nationality referenda, I now need to go and read the other stuff you've posted on it. I am glad I have finally found a leftist Hungarian blogger (who blogs in English!)to lead me through the intricacies of it, since all I've had to work with previously are either unreliable views from Hungary and the reactions of people here (which, as you might imagine, are heavily tinged with a strong emotional reaction to the vote).
Cheers Andy Musings on life in Romania and beyond
Tough, for disclosure, I'm quite disenchanted with all mainstream politics here, so I might not know enough or even miss some of the current events blaring in the press. (For example, I missed the present Romanian-Hungarian spy scandal-or-not by a full ten days.) But at least I know where to look if I need to read up on something. *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
