tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76895712024-03-14T08:43:41.269+02:00Csíkszereda musingsMy life in and around Csíkszereda, also known as Miercurea Ciuc. A small town in the Ciuc Depression, Romania. I reserve the right to go off topic and talk about anything I damn well like.Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.comBlogger631125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-87862339248229977182020-01-30T10:39:00.004+02:002020-01-30T10:39:52.207+02:00Fear and loathing in Harghita County<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Some news stories are depressing in the extreme (and seemingly there are an increasing number of these). But once in a while one comes along that is so depressing that it makes me despair. So much in fact that I have returned to this blog after years of silence, because I really need to get this out and express my anger at the kind of ignorant, intolerant people who apparently live round here. <br /><br />I've commented before on the problems that have arisen in Romania through emigration, that people cannot find workers to do lots of things and that the country is losing so many of its people. Well, one business owner in a nearby small town managed to find a way to solve this problem. This was at a bakery in the village/town of<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Ditrău/</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Gyergyóditró which is here in Harghita county. Unable to find workers who lived locally, the owner of this company went through all of the proper channels and found two willing and qualified workers from Sri Lanka to come and work in the bakery. Seems like the right thing all round. The bakery gets workers, the two guys from Sri Lanka get a reasonable job, which presumably makes them more money than they would get at home, the local people get bread, and everyone's happy, right?</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cArlOUXyk3A/XjKNMBsJR-I/AAAAAAAABo8/tXx8Hypang0P6biMlV3iQwNuJ9XondzoQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/RO_HR_Ditrau_21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1100" data-original-width="1600" height="220" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cArlOUXyk3A/XjKNMBsJR-I/AAAAAAAABo8/tXx8Hypang0P6biMlV3iQwNuJ9XondzoQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/RO_HR_Ditrau_21.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Until this week, the most famous thing about<span style="font-size: x-small;"> D<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;">itró</span></span> was the church<br />(image: wikipedia)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">Wrong. And not because this is just shifting the problem of emigration from Romania to Sri Lanka (though obviously it does that). No, many of the residents of this previously sleepy little town have revealed themselves to be small minded, intolerant, ignorant, hate-filled awful people. They are up in arms about these two innocent men working in their village. Shouting about "keeping migrants out of D</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">itró</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">", they have made a facebook hate group, and are campaigning to somehow ban these people from the place. To his credit the mayor of D</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">itró</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;"> has basically said that he can't tell a business owner who to employ and he wouldn't want to anyway. He also pointed out that when he has called for things like ridding the village of litter, there is virtually no response. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">In concerns for their safety (concerns for their safety! for making bread!), they were moved to another village for accommodation and forced to commute, but now it seems even that is problematic and they may have to move to the bigger local town. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">I cannot imagine what life must be like for them. They have applied for and been given a job in a country thousands of kilometres from home. They have left a very warm tropical country to come to one of the coldest places in Romania in the middle of winter. And now they are faced with an angry baying mob, metaphorically wielding pitchforks and burning torches like something from a Transylvanian vampire story, who hate and fear them....for what? For daring to bake fucking bread? Which these self-same villages will be eating? It makes me so upset. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">On top of this it's hard to imagine that there is anyone in D</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">itró</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;"> who doesn't have relatives working somewhere in western Europe, and presumably if those relatives were being treated in this way by the communities they had moved to, these villagers would be appalled. Logical thinking, however, is not in very good supply. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">I have to remind myself that this is primarily a sign of deep ignorance on the part of the villagers (obviously I should note that there will also be villagers who are not part of this intolerant mob). That they have been taught to fear outsiders and find two darker skinned people in their midst an object of terror and hate. (The bakery has previously employed people from Ukraine, Hungary and Switzerland, without invoking this kind of frothing anger). And where does this fear and intolerance come from? It's not from some form of experience, as I have little doubt that most of them have probably never met someone from any non-European country before. I don't believe it's natural. So it comes from somewhere. My feeling is that it comes from the racist Orban-controlled media in Hungary (98% of the residents of D</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">itró are Hungarian). Orban and his cronies spread race hate wherever they go and use it as a way of keeping in power. Through social media and the internet, these are the stories that the people of D</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">itró will be reading. In their minds, this is the beginning of this huge invasion they've been told about repeatedly. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Hungarian nationalists in Transylvania like to say that they are somehow "more civilised" than their Romanian neighbours. Is this civilised? Is this what they mean by civilised? This is a huge shame on the people of D</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">itró and the people of S</span>zékelyföld. I am appalled and deeply deeply saddened<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;"><a href="https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/social/globalizarea-la-romani-o-comuna-din-harghita-a-expulzat-doi-brutari-din-sri-lanka-vrem-ditrau-fara-migranti-1252312" target="_blank">Here is the story in Romanian</a> and <a href="https://webradio.hu/hirek/kulfold/ket-sri-lanka-i-vendegmunkas-tartja-lazban-a-szekelyfoldi-ditro-kozosseget" target="_blank">here in Hungarian</a></span></span><br />
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-31578044819812495822019-01-30T12:18:00.001+02:002019-01-30T12:18:16.612+02:00A citizen of nowhere checks out<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I've reached the conclusion that trying to fight for and advocate what is best for the UK now has to take second place to advocating for what is best for the EU. And clearly what is best for the EU is that the UK, this shitshow of a country, with its pathetic lying useless politicians who care only about themselves and nothing beyond that, as well as its hard right xenophobic media, leaves as soon as possible.</div>
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It's not that the EU is somehow perfect, obviously far from it, but it has things that it needs to focus on, problems that it needs to face, and challenges that it has to address. And waiting for the utterly pathetic UK to get its shit together is no longer one of those challenges.</div>
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It's tragic for the people in Britain that I know and love and especially for the foreigners living here who are getting utterly screwed by these self-obsessed racist tossers, but it's clear that nobody who has any power or influence in the UK will ever say "Listen we need to stop. This is stupid.", so let's just move on. Britain can carry on living in the past and the rest of us can move on and see how we can best approach the future.</div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Britain has told me that I'm not wanted, denying me any form of representation, and calling me (and millions like me) a "Citizen of Nowhere". While at one time this might have caused me an identity crisis of a sort, now it just makes me think "fuck you". Fuck you Britain, fuck you Theresa May, fuck you you xenophobic disgusting wankers who run that small minded, small country which used to have a point. </span></span></div>
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-40029469975307620662016-10-21T09:24:00.000+03:002016-10-21T09:24:02.465+03:00Small town Romania <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I never write here any more, I guess I've run out of things to say, but from time to time I guess events still have the power to rouse me from my apathy...<br />
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So, here's the story...<br />
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I am involved in an interesting and useful EU funded project which has the aim of training young people to develop community based social enterprises with a focus on sport. It's been very interesting and it has brought together organisations in the UK, Italy, Turkey, and here in Romania. This week groups of young people from the 4 countries are here in the town having training sessions, meeting, connecting and working together. Each group is of between 10 and 12 university age people. All the ones from the UK (from London specifically) are from ethnic minorities (and most are Muslim). The Turkish group are, obviously, Turkish, and then there is an Italian group and a local group. They're all enthusiastic, getting involved, enjoying their trip here (though slightly nonplussed by the cold).<br />
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On Wednesday, after the morning training and lunch, the plan was to take them to a gym where there was organised a floorball championship for them to all participate in (floorball is sort of like ice hockey except without the ice, the skates and the puck. So not that similar to ice hockey at all really. But anyway, I digress). They're all (the non-local ones) staying in the same place, a fairly modern building on a high school site where there are dorm rooms for this purpose and the training rooms too, and waiting for the bus to take them to the gym they were milling around outside the building, when suddenly up screeched a large police van which drove up and parked at an angle across the access road.<br />
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Out steps a policeman and starts asking them questions. Of course he doesn't speak any English, and as it happens at that moment there are no local participants nor local organisers present, so nobody has any idea what is going on. The questioning seems quite aggressive, and he asks for their passports (this much is understood). This sort of standoff (not really a standoff as there was just confusion and bewilderment and a little fear on the part of the participants), goes on for sometime, until through someone calling one of the local organisers, someone comes to translate and calm things down. Eventually the policeman is placated and after he has confirmed that there is a reason for these people to be here and has been given various documents to pass on to his boss, he leaves, allowing the traffic to flow again.<br />
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Basically nothing happened, but what lies beneath is most of the stuff that I loathe about this place - there are also things I like about it here, obviously, but there are one or two things that I can't stand. 1.Small-mindedness; 2. racism; 3.an institutionalised ingrained sense that Romania is still a police state (a sense that is shared by both the populace and the police themselves); and 4 corruption . OK, that's four, not "one or two". And what this incident contained was vivid reminders of 3 of those 4. <br />
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Piecing together what happened, it seems likely that one of the Turkish participants went to a local shop to try and get a SIM card. He didn't speak any Romanian or Hungarian, and the shopkeeper didn't speak any other languages. The interaction was challenging for both, and I think ended unsuccessfully. After he left, we think, that the shopkeeper (who had possibly encountered a few such interactions in the day or so that they had been here), took it upon himself to call the police to report the presence of suspicious possibly Muslim foreigners in the area. That of course is all speculation, but obviously at some point somebody called the police for some reason, and as there were no specific complaints that the policeman brought to the whole argument, it can only be that he had been called to address the issue of suspicious people being around. <br />
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Now rather than calling the manager of the building that they were obviously staying in and at that time directly outside, and finding out who they were and why they were in town (not that even that level of interference should have been necessary), he chose to get in a van ( a van designed for multiple arrests) make a fairly big scene on entrance and demand answers. But of course without a common language to actually obtain those answers. <br />
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One thing that really annoys me (among the many things that really annoy me about this incident) is that I actually wondered before the course began whether we should let the police know that these people were coming -and so, I discovered, did the local organiser, but both of us concluded that we didn't need to, and indeed shouldn't, because after all this is not 1987, and Ceaucescu is very much dead, and there is no longer a Securitate, and having to inform the police that there will be some strangers in town is NO LONGER A BLOODY THING. Or, at least, we'd like to imagine so. But the fact remains that I'm not immune to this and I am infected by this idea that while we're not living in a police state, that we should maybe act as if we are. <br />
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I think, the whole pre-revolutionary feel to this aside, that the thing it reminds me of is the anti-Muslim racism that is just so utterly pervasive here. Thanks to people like Orban Viktor and a hostile and racist media, I feel like I hear ignorant and ludicrously prehistoric views on a regular basis. And it drives me crazy, and makes me furious. <br />
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I even have doubts about posting this, I've been told enough times that it's better not to stand up and say anything here, because, well because 30 years ago to do so would mean very bad things for you and your family. And I confess that I have pondered for a long time whether to say anything to complain about this, to rail at the petty mindedness and racism and insular attitudes and heavy handed policing. But, I feel the need to, not because I think my views will make a difference, but because to not say anything means I too am stuck in this mindset.<br />
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-6124346622820248532015-12-06T09:12:00.001+02:002015-12-06T09:12:16.186+02:00Standing Up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sometimes I ask myself what I would have done if I had been German in the 1930s. I am imagining that most liberally minded Europeans have asked themselves the same (what they would have done, not what I would have done - I'm not quite that self-absorbed). </div>
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Would I have resisted and spoken up, at the risk of putting my own life in danger? Would I have kept my head down and hoped that this "phase" would just blow over? Would I have tried to help and shelter those being persecuted?</div>
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Increasingly it's beginning to look like I will get to answer this question. As the anti-Muslim rhetoric and attacks rise and become more and more mainstream, what will I do? What will we all do?</div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/05/far-right-muslim-cultural-civil-war">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/05/far-right-muslim-cultural-civil-war</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">(I'm not keen on the term Islamophobia, because it implies the Islamophobes oppose the religion, when in fact it's racism and the anger and hatred is directed at the people. But make no mistakes this wave of anti-Muslim-ism is a vile and virulent form of racism sweeping Europe and the USA. We have to stand and fight it in no uncertain terms.</span></span></div>
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-35555358976915435642015-12-03T07:55:00.002+02:002015-12-03T07:55:51.266+02:00A "terrorist sympathiser" writes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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397 British MPs are so desperate to be seen to be doing something that they have decided to see how many innocent people they can kill in response to innocent people being killed. What's that Maslow quote again? "If the only tool you have is drones, every problem seems like collateral damage"? Something like that.</div>
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And apparently all those millions of us who don;t think indiscriminately killing a bunch of people is a good idea which will lead to world peace are "terrorist sympathisers".</div>
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Well I have no reluctance, in turn, to call those 397, appalling stupid murderous compassion-less fucking morons. Scum, every last one of the 397. Utter scum.</div>
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I despair. The world is fucked up beyond belief.</div>
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-4774890318472305092015-11-19T13:34:00.001+02:002015-11-19T13:34:13.208+02:00Whither democracy?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Romania has a new technocratic government. With politicians either corrupt or assumed to be, there is a logic to that, and the idea of having experts running the various ministries makes a lot of sense (Raed Arafat must be about the longest serving effective actor in successive governments, for precisely this reason).<br />
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However, I can't help wondering about that whole democracy thing. When we elect politicians to high office, we do so based on the policies they espouse, not on their competence. Obviously hiring the competent has its advantages, but it's not like there is one single approach to education, say, such that hiring an educator to the education ministry is not a political act. <br />
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I'm troubled by this, and suspect that there will be a point when people will notice that Iohannis / Ciolan have pretty much made a massively anti-democratic set of decisions, despite the fact that I trust this government to run the country more than any we've had since I've lived here. If it works, is that enough? </div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-35455702499361665662015-08-10T12:06:00.000+03:002015-08-10T12:06:34.221+03:00"Human Rights Fundamentalism": Orban makes it clear where he stands<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I was away recently, and while I was away, Hungarian prime minister came to Tusnad (near where we now live) to make a speech at the annual "Tusvanyos" event. This was the venue last year for the famous speech he made where he argued for illiberal democracy. This year's speech was not about that but about immigration, and predictably was not exactly liberal or tolerant or even demonstrating any form of human empathy. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It may be that many people outside Hungary are not really aware of Orban and his views, so I have decided to relay his entire speech here (as translated by <a href="http://hungarytoday.hu/news/europe-european-way-life-stake-today-pm-orbans-weekend-speech-full-11306" target="_blank">Hungary Today, here</a> - a source which is not exactly anti-Orban, and so I think you can take it as a fairly faithful translation of what he said). I have annotated it, not because I really think it needs to be annotated for normal people to see through the rhetoric and see what lies beneath, but well, because this is scary stuff and it needs to be highlighted, and because from what I gather from social media Hungary is currently in the grip of some very serious and very unpleasant anti-immigrant rhetoric, which is being played out very publicly, and will, before long, I'm afraid, lead to worse than simply just angry words. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So, anyway, here, in full, with annotations in bold italics, is Orban's speech.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;">Good morning,</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Allow me to welcome attendees at the open university camp. I am
glad to have the opportunity to be reunited with Bishop László Tőkés, <b><i>[Such
a shame that one of the heroes of the 1989 Romanian revolution should have sunk
to being a puppet for this extremist Hungarian PM]</i></b> I am pleased to see
dozens of my old fellow combatants, and I particularly welcome the Szekler
flags I can see. Thank you all for coming. Following my success last year in
causing uproar (provoked by my presentation on the end of the era of liberal
democracies and the advent of illiberal democracy), this year my task is not an
easy one: the bar has been set too high. Having searched through every
available dictionary on political philosophy, I drew a blank: I could find
nothing that representatives of today’s western ideological mainstream could
find sufficiently offensive compared with last year<b><i>.[I don’t know, Viktor, you seem to
have done a good job, in coming up with the vile far-right garbage you’re about
to launch into. Don’t do yourself down
so much. Rest assured you do manage to
be deeply deeply offensive most of the time]</i></b> And now Bishop Tőkés has just said that at
times he finds it hard to keep track, and warned us that we should not overdo
the Brazilian-style on-the-ball tricks, because we might trip over our own
feet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">A year ago I said that we are living in times when anything can
happen, and this is still true today. Who would have thought that Europe would
be unable to protect its own borders, even against unarmed refugees? Who would
have thought that things would get to the point at which, for instance, the
head of the Islamic community in France would publicly suggest that the French
State could hand over redundant Christian churches, because there is a demand
for them to be converted into mosques? <b><i>[This by the way is not true, but even if it
were, if there are buildings lying empty – as many churches are – why not use
them for something else. There are
converted churches all over the place, why would it be a problem? Oh yes, of course, in the dog whistle world of Orban, this
is all code for the idea that “The Muslims are taking over”.</i></b>] Who would have thought that the United States
was tapping the telephone conversations of German political leaders? This has
finally been revealed, and it is not the end of the world. And who would have
thought that we Europeans would act as if nothing had happened, and amicably
continue free trade talks with a counterpart who probably knows our negotiating
positions before we do ourselves? And furthermore, who would have thought that
the Americans would deploy weapons in Central Europe, and the Hungarian
parliament would find itself pondering the thorny question of whether or not Hungary
should sign up to this? And who – other than us – would have thought that by
the end of 2014 Hungary would be the second-fastest developing country in the
entire European Union?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The uncertainty of the future may even prompt us to consider the
nature of the future in a political context – or more precisely, the nature of
being able to understand the future. We tend to conceive of the future – or, to
be more exact, knowledge of the future – as if we were a captain navigating our
ship into the unknown: we are at the prow, with telescope in hand, scanning the
horizon for unknown shores. Those with the sharpest eyesight or the most
powerful telescope will be first – the first to possess knowledge of the
future. It is as if the future stood before us, out there in the unknown, like
an undiscovered continent which existed in the real world and was waiting for
our approach. But, dear friends, the nature of the future is completely
different from this. Its most important characteristic is that it is not
fully-formed; indeed, it does not exist at all, and will only occur hereafter.
Therefore, there is no point in straining our eyes to see the future. It is
better to think of the future as if we were rowers in a race, sitting with our
backs to the bow. Like rowers, we can only see what is already behind us, and
that which happens to come within our field of vision. We must direct the bow
of the boat towards the future, and as the shore unfolds before our eyes, we
must deduce the future from that which we already know. In other words, in
thinking about the future we are not competing to looking far ahead of us, but
rather competing to understand the past. The winners will be those who can
better understand the past, and who can come to the right conclusions more
swiftly and more courageously. This is the starting-point of political
leadership and planning. <b><i>[Nicely put. Shame you’ve started looking
back and pining for the certainties of the 1930s]</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dear Friends,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This is good news, because to understand we need intelligence –
we need brains – and across the world nothing has been as intelligently
distributed: everyone is convinced that they have a little more of it than
others do. If we think about the future of the European Union, and our own
future within it, we should first examine the past of the European Union.
Despite all our sharply critical remarks, we must point out that the European
Union is in itself a great success: in terms of peace, development and welfare.
It is nevertheless true that up until 1990, the peace that had endured since
World War II was not due to us Europeans, but to the Americans and the
Russians, who decided on the affairs of Europe for us; there is no doubt,
however, that since 1990 the success we have achieved has been our own success.
Whatever problems may weigh on our minds now, this fact cannot be negated – even
by events since 2008.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At times there are phenomena which enable us to understand a
given era, and which encapsulate its essence. In our lifetimes, modern mass
migration is just such a phenomenon. Looking through this window, we can see
the whole world. It is by this that the world is framed, and it is through this
that we can understand where we are and what awaits us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Let us speak plainly: the intensification of modern-day mass
migration is a consequence of political processes. <b><i>[Primarily inequality, Mr Prime
Minister, though you’re about to argue that it’s something else]</i></b> The
countries of North Africa once functioned as a defence zone protecting Europe,
absorbing the masses of people coming from Africa’s interior. <b><i>[Ah,
so the reason people are migrating to Europe is because there is no Gaddafi
there to repel them? ]</i></b> And the real threat is not from the war zones,
Ladies and Gentlemen, but from the heart of Africa. <b><i>[Now we’re getting to it, now we’re
getting to the core of Orban’s dark heart, so to speak. The heart of Africa.
That’s the real “threat”. No more dog whistle racism, this is the real thing]</i></b>
With the disintegration of North African states this line of defence has been
spectacularly breached, and North Africa is no longer able to protect Europe
from a vast flood of people. As a result, a problem has developed on a truly
unimaginable scale. <i><b>[In fact the vast majority of refugees trying to come to Europe are coming from places like Syria and Afghanistan, but obviously those people are a little too obviously refugees for this point to be made as Orban would like, so we'll just pretend it's the whole of sub-Saharan Africa attempting to march on Budapest]</b></i> I agree with former President Sarkozy, who said on French
television just the other day that the current wave of mass migration is only
the beginning. There are one point one billion people in Africa today, more
than half of them under the age of twenty-five. According to Mr. Sarkozy,
before long hundreds of millions of people will have nowhere to live, and
insufficient food and water. <b><i>[So, rather than focusing on that problem,
which wouldn’t be a bad thing, we’re going to ensure that this situation
remains. That about the size of it?]</i></b> Following in the footsteps of today’s migrants, these people
will leave their homelands. <b><i>[As people have done for centuries. Millennia
in fact. As a proud Magyar, Mr Orban, perhaps you might even spot an irony here…
but let’s not trouble ourselves with that and move onwards]</i></b> In other
words, what is at stake today is Europe and the European way of life, <b><i>[whatever
that may be]</i></b> the survival or extinction of European values and nations
– or, to be more precise, their transformation beyond all recognition. <b><i>[Yes,
immigration changes the countries that end up hosting immigrants – though it
changes the immigrants more – but is this necessarily a bad thing? I think you
can argue quite forcefully that it changes the countries that are left behind
for the worse. Look at the countries of Eastern Europe. Look at Romania, Orban,
the country from which you made this speech. A country that has lost 15% of its
population in the last 10 years, that is losing its best and brightest. Yes, migration is a problem, but not in the
way you are trying to scare people about] </i></b>The question now is not
merely what kind of Europe we Hungarians would like to live in, but whether
Europe as we now know it will survive at all. Our answer is clear: we would
like Europe to remain the continent of Europeans. <b><i>[Again with the irony. OK, let’s
define this European thing. What makes someone a European? How many generations
back do you have to go to be one? We all came from “the heart of Africa” at
some point]</i></b> This is what we would like. We only say “we would like
this”, because this also depends on what others want. But there is also
something which we not only would like, but which we want. We can say we want
it, because it depends only on us: we want to preserve Hungary as a Hungarian
country<b><i>. [Hungarian or Magyar? There is
a difference, and it’s an important one. As Pal Lendvai argues in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Hungarians-Thousand-Victory-Defeat/dp/0691119694" target="_blank">his excellent book</a>, there is a sense of “Hungarianness” which is about inclusiveness and
making a nation out of disparate ethnicities, and then there is something
other, a “Magyar” idea which is much more about ethnic purity. The distinction
is key, though in the Hungarian language there is no word other than Magyar for
“Hungarian” in this way, so it wouldn’t exactly come out in translation] </i></b>It
is important to point this out over and over again, although this may appear a
cliché in our circles. Yet we must point this out over and over again because
there are some who think otherwise. However incredible it might be, and however
difficult it might be for us to acknowledge it with the intellectual and
spiritual reserves at our disposal, there are indeed some who think otherwise. <b><i>[Yes,
of course there are. No doubt there is some vast global conspiracy even now
which is trying to turn Hungary into a country of Uruguayans, or of
Seychellois, or something]</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The European left, dear friends, do not see immigration as a
source of danger, but as an opportunity. The left has always looked upon
nations and national identity with suspicion. They believe (and take note of
their choice of words) that the escalation of immigration may fatally weaken –
indeed eliminate – national borders, and in historical terms this would also
constitute the attainment of the left’s as yet unimaginable long-term goal.
Although this may sound absurd at first, if we focus in on Hungary, it is
likewise perhaps no coincidence that in 2004 the Hungarian left incited
animosity against Hungarians in neighbouring countries <b><i>[Note for outsiders - the animosity engendered by the Orban government in neighbouring countries is FAR FAR greater than that engendered by its predecessor]</i></b>, while today they are
ready to welcome illegal immigrants, whom they would greet with open arms. <b><i>[Christ
man. Do you really believe this nonsense? What other massive conspiracies do you
have up your sleeves? The moon landings
were faked? 9/11 was a Mossad plot? ] </i></b>Quite simply these people, these
politicians, do not like the Hungarian people – and they do not like them
because they are Hungarians. <b><i>[Oh for fucks sake. The Hungarian left do not like
Hungarians? Give me a break you
ludicrous buffoon. This is pathetic]</i></b> Similarly, a fair number of
centres of financial and political power in Brussels also have a vested
interest in erasing national structures, and eliminating national identities.
Just imagine, Ladies and Gentlemen, what would have become of Hungary if the
left had had the chance to form a government in 2014<b><i>. [It would be like France, for
example, or some other European country in which the soft left had formed the
government. It would probably have lots of problems, just as it does now, just
slightly different ones. But let’s face it would not have been radically
transformed, other than the fact that it wouldn’t be governed by a racist piece of dirt like you]</i></b> It is a shocking thought, but let us
just imagine it for a second: within a year or two, we would not have been able
to recognise our own country; we would be like a refugee camp, a kind of
Central European Marseille. <b><i>[Yes of course. I wonder if there was anyone
in your audience who actually believed that.
I certainly hope not]<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We know that meeting a bear in the woods is no laughing matter –
and neither is a parliamentary election. <b><i>[Ha ha very funny. Mr Comedian. Nice Szekely
gag there. Good work. Always nice to play to your crowd.]</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Here must note that the upsurge of migration is also related to
the fact that some people see the West’s human rights fundamentalism <b><i>[Oooh,
nice expression, and one that begins to get to the heart of your vileness,
Viktor: “Human rights fundamentalism” A belief in human rights is a form of
fundamentalism now is it? I’m guessing there are certain humans you’d like to
argue don’t have the same rights as others, are you? We’re getting there, aren’t we? Back to the 1930s, I can see that’s where you’re
going with this]</i></b> as an invitation, regardless of the reasons they have
for wanting to leave their countries. Because naturally there are genuine
refugees, but there are many more who are merely seeking to enjoy the benefits
of the European lifestyle. <b><i>[This is bollocks, mate. You’re presenting these people as mad
holidaymakers. It’s a huge wrench for people to leave their homes, a huge
trauma. You must know this, enough Hungarians have done this, have become
economic migrants because of lack of opportunities and a desire for something
better for their children. It’s not about a “lifestyle” it’s about desperation.</i></b>
] As this many people would never be able to enter the territory of the
European Union legally, more and more of them are accepting the risks
associated with illegal immigration – and more will do so in the future. And as
the European Union only has principles, but no genuine sovereignty (for
example, it has no border guards), it does not know how to handle this new
situation<b><i>.[For once I agree with you.]</i></b> Brussels is unable to protect the people of
Europe from the flood of illegal immigrants; <b><i>[“flood”. Hmmm]</i></b> in the
words of a former German finance minister, “The problem with Europe is that it
keeps kicking a can up a hill, and is surprised to find that it keeps rolling
back”. The European Union started out as an economic alliance, and later also
became a political alliance; today it needs to act as a sovereign power, but in
order to do so it needs to further reduce national sovereignty. As the old
Budapest joke has it: at first they set off in the right direction, but they
couldn’t keep to it; then they set off in the wrong direction, but this time
they kept to it perfectly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The mission of the European Union led to genuine long-term
solutions to genuine problems: peace instead of war, a common market instead of
separate markets, inclusion for the poor instead of exclusion. The European
Union was pragmatic, and also relatively flexible; hence its unique
organisational solutions. But it is obvious that something has gone wrong, and
Europe has become an ideology instead of genuine solutions. Europe no longer
concentrates on the problem, but merely considers whether a given solution
weakens or reinforces its own closed system of ideologies. <b><i>[Again, I actually agree here. I
may have to have a good hard chat with myself if things go on like this. In my
defence I suspect we perceive the closed set of ideologies that represent the
EU’s problem somewhat differently]</i></b> Europe has become an ideological
obsession; if something is reasonable and successful but strengthens the
sovereignty of a nation state, it is to be discarded – indeed, it is seen as an
enemy, and the more successful it is, the more dangerous<b><i>.[Ah yes, we do disagree. Phew.] </i></b>This
is the essence of the Hungarian story.<b><i> [I have no idea what this final rhetorical
flourish here is supposed to mean]</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What we Hungarians do is successful, beyond doubt, but it is not
in accord with Brussels’ ideological concepts; in other words, it does not
weaken Hungarian national and state sovereignty, but reinforces them – and from
this point of view it is to be condemned. <b><i>[Well, when it’s about enacting proto-fascist
media laws, then I think they have a point]</i></b>This is why the European
Union is unable to resolve the crisis in Greece, which is a practical problem
calling for a practical solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We Hungarians have a vested interest in a strong European Union,
and take the view that successful solutions make Europe strong. European
mainstream political and intellectual forces believe that Europe will be strong
if it is somehow forged into a United States of Europe. Looking at our
continent from this perspective, we Hungarians are Europe’s Gaullists. The fact
that there are no individual bodies of separate nationhood within the United
States is a function of its nature, rather than its structure. Therefore we
must not imitate this aspect. By contrast, the nature of Europe resides in the
fact that it is composed of nations; in other words, attempting to create a
United States of Europe is a crazy idea. America is not made great by the fact
that there are no nations within it; America is made great by the fact that it
is able to come up with successful solutions. Therefore, if the European Union
wants to be successful, it must find its own viable solutions. Whether it will
be able to do this in the future, we do not know; but we do know that it has
fallen short of this since 2008, ever since the beginning of the economic
crisis. Since 2008 people have formed the impression that the European Union is
doing the same thing over and over again, yet every time expecting a different
outcome<b><i>.[Another paragraph with which I can find little to disagree]<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Many of you may perhaps remember that the first country needing
a rescue package after the 2008 crisis was not Greece, but Hungary. Yet since
2010 we have succeeded in reducing the debt to GDP ratio, making Hungary one of
the few Member States where this has happened. If we want to evaluate and
appreciate the efforts of the Hungarian people on their merits, we should cast
a glance at Greece. We are proud to have repaid our debt to the IMF ahead of
schedule, and only a small tranche of European Union aid remains to be repaid,
which we will do when it falls due at the beginning of 2016. Remember that
Hungary never requested any debt relief or rescheduling. Some may see this as a
weakness, while to others it is a virtue; I belong to the latter group. And all
this has happened against a background of growth in Hungary’s GDP which has
been outstanding in comparison with other Member States. It is something rare
in the history of the Hungarian economy, my dear friends – and nothing short of
unique in recent decades – that the economy’s external and internal balance
indicators are improving in tandem, and the economy is also growing at the same
time. Meanwhile we have succeeded in correcting two earlier errors: we have
done away with retail foreign currency loans, and thus prevented a financial
collapse; at the same time, we have succeeded in renationalising a number of
previously privatised strategic assets which constitute a core element of
Hungary’s national sovereignty. <b><i>[I’m not familiar enough with Hungary’s
economy to comment on any of this. I suspect that there is a great deal of spin
here, but I could be wrong]<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">When I said that illegal immigration is like “the ocean in a
drop” – in that it encapsulates the whole world – I was also referring to the
fact that from it we can deduce the most important tasks facing us in the years
ahead. We must now talk about four issues which will become priorities
throughout Europe in the period to come, and which will constitute the bulk of
our tasks here in Hungary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The first such question is the problem of national identity.
Thirty years ago, many Europeans saw the answer to European social problems in
so-called multiculturalism. In our circles I do not need to spell out the
difference between “multi-ethnic” and “multi-cultural”. <b><i>[I think you probably do, Viktor,
as I suspect I know what you mean by the sentence, and even possibly what you
therefore think of as “our circles”]</i></b> Today, however, increasing numbers
of people see multiculturalism not as a solution to problems, but as the cause
of them. <b><i>[Ironic that this speech should be made in Transylvania, which for
centuries has been a multicultural society]</i></b> Over the past thirty years
several European countries have decided to welcome masses of people coming from
places with different civilisational roots. I do not believe we should pass
judgement on this experiment; in fact I think we should not even allow
ourselves to state our view on the outcome of this experiment. All we can say –
but we have to say it firmly, having seen the results elsewhere – is that we do
not want to repeat this experiment on our country; this is something that we
have the right to say.<b><i> [Hang on. You don’t want to say anything
about the results of this “experiment”, but you do not want to repeat it? Is that saying nothing about it? Interesting
verbal gymnastics there, Mr Orban. And in referring to it as an "experiment" it implies that there are some social scientists sitting there saying "I wonder what would happen if we invited millions of people to come and tried to integrate them", as opposed to there being a period of migration which governments responded to, just as they have always done. ]</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Another question that we must tackle openly and plainly is that
there is a clear correlation between the illegal immigrants who are flooding
into Europe and the spread of terrorism. <b><i>[Bollocks. Utter utter bollocks].</i></b>Interestingly,
this is obvious in English-speaking countries, but many others deny it. <b><i>[OK
let’s look at European terrorism. I’ll even go with the mainstream view of what
constitutes terrorism to make it simple. The IRA, ETA, Red Army Faction, Baader
Meinhof gang, Chechens, etc, etc. None of them in any way whatsoever related to
immigration. The July 7<sup>th</sup> attacks in London? Carried out by British
people (Though, since we all know what Mr Orban is getting at here is the idea
that it is non-white skinned people that are the problem,
he will no doubt see that attack as verifying his point). The 11-M attacks in
Madrid are actually the only ones that I can think of carried out by
immigrants].</i></b> Only recently, a senior public security official from the
United States pointed out in Hungary that the correlation between these two
factors is clear<b><i>.[It must be true then. A single unattributed source said so]</i></b>
It is undeniable that we are simply incapable of screening out terrorists from
such an enormous mass of people<b><i>.[Just as it is undeniable that it is
impossible to stop any form of crime before it is committed. Which is to say
undeniable but completely facile at the same time]</i></b> Ladies and
Gentlemen, we must agree with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who says
that we shall not be able to resolve this crisis unless we stop these people
right at the outset, when they are about to leave their own countries <b><i>[Who
are "these people", Viktor? Come on say
it. Perhaps “In our circles” you don’t need to spell it out]<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The third problem which we shall have to cope with – after
multiculturalism and terrorism – is a problem which is economic in nature.
Western experience shows that illegal immigrants contribute to rising
unemployment. This fact has become particularly obvious in the period since
2008, when the European Union has been struggling with an ongoing economic
crisis, and when for most European countries (because not every country is
Germany), this high rate of unemployment represents one of the main sources of
tension. The arrival of new waves of people in countries with already high
unemployment rates results in even higher unemployment. This is as simple as
one plus one equalling two. [<b><i> Well, yes and no. You are explicitly referring
here to “illegal” immigrants – I’m not comfortable with any human being
referred to as “illegal”, but anyway – and those people do not show up on the
figures. They cannot get legal employment anyway, and they cannot receive
benefits. So, what exactly is the proof
of this rise in unemployment? Migration does cause stresses in employment, but
through unscrupulous employers hiring people for low wages rather than other
reasons primarily. It sounds logical what you’re saying, but in fact you’re
trying to trick the audience here]</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And finally let us also mention a subject upon which political
correctness in Europe has enforced a guilt-ridden silence. According to police
statistics in western countries, those states with large numbers of illegal
immigrants experience dramatic increases in crime, with a proportionate
decrease in public safety<b><i>. [OK now we’re getting to it. Immigrants are criminals. ] </i></b>Let me
cite a few examples as food for thought. According to UN statistics – not
statistics from the Hungarian government, but from the United Nations – Sweden
is second only to the southern African state of Lesotho in terms of figures for
rape. <b><i>[And? You’re blaming this on immigrants? This is loathesome stuff,
Orban, absolutely loathesome. Sweden has perhaps the widest definition of what
constitutes rape of anywhere. If Sweden is prosecuting more men for rape than
anywhere else, this says positive things about Sweden, frankly.]</i></b> According
to a 2013 British parliamentary report, the number of Muslims in British
prisons has tripled over the last fifteen years. <b><i>[Muslims are more likely to be
imprisoned by the British state? It may be true, but there may be more than one
reason for that. In addition the number of muslims in Britain as a whole may
have tripled in that time period so in fact this may actually be saying nothing
at all]</i></b> In Italy, one quarter of crimes in 2012 were committed by
immigrants. <b><i>[If this is true, and I wonder whether it is, where did those immigrants
come from?] </i></b></span><span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;">And the list goes on.[</span><b style="color: #4c493f; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><i>There is a thorough analysis of this whole paragraph of the speech
here <a href="http://hungarianspectrum.org/2015/07/27/fact-checking-viktor-orbans-latest-speech/">http://hungarianspectrum.org/2015/07/27/fact-checking-viktor-orbans-latest-speech/</a>
]</i></b><span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In summary therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen, we can say that
illegal immigration is equally a threat to Hungary and to Europe. It is a
threat to our common values and to our culture, and even to our diversity. <b><i>[Like
“diversity” is a concern of yours, Viktor]</i></b> It is a threat to the security
of European people – a threat which undermines our ability to cement our
economic achievements. For as long as it was able, Hungary attempted to enact
measures which took full account of its neighbours’ interests. Hungary has
found itself in a trap, however, as not only must we reckon with ever more
waves of mass migration from the south, but countries west of us have expressed
the intention to return to Hungary those people who have already passed through
our country, after previously entering it illegally. We are therefore under
pressure from both the south and the west. The truth is that we are unable to
endure this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The question of mass migration is a question of common sense and
morals, a question both of the heart and the mind; as such, it is a question
which is extremely complex and profound, and one which provokes strong
emotions. <b><i>[Indeed. It does provoke strong emotions. Compassion among some, and
hate among others]</i></b> Societal questions like this can only be tackled if
we identify points on which we can all agree as a community. This was the
purpose of the Hungarian national consultation on immigration, the official
outcome of which I would now like to share with you. As part of the national
consultation, by 21 July one million two hundred and fifty-four completed
questionnaires were received. We sent out eight million questionnaires, and
more than one million have been completed and sent back to us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ladies and Gentlemen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">From these completed questionnaires we may conclude the
following. More than two-thirds of Hungarians see the issue of the spread of
terrorism as relevant to their own lives. <b><i>[When asked specifically about terrorism?
Not much of a surprise]</i></b> Three-quarters of them believe that illegal
immigrants are a threat to the jobs and livelihoods of Hungarians. Four-fifths
of Hungarians think that the Brussels’ policy on immigration and terrorism has
failed, and that we therefore need a new approach and more stringent
regulations<b><i>.[Is this actually what was said, and in response to what question? All
seems a bit dodgy to me]</i></b> In contrast to Brussels’ lenient policy <b><i>[I
thought you said Brussels doesn’t have policies?],</i></b> four-fifths of
Hungarians encourage the Government to adopt stricter regulations to curb
illegal immigration: regulations allowing us to detain people who have
illegally crossed Hungarian borders, and to deport them within the shortest
possible time. <b><i>[Camps? Hmm, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It is the 1930s in your
head after all]</i></b> And according to eighty per cent of those who completed
the questionnaire, illegal immigrants should cover the costs of providing for
them during their time in Hungary. <b><i>[So Syrian refugees who have lost
everything, their homes, their families and their lives need to pay for their own
incarceration? How exactly are you going
to enforce that? Come on, let’s hear this, it’s got to be good.]</i></b> Tough words, a firm stance – but this is
the Hungarian stance. And finally, the most important response, which takes
precedence over all others so far, is that the overwhelming majority of
Hungarians – ninety-five per cent of those who completed the questionnaire –
think that we must focus support on Hungarian families and the children they
can have, rather than on immigration. We can clearly see that the Hungarian
people have not lost their common sense. The results of the consultation
therefore show that Hungarians do not want illegal immigrants, and do not share
the intellectual derangement of the European left. <b><i>[Hang on a second, there is a lot
of inconsistency here. Europe has no policies, yet it’s in thrall to its own
policies. The attitude of the EU towards immigration is driven by whom? The European
left? Despite the fact that very very
very few of the EUs members have a left wing (or centre left) government? How
has this "derangement" gained such traction?]</i></b> Hungary has decided, and
this is how the Hungarian people have decided. This means that we want to
remain a safe and stable country, a united and balanced nation in the uncertain
world which surrounds us. Because though I may be right in saying that in the
world today anything can happen, I am perhaps not wrong in believing that, in
contrast to this, none of us want Hungary to be a country in which anything can
happen. <b><i>[Just to remind you one more time, Viktor, as you obviously had
forgotten by this point, you were making this speech not in Hungary, and the
vast majority of your audience were not in fact residents of Hungary. It’s
tricky I know to remember these things, but you seemed to imply earlier that
national borders were something you cared very deeply about]<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Thank you for your attention.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c493f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><b><i>And thank you, Viktor for your clear and overt message of hate and racism. In some ways I would rather you nail your colours to the mast in this way than be all secretive about it, like the UK government. But you do scare me, because you do control the media in Hungary and you do have a lot of power, which means that we may indeed be returning to the 1930s as you would clearly wish, in which you are no longer bound by "Human Rights Fundamentalism" and can proclaim certain humans to be lesser and therefore fair targets for your detention camps, and your forcible repatriation and whatever else you might be planning. </i></b></span></div>
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-58981595843938516202015-03-05T19:26:00.002+02:002015-03-05T19:27:48.534+02:00Walls of Disappointment<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Lumme. I haven't posted here since the day I made it clear that Victor Ponta would win the presidential election. What a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. I'm very familiar with being wrong, but in some cases I'm delighted to have been so.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Po_b5Tn04YA/VPiQhuQL5aI/AAAAAAAAAzk/fBnxF56OPEg/s1600/walls.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Po_b5Tn04YA/VPiQhuQL5aI/AAAAAAAAAzk/fBnxF56OPEg/s1600/walls.JPG" height="141" width="200" /></a></div>
Anyway, moving on...<br />
<br />
Last weekend a travelling exhibition visited Csikszereda. It is called Walls of Silence (or Hallgatás Fala in Hungarian). It's purportedly an exhibition about the years of Communism in Romania and the 1989 revolution. It has been displayed in Brussels and in various locations around Romania (I think, though I can't find much detail on when and where.) The website of the exhibition is here: <a href="http://www.hallgatasfala.com/">http://www.hallgatasfala.com/</a> - though you will note when you try and open the English version of that site that, despite it claiming to have one, it doesn't. The same happens with the Romanian version.<br />
<br />
Anyway, along we went, to see what it was like and to also educate our teenage daughter on some things that might be new for her regarding the period pre-1989. It was a series of poster panels, depicting various aspects of post WWII life, of the events of Timisoara and beyond in 1989 and then various post 1989 events. There were a couple of videos too, such as an interview with Tőkés László made on Hungarian TV before the revolution in Romania.<br />
<br />
Now the first thing that struck me about this exhibition is that it was in two languages. But these two languages were not, as you might expect, Hungarian and Romanian, but rather Hungarian and English. There was no Romanian at all (well there was a sort of sort of take away pamphlet in Romanian, but the exhibition itself was in just the two languages). An exhibition about Romanian under communism and the Romanian revolution, on display in Romania. But not in Romanian. It just struck me as needlessly and wantonly provocative. Obviously in Csikszereda the vast majority of people who visited it would be Hungarian but some Romanians at least would be interested (and indeed the guest book featured an angry comment in Romanian), <br />
<br />
The exhibition itself was OK for the most part, at least in terms of the section pre-1989 and the revolution itself. The focus was very much on Tőkés, and it seems that he, or his people, somehow were behind the exhibition, so it felt a bit like the Tőkés show, but obviously his role in the 1989 revolution was fairly big and so he deserves to be included in such a thing. But then there were two sections that really jarred a bit. One was a large section documenting all the awards and medals he has been awarded around the world in regards his role in the 89 uprising, which then concluded with a long section on how some Romanian politicians last year had tried to have one of his national medals withdrawn because of his Hungarian nationalism. There was no mention of what kind of nationalist actions might have triggered this, and while I fully believe that whatever he has done since should not detract from what he did to actually win that medal in the first place, the lack of any form of explanation was slightly troubling.<br />
<br />
That was a minor quibble, however, and had that been the only issue I never would have bothered writing this blog post. No the thing that really got my back up was a panel depicting the events of 1989 in Hungary. Front and centre in this display, in the photos and the text, were a young Orban Viktor. Now I recognise that as a student Orban was there and was involved in the protests against the government, but he was not the Tőkés or the Havel or the Walesa of Hungary (The<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_communism_in_Hungary_%281989%29" target="_blank"> wikipedia article on the end of communism in Hungary </a>doesn't even mention him for example). He was one of many involved in a groundswell of popular unrest that eventually led to the toppling of the system.The highlighting of him is particularly jarring give that the exhibition is about the lack of freedoms before 89, the control of the media and the silence imposed on the population of Romania . And here, in the middle is something conveying hero status on the European leader who is the most undemocratic and most authoritarian and the most acting against a free media in his country. Orban is not Ceausescu, but he is also not a democrat and he is clearly not someone who believes in freedom of speech.<br />
<br />
In short, this exhibition was deeply disappointing, and basically a pro-FIDESZ whitewash (Tőkés has close ties to FIDESZ). I left it feeling much more antipathy towards Tőkés than I had before for putting his name to such a poorly argued and presented piece of propaganda. I suspect that wasn't the intention. It is difficult to know what the intention actually was, in fact.</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-39281971814603626832014-11-11T18:01:00.002+02:002014-11-11T18:01:39.436+02:00Why Romania is screwed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We are now firmly in the endgame of the presidential election, with Victor Ponta facing Klaus Iohannis. Regular readers of this bog will have a fairly good idea as to where my sympathies lie (or in fact where my hostilities lie).<br />
<br />
A video is circulating today showing the President of Satu Mare County Council, shouting and swearing for a lengthy period of time at various people, threatening to fire them if Ponta does not win in Satu Mare County. This follows the first round in which - in the county- Iohannis beat Ponta by 0.6% of the vote. The County president in question is clearly a PSD man, and equally clearly irked by the disloyalty shown to him and his party by the voters (and quite possibly has himself just been at the mercy of a tongue lashing from party HQ in Bucharest). <br />
<br />
But what is really telling about this video is not the shouting and swearing and threats. What is really telling is that the people he is bawling out are all political appointees. A huge number of jobs in Romania are filled by people who have been awarded that job primarily through party affiliations. Sometimes it seems nearly all civil service jobs are filled in this way. So, the shouting president almost certainly feels that these people who are in post because of the PSD in the first place really do need to get their fingers out and drag people kicking and screaming to the ballot box this coming Sunday to get them to vote Ponta.<br />
<br />
But, but, but. This is Europe in 2014. Why are so many jobs filled by party apparatchiks and the loyal card carrying members? This is not Ceausescu's Romania, this is the modern, EU member Romania. But sadly this is still how things work. The party makes the man. OK so it;s democratic now, so there is more than one party, but it still works like this. And the PSD is the worst offender because they effectively are the old communist party so they have all the systems and local functionaries in place already, from the village level to the city. [Here in Hargita County, it is the UDMR rather than the PSD who have this power of awarding positions to their friends]<br />
<br />
This is the problem. This is why this election is a scam. People will do whatever they can (including breaking the law) to get the vote out for Ponta. It is very telling that the votes for the diaspora went very much against Ponta in the first round. Taken from the control of the system, taken from the villages where their votes are bought, cajoled, and coerced, people do not want the same old system again. They want Romania to be more modern, less corrupt, more genuinely democratic.<br />
<br />
I don't hold out much hope. The Ponta army will be out on Sunday and they will ensure their man wins, and then we will go back to 1990, and every positive step forward that Romania has made in the last 25 years will be shelved. The party will again rule, and the corrupt will walk free and safe in the knowledge that their liberty to rip off the people is assured. </div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-72879962003054490312014-10-03T10:29:00.000+03:002014-10-03T10:29:52.999+03:00Romania's Presidential Elections (2014 edition)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
While the number of people in Romania continues to drop like a stone, the number of people who want to be the President of those who are left seems to be rising just as fast. At some point at this rate there will be as many Presidential candidates as there are people. <br />
<br />
This autumn's election features no fewer than 14 candidates. Including some people who clearly just want to do battle over the odd 0.1 of a percentage point with each other. We have, for example, two candidates who purport to represent the Hungarian minority. In some ways there is a logic to that, because since the UDMR's candidate is not ever (ever) going to get into the second round, "splitting the vote" of the Hungarians doesn't really matter and it gives the other party a chance to challenge without being accused of treachery to the Hungarian cause. We also have two extreme right wing candidates who used to be the leading lights of the same xenophobic party, the PRM. But clearly they've fallen out (possibly over whether the Hungarians are more dangerous than the Jews or the other way round, or some such), and now Vadim Tudor and Funar are going head to head in a battle to the death, a chance at the end of the voting to wave their (no doubt minuscule) dicks at each other and proclaim themselves a bigger shitstain on the Romanian flag than the other.<br />
<br />
But enough of the minor candidates who stand as much chance of making the second round as I do (even though I'm not standing). <br />
<br />
On the 2nd of November voters will pick two candidates to run off against each other 2 weeks later (unless of course someone gets 50%+ in the first round and wins before that. But that won't happen.) The favourite (in terms of the polls), and the one who is virtually guaranteed to make the second round is the current PM Victor Ponta. <br />
<br />
Now Victor Ponta is, and I say this with absolute certainty, a complete dick. He is the ultimate party apparatchik, the protege of Adrian Nastase, a man so corrupt that he is actually doing time for it (almost unheard of in Romania) Nastase in turn is the protege of Ion Iliescu. The whole house of cards is as bent as a paperclip. Ponta, you may remember, was also the man who cheated on his PhD thesis, plagiarising large chunks of it and then denying that he had, and when it was proved, he refused to resign anyway. After all, why should one be excluded from high office just for being a proven liar and cheat? Ponta's hubris of late has even extended to him hosting a rally in his own honour on his own birthday in the national stadium. Something that his political grandfather Iliescu learned from being Ceausescu's right hand man I suspect. Craig at Bucharest Life has a good <a href="http://www.bucharestlife.net/2014/09/22/victor-ponta-will-not-be-romanias-next-president/" target="_blank">summary - with pictures - of the whole desperate event</a>. I'm not sure how one can build the cult of personality around someone who apparently has none, but anyway. It was deeply revolting. (By the way, the media - particularly it seems the foreign media, present Ponta as the left wing candidate. he is not. Unless a socially illilberal populist xenophobe can be considered left wing. In UK terms he is as left wing as Nigel Farage)<br />
<br />
Who might face Ponta in the run off? Well the current money is on Klaus Iohannis, the mayor of Sibiu. Iohannis seems sort of not bad. He's clearly done a good job in Sibiu (though it's a big step up from running a smallish city to running a country), he's not a party apparatchik, being a physics teacher originally (and most pleasingly from my perspective, he's married to an English teacher). I can't help feeling that there is a bit of a cultural cringe at play here though. "Well, clearly we're not to be trusted to run our own country so perhaps we can persuade this German bloke to do it for us". To me, however, he's a bit of an enigma. What kind of president would he be? No-one knows. Would he be better than Ponta? Hell yeah. [Ponta, by the way, "left winger" that he supposedly is, has launched attacks on Iohannis based on his ethnicity and his religion]<br />
<br />
The only other two candidates who get much of a mention in polling are Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu and Monica Macovei. The former is an ex Prime Minister and one of the few long standing national politicians in the country that I have any time for. The latter is a former justice minister and the face of the anti-corruption efforts in Romania. She has been, I feel, excellent in that role, and has genuinely given anti-corruption investigators teeth, and has set out her stall to do something about it. She won't win unfortunately. (There's some old case involving both Mocovei and Tariceanu, which means that while they used to work together successfully they now seem to be in one of the many feuds that characterise Romanian politics). <br />
<br />
All in all, the three possible people who might oppose Ponta in the run off represent about the only three national politicians in Romania that I actually partially trust. So, it could work out well. But Ponta leads the polls quite significantly and with the PSD's grass roots actions (which is to say they basically run many villages in Romania and will "get out the vote" in the way that they used to when they were the Communist Party), the stronger possibility is that Ponta will win. But you know, we can always hope.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-85574007856586095062014-08-12T09:54:00.001+03:002014-08-12T09:54:16.699+03:00On pro- and anti-<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Anyone who is connected to me on facebook will have noticed that of late my updates have tended to be ones of support for the people of Gaza, and horror at the actions of the Israeli state. There seems to be a tendency to categorise all such comments (from me or anyone else) as pro-Palestine and anti-Israel. I want to reject that characterisation. My wish that Israel ends it slaughter of Palestinians, that it ends the siege of Gaza, that it ends this brutal occupation are NOT an anti-Israel position. On the contrary I feel they are a pro-Israel position. An Israel that is not acting in this way is a much better (and, ironically, a much more secure) Israel. <br />
<br />
I am, therefore, reclaiming these labels. I am pro-Palestine AND pro-Israel. I am anti-occupation, and I am anti-massacre and anti-brutality and anti-bombing children. I am also anti-Likud, anti-Netanyahu, and anti-the actions of the Israeli state and it's military wing, the IDF.<br />
<br />
I've spent time in the occupied territories and I know full well how the IDF operates. And it's not pretty at all. There are, of course, some good decent soldiers in the Israeli army. But there are also some real shits, and the overall policy of the army is to subjugate, humiliate, brutalise, dehumanise and oppress the Palestinians This is what I am anti-<br />
<br />
In supporting the liberation of the Palestinians, I am, at the same time, supporting the liberation of the Israelis from their owns state's appalling inhuman actions.<br />
<br />
"A nation cannot become free and at the same time continue to oppress other nations." (Engels)</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-12695905400846781112014-07-09T06:38:00.002+03:002014-07-09T06:38:37.000+03:00More collective punishment, more war crimes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There will come a time, in the not too distant future, when those who seek to justify Israel's destruction of Gaza will be looked upon as craven and disgraceful as those western communists who applauded when Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest in 1956.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bdsmovement.net/">http://www.bdsmovement.net/</a><br />
<br /></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-34920824760076316602014-07-01T12:13:00.000+03:002014-07-01T12:13:04.230+03:00Testing my patience<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So, I wrote <a href="http://szekely.blogspot.ro/2014/06/exams.html" target="_blank">last week</a> about the important tests for 8th graders which go a long way to deciding their next 4
years. I mentioned then that I don’t believe in testing in general, because I think
it tends to favour those who are good at tests . But I do see that they at least provide
something of a level playing field.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Except when they don’t<o:p></o:p></div>
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There are times when my patience for the way things work in
Romania is tested to its limits. This
last week has been one of those times. It is not an exaggerated rant to say
that the testing system in this country is an absolute fucking disgrace.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let me explain: The
marking of these tests is done pretty much the same day (or the following day)
by local teachers who are paid almost nothing for the job (they get a gross payment of something like 3.70 Lei per test marked, which, after taxes and everything probably works out at about 40p net). These
teachers have a mark sheet to refer to, which they use to score the tests. But –
and it’s a very big but – there is no standardisation. Essentially the teachers mark as strictly or
leniently as they like. Indeed on the markers' information sheet it actually gives the marker the leeway to decide whether they think something deserves a mark or not. If your paper ends up with a strict marker you get a
low mark. If it ends with someone willing to give the benefit of the doubt,
then you get a much better one. The test
grade is, to all intents and purposes, a lottery. Your grade depends, very heavily, on the marker your paper is randomly assigned.</div>
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Now, I know a fair amount about testing and assessment in my professional work. I'm by no means an expert in that field, but I have read a fair amount on it, taken training courses, and have attended testing and assessment conferences. In short, I know something (less than many, more than most) about how tests work and what their function is. In addition, I am an oral examiner on a well-known international English test, and in that capacity I have to attend thorough and extensive annual standardisation meetings. </div>
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In these tests, though, far from levelling the playing field, the testing system
does exactly the opposite (the papers are marked anonymously, so at least we can say the
process is not corrupt, but it’s still based on pure luck). And levelling the playing field is, and I want to stress that I'm stating this in the most calm, objective, thoughtful way possible, levelling the playing field IS THE WHOLE FUCKING
POINT OF HAVING A FUCKING TEST IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The maths test is reasonably balanced, because obviously in
maths (especially at the 8<sup>th</sup> grade level) there isn’t a great deal
of potential variation in correct answers. It’s either right or not. But the
literature tests (and here in this town most kids take two of those – in Romanian and
Hungarian) are pretty much marked by whim. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, one can draw the short straw in the
Romanian and/or Hungarian marking lottery and get a terribly hard marker. The best in the class can get the worst marks. To give an example, there are two identical
twins in another class at her school, who are both brilliant, and who both score
more or less exactly the same on any work. Their marks for the Romanian test were 9.10 and 5.25 out of ten. This is simply not a possible split. Some of the best in Romanian in Bogi's class got some of the lowest marks (including the two kids who have a Romanian parent, and who are therefore functionally bilingual. Though, of course,<a href="http://szekely.blogspot.ro/2012/02/romanian-education-system-3.html" target="_blank"> as I've mentioned before</a>, the test does not test language competence, but literary analysis)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is an appeal process. But everybody in the know says that the second marker tends not to alter the mark much because it’s
perceived as undermining a fellow teacher. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Romanian test in particular has been the subject of much debate in the country over the last week, since a teacher from Bucharest last week complained that it was (a) testing things that were not on the curriculum; and (b) subjective in the marking. She gave an example of a question of synonyms in which two answers were given but others were possible. (<a href="http://www.contributors.ro/editorial/cine-le-cere-iertare-copiilor-scrisoarea-unei-profesoare-de-limba-romana/" target="_blank">Her letter here, in Romanian</a>). The Ministry of Education has responded on their website by pointing out that (in the case of (b)) it states quite clearly that the teacher/marker has the flexibility to decide whether an answer not given in the key is acceptable or not. (<a href="http://www.edu.ro/index.php/pressrel/21715" target="_blank">Link here</a>). In other words, they have proudly stated, defending themselves against the charge of having a subjective grading system, that they do in fact have a subjective grading system. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The function of the test is essentially a competition.
Having your test marked hard is not a problem – if everyone is marking the
same. But they are not. So, the upshot
is that some kids get punished through no fault of their own. And these tests (or rather the grade given for these tests) decide which school you can go to and which subjects you can study. They are, in short, extremely important. Much too important, it would seem, to be left in the hands of whichever people at the Ministry of Education are currently responsible for them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I love living in this country for many reasons, but sometimes the way it is run makes me want to scream. Perhaps I should not expect more when the Prime Minister is an unrepentant plagiarist. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe it's an important lesson for 8th graders to learn that their lives are subject to the whims of fate and that ability and hard work count for nothing. But I figure they'll learn that eventually anyway. It seems shameful to institutionalise it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-45788494653434526392014-06-27T14:55:00.001+03:002014-06-27T15:34:24.092+03:00Day of the flag<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yesterday, I learned while watching the news, was "The Day of the Romanian Flag". WTF is that? There's also a day for the national anthem, and a day for the constitution. I am not yet sure if there is a "National Day of the Romanian Penal Code" or "National Day of the Romanian Currency". I mean seriously, what exactly do people do on a day which celebrates a piece of cloth? Do all countries have one of these? What's the point of it? Can anyone tell me?<br />
<br />
<br />
Not really the same thing, but anyway:<br />
<br />
<object height="360" width="480"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/3-pxGH4eyLQ?version=3&hl=en_GB&rel=0"></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
<embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/3-pxGH4eyLQ?version=3&hl=en_GB&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Slightly later update: I made the day of the currency up, imagining it to be an impossible date... <b style="font-style: italic;">but it exists!</b> April 22nd, if you ever want to pay homage to your Lei.<br />
<br />
Seriously though. the day of the flag. What's it all about? "The day of the symbol of the national day". Does the flag get its own symbol, that you can wave in its honour?</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-5385180362913808782014-06-25T12:51:00.000+03:002014-06-25T12:51:18.346+03:00Romtelecom, setting Romania back 30 years<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Customer service in Romania is frequently (though by no means always) a haphazard affair, with there still being a significant number of places where your custom is seen as more of a burden than a positive. But things are changing for the better, and noticeably so.<br />
<br />
So when a large company with - no doubt - up to date processes and a focus on customer service manages to piss you off so much through treating you like the old days it can be really shocking.<br />
<br />
Romtelecom is the company that used to have a monopoly on all telecom type services in this country, but these days they are in competition with other companies, and they provide internet, land-line telephone services and cable TV. Of late I've actually heard reasonably good things about them. And so, when we decided to get a much better Internet connection in our house, we had no problems in going to them. Last week we got in touch and put in our request to be connected to their service. "OK, we'll let you know", was the response, which we took to mean "We'll call you when the guy is coming round to connect you up". We checked in today and ... well it wasn't like we had imagined.<br />
<br />
Today's message was "The fact that you asked for internet does not mean we will give it to you. That was just a logging of your request. The village you live in is not part of our "development plan", and so, well,... "(you get the picture). Now, Romtelecom has cable here. Our neighbours have internet through Romtelecom, as do most people in the village. it's not that they have to lay cable out here or something. They just <i>can't be bothered</i> sending someone out to the village. It's an absolute fucking joke. I feel like I jumped back in time 20 years to a Romania where the customer is just a pain in the arse to be ignored or treated like shit. <br />
<br />
I'm flabbergasted, to be honest. </div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-63906584090600935392014-06-23T14:33:00.000+03:002014-06-23T14:40:17.051+03:00Exams<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PEAHjk1qhB4/U6gMXWItA5I/AAAAAAAAAsE/qIC3-lQuxWM/s1600/testing+trees.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PEAHjk1qhB4/U6gMXWItA5I/AAAAAAAAAsE/qIC3-lQuxWM/s1600/testing+trees.jpg" height="220" width="320" /></a></div>
This week is exam week for the 8th graders of Romania. Essentially, they have 2 (or 3 - see below) big exams, after which their futures (or the next 4 years of those futures anyway) are decided. Roughly, how it works is this: Over the 4 years from 5-8th grade they have been receiving marks for everything they do at school, and this continuous assessment goes towards their final grade. But it only constitutes 25% of the total, and the exams they are taking this week make up the other 75%. But they don;t have exams in all the subjects they have been studying, just 2 (or, as I said, 3, in some cases). So there are large amounts of subjects that have almost no weight in this process - Physics, English, chemistry, geography, history, biology, etc etc are all sort of left behind here.<br />
<br />
The exams that they do have are in Romanian (that was this morning, Monday), and maths (that's on Wednesday). For those kids whose first language is not Romanian, they also have an exam in "limba materna" - in my daughter Bogi's case (and the case of 90% of Harghita County, and about 7-8% of the country) that means Hungarian. Seems a bit unfair that they have to do 3 rather than 2, but them's the breaks. (It will be this way after the 12th grade too).<br />
<br />
Next year, from the 9th grade, they will all be at high school. These tests will decide (a) what "track" they will be able to take in high school, and (b) what high school they can go to. Because while there isn't any form of streaming in the Romanian system, the "good" high school can choose the "good" students to fill its places (this happened to me too when I was at school choosing sixth forms, so it;s not exactly a Romania-specific issue). So it does make a difference.<br />
<br />
Over the years the weighting of the continuous assessment and the exams keeps changing (to the point where you only really find out what it will be during that final, 8th, year. 4 years ago, there was no test at all, and it was all on continuous assessment. Last year it was, I think 50/50. Now the test is dominant. I'm intellectually opposed to the primacy of the test as a form of assessment, but the argument that I hear a lot from parents is that in schools in villages, everyone knows everyone and the teachers tend to give higher marks during the year than do teachers in towns. Thus when the reckoning comes, kids from villages end u taking the places in the "good" schools, squeezing out the town kids who have had much tougher teaching and more exacting standards. I have no idea if that's true but it sounds like a valid concern - especially in a community like this where it's very rural and this is the point at which kids from a large hinterland are all feeding in to a few schools, all in the town. The national test, it is thought, at least provides a level playing field.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the stress will all be over in 2 more days, and then it's just about trying to jump through the bureaucratic hoops to get to your chosen school.<br />
<br />
Today, then, the kids are not 100% happy, but just to wrap this up, here is a video that Bogi's class made to celebrate the end of school. You get to see lots of shots of the town and it is really, genuinely a very high quality video.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<object width="400" height="225"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/EseSmzvxO3w?hl=en_GB&version=3&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/EseSmzvxO3w?hl=en_GB&version=3&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="225" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>
<br />
<br /></div>Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-47619139733721784372014-06-16T16:39:00.002+03:002014-06-16T16:39:15.561+03:00Modern slavery in the free market<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My neighbour has just come home from Sweden. She's been working there for a month or so picking asparagus. She came home early because she started suffering from a heart condition and basically was advised that she should no longer work.<br />
<br />
Now the reason that she may have developed this heart condition is that she was worked like a dog. Well harder than that. They got up to start their day at 3am. yes, that's right 3am. And they worked, some days as late as 11pm (it being light late in Sweden). They worked 7 days a week at this appalling pace, in terrible conditions - they were told they would be picking strawberries, which wouldn't have been much better, but is not as bad as picking asparagus. Before she got the heart problem she also had an infected leg wound from working in the wet fields. For the time that she was there, just over 5 weeks, of this punishing, brutal schedule, she has brought home 600 Euros. 7 days a week 16-20 hours a day. For 600 Euros. Away from her husband and daughter, away from her home.<br />
<br />
And, let's not forget, this is in Sweden, one of the best places in Europe and the world for conditions for workers we always think. God knows what she'd have gone through somewhere else.<br />
<br />
Now we've heard a lot recently about the EU's open borders for workers, the migration of people looking for work. But we don't hear that much about the unscrupulous bastards who use this fact to treat people like virtual slaves. These vile, cruel, workhouse capitalist pigs. Scum of the earth, using and abusing the poor and disadvantaged to furnish their own profit margins. Sweeping up poor, undereducated people from SE Europe, transporting them half way across the continent and them working them (literally) into the ground, until their bodies fail. This is inhuman and absolutely disgusting. This is where the EU's policies are failing the continent - failing to protect people from these slave-drivers, these rapacious monsters who abuse the system and those they "hire" into their appalling schemes. <br />
<br />
And, yet, repugnant motherfuckers like Farage and Le Pen, focus their ire, their hate, their attacks on the people who are forced by circumstances to take these "jobs". The victims are not to blame, and to make them the scapegoats is just piling misery on top of those who can least fight back. The EU needs to change its policies - it needs to protect the vulnerable and disadvantaged. Instead it creates the conditions for the exploitation of people in the name of free movement.<br />
<br />
It's time to fight this shit. The market may be free. Those that are used by it most definitely are not. Just another commodity to be mined for profit. </div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-18499469842247874342014-02-18T18:09:00.001+02:002014-02-18T18:11:34.555+02:00Sportopolis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I wonder if there is any town that is has produced as many successful sportspeople per head of population as Csikszereda.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_rytMFy4_tY/UwOEGbZ4UBI/AAAAAAAAAo4/3faFBr0z4Jg/s1600/olympics1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_rytMFy4_tY/UwOEGbZ4UBI/AAAAAAAAAo4/3faFBr0z4Jg/s1600/olympics1.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Novak Edouard</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I have gone on before about the ice hockey team and how they are the best in Romania - well, they've been champions for the last seven years, and while this streak may well be ended this year by Brasov, the vast majority of Romania's national team hail from Harghita County and more specifically this town. And while Romania's hockey team is not close to being the best in the world, they do reasonably well, and in the past have done extremely well. Someone I consider a friend was on the team at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980, (the famous one in which the USA beat the USSR in what the US media referred to as "The Miracel on Ice"), at which they finished 7th. Which is not to be sniffed at.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-io0e6-192rI/UwOEJYXbr-I/AAAAAAAAApA/YWjm7huj1Wo/s1600/olympics2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-io0e6-192rI/UwOEJYXbr-I/AAAAAAAAApA/YWjm7huj1Wo/s1600/olympics2.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tofalvi Eva</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But, you may be thinking, ice hockey is a fairly niche sport in Romania and it's really only popular here, so that's not necessarily a big deal. Obviously I'll have to come up with more sportspersons to convince you. Well, how about Novak Edouard, Romania's only ever paralympic medalist and current World and Olympic champion in cycling? (Who, in fact was a very fine young speed skater before the accident which cost him a leg and meant he ended up as a paralympian)<br />
<br />
And then cast your eyes over to Sochi and the current Olympics going on there. Featuring no fewer than 4 separate Szeredans. Some of whom have done extraordinarily well, especially given the lack of funding and support that Romania offers to its athletes. A quick listing of the results so far shows a genuinely superb set of performances:<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Eva Tofalvi, biathlete</b><br />
7.5km sprint - finished 22nd<br />
10km pursuit - 26th<br />
15km individual - 21st<br />
12.5km mass start - 21st<br />
<br />
<b>Edit Miklos, alpine skier<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b_3aPOu191c/UwOEMeCcKJI/AAAAAAAAApI/Tl7pGZtGtn0/s1600/olympics3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b_3aPOu191c/UwOEMeCcKJI/AAAAAAAAApI/Tl7pGZtGtn0/s1600/olympics3.jpg" height="132" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miklos Edit</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</b><br />
super combined - 16th<br />
downhill - 7th<br />
super-g - 15th<br />
giant slalom - 34th<br />
<br />
<b>Emoke Szocs, biathlete</b><br />
7.5km sprint - 70th<br />
15km individual - 70th<br />
<br />
<b>Zoltan Kelemen - figure skater</b><br />
short programme - 24th<br />
free programme - 23rd<br />
<br />
Given the circumstances, these are truly brilliant results, and these people should be extremely proud of themselves. <br />
<br />
[<b>Note</b>: <i>Because the new Hungarian constitution allows anyone of Hungarian ethnicity to become a Hungarian citizen, two of the above athletes (Miklos and Szocs) have competed under the Hungarian flag rather than the Romanian. As I understand it they say it's because they felt they were offered more support by the Hungarian Olympic Committee, but (a) that wouldn't be difficult; and (b) personally I think that's a shame, and if people have to participate in the Olympics under a national banner I'd rather they would have done so under the Romanian one, but ultimately I'm counting them as "from Csikszereda" before anything else anyway. And, if people actually paid any attention to the Olympic Charter this wouldn't be an issue anyway since it says</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Article 6:</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> The Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual or team events and not between countries.</span></blockquote>
<i>But sadly everyone ignores that and makes it all about nationalism anyway. I mean why - given the above - do we have a medals table?</i>]<br />
<br />
So, anyway, before we end up down the usual cul-de-sac of my standard rants about national identity, can anyone give me a town with a greater number of top athletes per head of population?</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-37823060179835247332014-01-17T11:33:00.001+02:002014-01-17T11:34:01.999+02:00Extreme Mildness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
That's about as oxymoronic as it gets, I suspect, but in fact it fits.<br />
<br />
We are experiencing a very very weird winter. As I may have gone on about at some length, Csikszereda is a very cold place. Temperatures in January are regularly below -20 and in some years down as low as -30 and below. By this time of the year, we should be waist deep in snow and wrapped up like michelin men. But we are not because we are in the middle of what ought to be termed a massive heatwave. It won't be termed a heatwave of course, because temperatures of +3 are not really what one would call a heatwave. But in terms of comparison with the norm, we must be at least 10 degrees over the average, and possibly more. Which is a heatwave, of sorts anyway. <br />
<br />
So, what to call this extreme mildness? The US media has gone way over the top with these kind of things of late, with this year's Polar Vortex beating last year's Perfect Storm and Snowmageddon, so I think we need a term for this year's incredible bout of mild and unusually bearable weather. <br />
<br />
Some possibilities:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Fair-to-middlingmageddon</li>
<li>The Great 2014 Carnage of Tolerability</li>
<li>The Four Horseman of the not-that-parky</li>
<li>Temperataclysm</li>
<li>Clement Void</li>
<li>Actually-pretty-comfortable-to-be-honest-pocalypse</li>
</ul>
<br />
To be serious for a moment, it is having some serious effects on the local economy, as at this time of year there is usually a lot of snow (and this year there is precisely none). The vast majority of the local ski runs don't have any snow making equipment so they have already effectively lost half their season (which typically runs December to March - we're now in mid January and they haven't even been able to open yet). Then of course there is the fear of the possibility of a drought later in the year - since there has been basically no precipitation of any kind since October, we could be in some trouble later on down the line.</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-19575808569793545662014-01-16T12:48:00.000+02:002014-01-16T12:48:44.363+02:00Health and Safety<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rr10kMnjshU/Ute3b7FNf_I/AAAAAAAAAoE/aVW_TOpTcNA/s1600/elfnsafety.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rr10kMnjshU/Ute3b7FNf_I/AAAAAAAAAoE/aVW_TOpTcNA/s1600/elfnsafety.jpg" /></a></div>
One of the things that the Daily Mail reading knobheads who make up a dangerously large proportion of my countrymen moan about is "health and safety". You know, how people are much safer now and people care about the safety of people when they plan stuff. I mean it's quite understandable why it causes these right wing dicks such pain, to see people taking "precautions". <br />
<br />
Health and Safety in Romania is a very different kettle of fish though. We don't really have things to sign, or long involved forms to fill in, or lots of paperwork. If my daughter goes off with her class skiing for example, we have to sign something which says she can go, but nothing else. Once a week her class goes skating (this is a new town policy that all 1st and 2nd graders learn to skate and all 3rd and 4th graders learn to swim), and again, we just drop her off and off she goes.<br />
<br />
Now, while I do tend to trust people and think that she is perfectly OK in these situations (and obviously if I thought she wasn't, I would find a way of making her safe), there are areas of life here in which I feel a dash of health-and-safety-ism wouldn't go amiss. Driving, for example, in which Romania punches well above its weight in totally unnecessary deaths, due mostly to the fact that there are a huge number of complete arseholes let loose at the wheel in this country. And the number of times that the news leads on the explosion of an apartment building somewhere due to a gas leak does seem somewhat excessive. I mean one would be excessive, but here it's seemingly one a week. And the number of buildings in this town which have some form of tiled entranceway, including tiled outdoor steps at the hospital, where tiles are the world's worse surface in icy conditions (conditions which are really pretty common here), is mind-blowing. I mean has noone ever noticed and thought to themselves "That new public building we're constructing - I wonder if it would be safer<i> not </i>to tile the front steps?"<br />
<br />
This morning however, as I crawled back and forth on my customary morning swim, noting the 9 year olds doing their thing at the end of each lap (that school policy mentioned above), wondering as I plunged back down the pool, what the ratio of swim teachers to children would be necessary in the UK (I'm pretty sure that the apparent 30 kids: one teacher ratio would be unacceptable), I realised that there is a health and safety culture here. It's just a very different one. It's not an officially sanctioned one, and it doesn't really rely on evidence-based safety features, but rather a kind of institutionalised old wives' health and safetyism. <br />
<br />
I am sure I have already mentioned the fear of "curent", which is to say draughts. Get on a bus in summer, in 40 degree heat and dare to open a window to try and make the whole situation bearable, and instantly incur the wrath of the self-appointed health and safety inspectors who will quickly shout at you for your idiotic desire to not melt and will close the window despite your protests. Draughts make people sick, you see. <br />
<br />
Go out with your child in a temperature of anywhere below 20 degrees C and have the self same health and safety inspectors will come up to you and tut loudly about her lack of a hat.<br />
<br />
And, to prove my point, after my hydro-exertions, I was reminded of the other aspect of the kids' swimming lessons. The hair drying. As the kids come to the swimming pool in their regular class time, they are accompanied by their teacher. I presume the teacher is allowed to swim, but usually they just sit around watching. Their real duty at the pool is the making sure everyone gets changed successfully on arrival and departure, but most importantly to make sure every child's hair is totally and utterly dry before they leave the building and return to school. Because going outside with wet hair is so <i>so</i> much more dangerous than racing through a village at 120 km/h, or jerry-rigging the wiring of your house, or asking old people to walk up ice stairs to get into a hospital.<br />
<br />
To cap it all, have you seen how much hair 9 year old girls have? Each one of them takes about half an hour to dry it to the exacting standards required. This means that for a one hour swimming lesson the children are out of school for getting on for all day. (I exaggerate slightly, and I do think making sure all the children of the town can swim is an excellent idea and even contributes to<i> actual</i> health and safety). <br />
<br />
I tend to get changed, slip on my coat and walk out, wet head held high. I have no idea how the teachers explain that to the kids. "You see that man, leaving with wet hair? Obviously having wet hair as a child has made him crazy as an adult to the point where <i>he doesn't even dry his hair!</i>"<br />
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<br /></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-26587778643043686742013-11-06T09:15:00.002+02:002013-11-06T09:15:20.066+02:00Lightbulbs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>How many politicians in Romania does it take to change a light bulb? </b><br />
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One or two to sign the contract handing over billions of dollars of taxpayers money to a massive multinational corporation to do the actual work of changing the lightbulb, many more to be paid off to not question the deal, and some others to make trouble and change the subject if anyone in the media ever challenge it.<br />
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(oh and at the end of the process the lightbulb hasn't actually been changed)<br />
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In the interests of balance, though I was careful to specify that it was politicians in Romania in the joke/reality above, rather than Romanian politicians<br />
<br />
<b>How many Hungarian politicians does it take to change a lightbulb in Harghita County?</b><br />
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It really is appalling that the government in Bucharest have not changed this lightbulb already. it's just another example of the anti-Hungarian bias shown by this country. If this lightbulb were in Craiova it would have been changed months ago. </div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-80485084831739131602013-11-01T11:11:00.002+02:002013-11-01T12:52:49.940+02:00A 100 year old mirror<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mb6u0Uk3RLs/UnNUR8X0I2I/AAAAAAAAAmI/JEy42Nu39sw/s1600/banffy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mb6u0Uk3RLs/UnNUR8X0I2I/AAAAAAAAAmI/JEy42Nu39sw/s320/banffy.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
Recently, I started reading what seems to be widely regarded as "The Great Transylvanian Novel", which is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikl%C3%B3s_B%C3%A1nffy" target="_blank">Miklos Banffy</a>'s Transylvanian trilogy (or Banffy Miklos's if you prefer). Period literature is not really my thing, usually, and especially period literature which features as its main context the lives of aristocrats and the privileged. But, so far, (I'm mid way through book 1) it's an absolutely cracking read. I'm - to my surprise, actually - really enjoying it. And so many things are familiar to me, in a way which I could never have expected. (Which is precisely why everyone tells me that I shouldn't overlook such novels. So, I have been foolish. As usual.)<br />
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So, anyway, I'm guessing I might write again on this subject as I devour the 3 books, but yesterday I came across a passage which was just so perfect I felt I had to share it. <br />
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The hero, Balint Abady (I'll just stick with the translated version's ordering of names rather than the original Hungarian), who is a count and a politician (and one assumes not a million miles from Banffy himself), is travelling on a train from Maros-Ludas (Luduș) to Kolozsvar (Cluj) where he meets a Romanian lawyer, Dr Aurel Timisan. They start talking and...<br />
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<blockquote>
<i>It was all such nonsense: Romanians were Romanians and would remain so eternally, no matter what new names were invented for them.
"Nobody expects anything else," said Balint, "but you must admit that the country in which you live has a right to demand that you learn its language!"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"Naturally, I'm not against that," said Timisan, and once again a barely perceptible mockery lurked in his smile, "That's to everyone's advantage. As you see I've learned it myself, even becoming a Doctor of Law at a Hungarian university and serving in the Hungarian army, both with tolerable success, though I say it myself. [...] "But you must admit, too," he went on, "that it is most unjust that the public notaries, high sheriffs, tax-collectors - indeed all public servants - are not obliged to speak the language of the people they serve. It is really absurd that the people cannot explain themselves in court in their own language, but they have to use an interpreter. the Nationality Bill was supposed to grant us this...but of course it's been drawn up by Hungarians without us being consulted!"</i></blockquote>
This passage actually made me laugh out loud because I feel like I've had this conversation over and over, or overheard it time after time. Except now of course, the roles are reversed, and Romanian and Hungarian have changed places. This part of the novel is set in the early part of he last century, around 1906 I believe. 100 years later and we have exactly the same conversations about more or less exactly the same things, just in reverse. First time tragedy, second time farce? <br />
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Abady changes the subject at this point, and sounds a bit like a more erudite version of me..<br />
<blockquote>
<i>"It's my view," he said, "that we should try and find the means to draw closer spiritually and economically. here in Transylvania we are both at home. It is your country and it is my country. It is common ground to both of us. We could learn a great deal is we paid more attention to what really matters, and did not allow ourselves always to be sucked into the whirlpool of Budapest politics"</i></blockquote>
(Here you have to replace Budapest with Bucharest, but you knew that)<br />
<br />
<b><i>plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
It's a great book. I'd really recommend it. <br />
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-92221352608845370972013-09-30T12:28:00.000+03:002013-09-30T12:28:11.851+03:00Romanian Vignettes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There is a system of heating and hot water in Romania, whereby for the (many) blocks of flats, there is a centralised building where they heat the water and pump it around the buildings, providing hot water all year long and heating in the winter. The heating gets turned on round about October 1st and turned off again in April. (Round here anyway, down in some of the warmer parts of the country these dates may be different).<div>
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Now this system would actually be quite a good one, were it not for the fact that the facilities and infrastructure are old and they've never been updated since the communists built them. So there is massive inefficiency, and loads of leaks and so on. So the amount of money you pay each month for your heating and hot water is not related that closely to how much you've used. Because of this most people try to get off the system and install their own gas boiler water/heating system, so that they only pay for what they use. </div>
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Our apartment was already off the grid when we bought it, and has been for something like 10 years, but because the pipes run through our flat we still have to pay something. (When we first moved in they were all clad in insulation so we didn't pay that money, but then the law changed, so we took off the insulation - since we were paying anyway. But I digress).</div>
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Last week, the one remaining apartment on our side of the building that still used the central system, installed their own system, and someone from the building came round telling us that we could finally get rid of the pipes and stop paying the (ridiculously large) monthly amount of money. As ours is the lowest apartment in the building (one floor up above some shops), it was decided that it made sense if the pipes would be cut and capped in our apartment.</div>
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So, last week the blokes came around and sawed off all ten pipes that ran through our apartment, bottom and top, and welded them shut. It was a surprisingly quick and not too disruptive a job. Until another resident of the building from some floors higher up <i>on the other side</i>, came in to see what was going on and got very upset because she said that the system went up one side of the building and then back down the other side, so when the heating was turned on (a) they wouldn't get any; and (b) we'd all get flooded by all the water going round the system. </div>
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Now, it is at this point that the story becomes a truly Romanian* story. Because when we asked the workmen if it was possible that she was right, their answer was not "No, that's not a problem, we would never have cut these pipes if that could happen", but instead. "Hmm. We have no idea. I guess we'd better check". </div>
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(*By which I mean a story that takes place in Romania, rather than a story that is Romanian in its ethnicity :-) )</div>
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[Turns out that they did need to do some work up on the top floor to ensure that this problem didn't arise, but it wasn't the absolute clusterfuck that it would have been if they'd needed to re-install the pipes that they had just removed. But it is a good job that the neighbour checked]</div>
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-44355551266560505662013-09-11T17:49:00.001+03:002013-09-12T09:19:15.443+03:00Democracy and Rosia Montana<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There has been a big story in Romania for years now - that of the proposed gold mining operation at Rosia Montana. Anyone in Romania can skip the beginning of this since you all know the ins and outs of this question, but for people who are not familiar, here is a very brief summary of what has been happening and especially the last few days:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
The basic background information</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Transylvania, Romania, in the Apuseni mountains, an area of stunning national beauty, there is a small village called Rosia Montana. it is a village built on mining, where mining - for gold mostly - has been going on since Roman times. Indeed under the village there are excellently preserved Roman gold mines. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white;" />
<br style="background-color: white;" />
<span style="background-color: white;">The village has been at the centre of mining operations ever since, though mostly on a very small scale. As with most such industries at the end of communism the mine shut down (inefficient, dangerous, polluting, needing tons of investment to continue)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">14 years ago a Canadian company called Gabriel Resources acquired the rights to develop the mines and mine the gold. They set up a company called Rosia Mountain Gold Corporation (hereafter RMGC) which is 81% owned by them (Gabriel) and 19% by the Romanian state. Since then there has been an incredibly long and convoluted process to finally get this mining under way. RMGC's plan was basically to relocate most of the villagers to nearby town Alba Iulia, and knock down 4 mountains in the largest open cast mine in Europe. It's a massive operation. they bought up much of the land, with the majority of the villagers - desperate for work - happy to go along with the plan and to be employed. Some, of course , did not go along and held out, refusing to sell their land.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white;" />
<span style="background-color: white;">The environmental movement is also, obviously up in arms, since not only does this plan pretty much trash a massive area of extremely beautiful countryside, but it also involves the extensive use of cyanide. Cyanide is used in gold mining as standard, and the plan would create a large toxic lake of cyanide which would pretty much stay there for ever. 15ish years ago in northern Romania, a much smaller cyanide lake burst its banks and entered the river system, killing fish all the way down the Tisza and eventually the Danube in Hungary. RMGC argues that they have modern methods and there is absolutely no danger of this happening again, and that even in environmentally conscious countries like Finland this kind of thing goes on. (This conveniently ignores the fact that this project will on its own use about ten times as much cyanide per year than is used per year in the whole of the rest of Europe.)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white;" />
<span style="background-color: white;">Then of course there is the ever present suspicion of corruption. Nobody in Romania trusts any politician not to be on the take. And in the case a huge multinational corporation trying to make a bunch of money, there is widespread (universal) assumption that there are some dodgy dealings in the background.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Politics</span></h4>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
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<span style="background-color: white;">So, the whole project has been tied up for years in legal and political arguments, with successive governments trying to push through laws to make the whole project start (like forcing people to sell up etc). The President has been in favour for years, and the last government (of the same party as the President) doing the same. But they couldn't get it through in time, before they got voted out last year. The new prime minister was on record in opposition as being against it, so it seemed like it might be finished. Last month however, his government put forward draft legislation to approve it (he claimed that as an MP he was opposed,but as the leader of the country he was for. The best flip-flop argument ever).</span><br /><br style="background-color: white;" /><span style="background-color: white;">This brought people on to the streets in protest and all major cities, especially Bucharest, have seen ongoing demonstrations since that date (Aug 27th). Yesterday the PM flip flopped again saying he would vote against the legislation as would most of his government. The project is assumed to be dead in the water and the Gabriel share price has dropped like a stone (amid threats from Canada to launch legal action). </span><br style="background-color: white;" /><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Other links</span></h4>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<br />
Those are basically the facts. It's a bit of a brief outline of the situation by necessity, and therefore there will be bits that I have omitted, but essentially the salient facts are as above.<br />
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If you want to read further then<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro%C8%99ia_Montan%C4%83" target="_blank"> the wikipedia page</a> is pretty good, though obviously as this is a hot issue, I'm guessing that page is in the front line of the different points of view, so it might change fairly regularly.<br />
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This<a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/31/us-romania-gold-idUSBRE84U0HR20120531" target="_blank"> Reuters article from last year </a>is also very good and puts both sides of the story well.<br />
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And to give a well-argued counterpoint to my view (below) on this, <a href="http://www.bucharestlife.net/2013/09/03/obligatory-rosia-montana-post/" target="_blank">Craig at Bucharest Life</a> has written a good post (a number of the commenst below that are excellent too) </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
My view</span></span></h4>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Not that it matters to any degree, and I've gone back and forth with this question anyway, but my gut reaction, backed up by stuff I've read since then is to side with the anti-RMGC side of the debate. I haven't been to Rosia Montana, so I can't really comment on the town, but I have been to some villages fairly nearby, and it is a stunning area and incredibly beautiful. I have also been to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C4%83lan" target="_blank">Balan</a>, a town not far from here, which I guess is similar in some ways - a copper mining town which grew under Ceausescu, and which now is home to just over 5000 people (very similar to Rosia Montana), most of whom live in the concrete blocks beloved of communist architects. In the time that I've lived here, Bălan has gone from being almost a ghost town when the mine closed down, to actually finding its feet again. Despite the architecture there is something attractive about the town, over and above the stunning scenery that surrounds it. That scenery does attract people with it being the starting point on the climb up to Egyeskő / Piatra Singuratică, and the mountains around. Other small industries have been set up, including large scale collection of wild mushrooms to be shipped off to Western Europe, which seem to be enough to make the town self-sufficient. That's not to say that it's an easy life for people there, but it does seem to have turned the corner. The mine entrance building looms over the town, closed and silent, and when you climb up to the the mountain it is then that you can see the area of the valley that has been stripped bare and the toxic lake left in the middle from the mining operations. I am sure there a large number of people in </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bălan</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> who would like the mine to reopen, thus providing work, but in the bigger picture, the town has a more sustainable economic future ahead of it, even if it takes a while to really build up. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So while I haven't been to Rosia Montana itself, and I am fully prepared to believe that a large number of its residents are very much desperate for this mine to go ahead, my feelings lie with the desire to not destroy this area, and leave a huge scar across the middle of Romania. In addition, when it comes to large multinational corporations making vast amounts of money, I have no faith that these deals are above board and fair. Nobody knows what the contracts are between the State and Gabriel Resources. Nobody knows whether RMGC will pay much in the way of tax. Nobody knows what kickbacks and deals have been done behind closed doors. RMGC say they will clean everything up, that they will make everything incredibly safe, that they will offer good wages, and so on. But why would anyone believe a massive company whose main aim is to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible? They could very well be a hugely ethical company who are less interested in their shareholders than they are about the villages and villagers of rural Romania. Or not.</span></span><br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Democracy</span></span></h4>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so to the ultimate point of this post. The people who have come out on the streets to protest against this, have, it seems, won. The government has backed down and the deal seems dead (though one should always be cautious). People power has won out, and the scenes of young Romanians out on the streets standing up for what they believe in have been powerful.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, is this democracy? That's the question that thoughtful people are now posing. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated, in a country of nearly 20 million. Is it democratic to give in to their demands? It's a fair question, i think.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those who are appalled by the government's change of direction, refer to these people out on the streets as "hipsters". It's a cheap shot, immediately downplaying them, giving them a name with negative connotations, to lessen then, make them seem like they don't really care. In truth they are a wide range of people, mostly young, mostly well-educated, mostly middle class, it seems at least. But not only these groups. Its a fairly broad protest. But while the hipster label is unfair and demeans their efforts and their motivations, they are still a fairly small group of people. So, again, is this democratic?</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, it is worth turning this question around and looking at the other side. Who supports this project? A majority of residents of the village of Rosia Montana. And then a massive wealthy well connected Canadian corporation. And possibly some politicians. That's it. Beyond this there is a large swathe of the country who probably don't know much about it and who in the long run don't really care. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, is it democratic to build this mine in order to satisfy the shareholders of Gabriel Resources? </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Democracy itself is in some danger. Corporations and governments work together to subvert it all over the globe. Is it democratic to change policy based on tens of thousands of protestors? Not in the traditional model of democracy, where everyone has an equal say in who governs. But we don't live in that world any more, we live in one in which large corporations and the 1% drive policy that suits them with the aid of bought off governments and compliant media. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, frankly, I'd rather trust tens of thousands of well educated, well read, thoughtful young people to fight for the right things than a massive corporation and some corrupt politicians. Perhaps this is what democracy will be in the future. I for one welcome it.</span></span><br />
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689571.post-76835064407449714242013-08-19T08:50:00.000+03:002013-08-19T08:51:25.356+03:00Miccsoda?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What can you learn from a single line on a menu? Well, at times, quite a lot...<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--GeVTQKxx00/UhC73jq3cTI/AAAAAAAAAk8/cpNgrsJ0a6A/s1600/102_8232.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--GeVTQKxx00/UhC73jq3cTI/AAAAAAAAAk8/cpNgrsJ0a6A/s400/102_8232.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The picture is the specials at the "grill" by the swimming pool at a hotel in Hungary. Each day a different location is represented (though actually the US managed to get on twice in the 7 available days). On Saturday (Szombat) as you will see the region of choice is Transylvania (Erdely) Now the first thing to notice is that to represent Transylvania they've chosen the Szekely flag, which neither sums up Transylvania as a whole, nor even the Hungarian element of the Transylvanian population, but never mind, let's move on.<br />
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The first item on the menu is "Csevapcsicsa", which anyone who has ever been to anywhere in the former Yugoslavia will recognise as a Hungarianised spelling of a word from Serbian/Croatian/etc. Ćevapčići, are small turds (frankly the most descriptive word) of minced meat with herbs and stuff which are barbecued or otherwise grilled. <br />
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Now it is very true that in Romania a version of Ćevapčići are indeed eaten. They are called mititei or more commonly, mici. You see them absolutely everywhere, at every outdoor event. Occasionally on a Hungarian language menu or board you might see "mici" written as "miccs" to phonetically render this Romanian word in Hungarian.<br />
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So what we glean from this word is that (a) mici are being sold as a Transylvanian speciality. From a Hungarian perspective this may not be far removed from the truth, I suppose, since the average Hungarian traveller, brave enough to enter Romania at all, is never likely to venture south of Brasov; (b) they are implicitly (with the flag and all that) being sold as a Szekely food. Even the most hardened psychotic Szekely nationalist would not think of suggesting that mici were anything other than Romanian; (c) it is assumed that a Hungarian clientele would not recognise the word miccs (or mici), and so they are offered the serbian/croatian word instead. This is probably because most Hungarians seem to have been on holiday to Croatia at some time or other, but have probably not dared venture into the wilds of Erdely.<br />
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Onwards. These mici are being served with <i>kemences burgonya</i>, or ( I presume) roast potatoes. Literally "oven potatoes", anyway. Could be jacket, I suppose. Anyway, the only time I've ever eaten either roast or jacket potatoes in 9 years living in Transylvania have been the times when I've cooked them. So, again, not an especially local speciality. Mici, as everyone from here knows, are served with a massive glob of mustard and some bread. If potatoes are involved at all, it would be as chips.<br />
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The final part of this very Transylvanian dish is <i>tepett salata</i>. That translates literally as "torn salad". No, I don't know either. I have two possible theories here - one is that in the quest for your authentically rustic, peasant, and hence Transylvanian, experience, they have elected to make a salad that involves the lettuce being torn, authentically and rustically. The other is that in Hungary they believe that the poor Transylvanians, can't actually afford knives.<br />
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This restaurant wasn't actually that far from the border either. Still, I guess this happens all the time, and Hungarians would likely point to the weird things called "goulash" on menus worldwide, or what passes for "chicken paprikash", in similar establishments as being proof that no-one is immune from this sort of thing.<br />
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This has been today's textual analysis lesson. </div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11294221123964774524noreply@blogger.com1