Small town Romania

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...

So, here's the story...

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Blame

The big story in the Romanian media at the moment is about the murder of one of the country's top handball players in a disco in Vezprem, Hungary. He (Marian Cozma) played for the Romanian national team, and played for the local team in Vezprem along with a few other foreign stars. They were out celebrating a teammates new baby at the weekend, and then fight broke out and Cozma got stabbed in the chest and died (and two others - a Serb and Croatian, were badly hurt).

I have to confess that one of my first reactions on hearing this tragic story (when all I knew was that a famous Romanian handball star had been killed in Hungary), was to fear that he had been murdered by some crazy Hungarian nationalist intent on somehow getting his own back for Trianon or some such. Not that the manner or motive for the killing would matter to Cozma or his family or friends, but that if it were a hate crime, then it could turn into something more widespread and have long term political ramifications. As far as we know this wasn't the case and the team just got attacked for being in the wrong place at the wrong time while what amounted to a local gang/mafia type grudge was being played out.

However, the case is not without its ramifications and ethnic overtones. The men accused of killing Cozma are, you see, Rroma. So large swathes of the Hungarian press and its right-wing politicians have seized on this as clear evidence that this is an ethnic problem, and that "Gypsies" in general are to blame. A newspaper writer, for example, described gypsies as "not human beings, but animals". (In another recent case, a police chief was sacked for making racist remarks about Rroma, and then reinstated after public protest)

You can read a fairly comprehensive and thorough account of the whole tragic event here .

Some other articles in English: Bloomberg ; Politics.hu

As the economic crisis really begins to bite here, it seems that the Rroma will again start being blamed for all of societies ills. It's already pretty much government policy in Italy, and the opposition in Hungary are fairly clearly playing the anti-Rroma race card too.

Life as a blogger

Every now and then for my pains I get a tirade of abuse from some rabid nationalist psycho. This can appear in the form of a comment on the blog, an email to me, or in some occasions a post on another blog which I have to discover by accident. These come from both Romanian nationalists and Hungarian nationalists, which to my mind means I'm getting it just about right (I recognise that this is not a very scientific way of deciding that, but it'll do).

A couple of months ago, for example, I received the following email from someone called "Radu B". I did try to engage Domnul B in debate but he didn't respond, so I feel that it's OK to taunt him here. The italicised bits are Radu, and the non-italicised bits are my sneering response. In the interests of fairness I have quoted the entire email just so you know not I'm not taking any of this out of context.

Dear Mr. Andy H, while I have no idea about your ethnic(I'm assuming you're British), social or professional background (and quite frankly I don't care about either), I have stumbled upon your blog. I appreciate you have chosen my country to work in and I do hope you are having a good time there.

This is a fair enough opening. I don't really care much about Radu's background either. Not quite sure why he needed to say this however. But there you go. Interesting use of the word "there" which implies that while he is obviously Romanian, he's not actually living here. This is somewhat interesting given what comes later.

However, I do know that Mc. Ciuc is a Romanian city, in a Romanian county, in a Romanian province, and guess what! The official language of Romania, regardless of the ethnic make-up of the area in which you find yourself is - you guessed it!- Romanian.

He's clever, is that Radu. Again I'm not sure why he is quoting undisputed facts at me, but once again, who can ever really know the mind of another.

For that reason, I find the URL of your blog (szekely) and the fact that you keep calling the city by its equivalent name in Hungarian and the fact that you chose to learn Hungarian first and then Romanian, highly offensive.

Highly offensive! It is highly offensive to actually use the word "Szekely"! Not quite sure how Radu would like to proceed with this ethnic group - deny their existence totally? Now I do recognise that it bothers some people that I call this town Csikszereda more frequently than I call it Miercurea Ciuc, and while I think they're being a bit over sensitive, I at least see where they're coming from (and I hope that in turn they understand why I choose one over the other for the most part). It's also highly offensive that I chose, on arrival in Romania (yes Radu, I know I am in Romania) to attempt to learn the language of my wife and (especially) step daughter first. Very odd. (In fact I kind of wish I had had the opportunity to learn Romanian first since it seems so much easier than Hungarian, but I think my reasons for choosing the option I did are clear - and in fact 100% correct)

You are not only offending some Transylvanian (myself) through your actions, but also our forefathers and the sacrifices made to liberate the province from Hungarian occupation.

We'll gloss over the whole "Hungarian occcupation" thing since we're never going to resolve that here. As for offending someone, well whatever I do I will offend someone. So, I think I can live with myself on that one too.

I remind you once more that you are living in Romania, not Hungary.

Thanks Radu. I have to confess I keep forgetting which country I live in. That's why I wrote "A small town in the Ciuc Depression, Romania" at the top of this blog just in case it escapes my attention and I suddenly imagine myself living in Hungary.

I'm convinced your ethnic Hungarian friends are absolutely extatic about your choices,

What choices? The one to live here? I hope some of them are vaguely happy about it, yes. I like to think my wife is very happy, and even possibly ecstatic, but I don't think most people really care that much what I call my blog, to be honest.

and that they add fuel to their erotic dreams regarding autonomy for that part of Romania,

Those dreams are erotic? Wow, no wonder people like them. I'm not sure if I want an erotic dream involving Marko Bela though.

but if you like their language and culture so much, I cordially invite you to cross the border and immerse yourself in the culture Attila's heirs have created in the Pannonic Plains.

And so it closes, with the traditional "Why don't you fuck off to Hungary" line (and let's not be distracted by the "cordial invitation", we all know what that means). I assume Radu is "inviting " me to Hungary anyway - he seems to be somewhat confused by who the Hungarians actually are - the Magyars are not thought to be directly connected to the Huns (and thence Attila), by the way Radu.

Sometimes I think I ought to write a manifesto for this blog so I can just direct people like Radu to read that, but at other times I think that that would probably be a bit over-the-top and self-important. So, at least for now, I won't bother.

So, anyway, thanks Radu for the laugh, and for the material for this blog post. I realise this was somewhat gratuitous, but you know, I think ridicule is all that nationalism and bigotry deserves.

I, at least, feel better for writing that, even if it hasn't improved the lives of any of my readers one iota. Sorry all. I'll post something a little less obnoxious next time.

4 tier Europe?

I remember a few years ago there was talk of having a two tier EU. There would be the countries that believed in it and wanted to work together for some undefined glorious European tomorrow in one tier, and the countries that didn't believe in it but were too scared to be left on the outside in the other tier. The UK of course was one of the latter.

Since 2004, we've effectively had this two tier Europe, but it's slightly different from what was first thought up. This is down to Europe admitting a series of buffer states to protect it from the perceived terrible ravages of immigration. These buffer states (look it up on a map if you don't believe me) form a thick barrier of cabbage, sour cream, and beer from the Baltic coast of Poland in the north, through the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary and down to the Adriatic in Slovenia. This cabbage curtain effectively allows the Western end of the continent to limit immigration from further east (though they clearly need to set up some kind of floating buffer states between north Africa and various Spanish and Italian islands, to really make sure they've blocked off all the avenues.)

In admitting them, existing European states made choices as to whether to allow citizens of those nations (now to be EU citizens) should actually be allowed to live and work anywhere they liked in the Union - what the EU was supposed to be all about in short. To its credit, the UK opened its doors, unlike many of the nations which were supposed to be all about EU integration and the like. This was often talked up in comparing the relative economic performance of placeslike the UK and Ireland which opened up and France and Germany which didn't.

So for a while we had a three speed Europe - countries who were actually making use of the idea of the union to gain ground economically; countries who were not doing that, but were "old Europe" and hence more powerful in the grand scheme of things; and the countries being stripped of their human resources to fuel the UK's economic growth.

Now, however, cowed by tabloid scare headlines and racism towards gypsies, the UK and Ireland have decided to close the door to Romanians and Bulgarians, thus creating an underclass of Europe within the Union itself. It's fucking disgraceful. Is my country run by the Daily Mail? It certainly feels that way.

Now Romania could respond to this with reciprocity, making life hard for Brits who want to live and work in Romania, and in fact that would be a good idea (despite the fact that it would be a pain in the arse for yours truly). But the fact is that there aren't that many of us who want to be here, and most who do come work for large multinationals who can afford to jump through bureaucratic hoops. Instead, what the Romanian government should do is to make it hard for Brits to buy property here. The UK press is full of articles about the advantages and benefits of buying property in Romania and Bulgaria, and a policy denying Brits the right to own property in this country would upset a lot of people over there (and the kind of people who are likely to be having dinner parties with politicians and journalists). So, Calim and Traian, what do you say? Give New Labour something to think about, the xenophobic scumlords that they are.

Here are the most recent comments of the BBCs Europe editor on the subject of Romania and emigration 28th September (the comments section at the bottom is worth a read, if only to get all steamed up about people such as the cretinous "Steve H, of Littlehampton"), and October 26th (ie today - hence not many irate comments yet from Little Englanders (Littlehamptoners?))

More on anti-Romanian bigotry

Just as an addendum to yesterday's news, after I wrote it I went out and saw the headline on the Daily Express which was something along the lines of "Romanian Scum Plan Invasion". They weren't the exact words, but given the readership of the Express and the people who work for it, it's clear that this was the meaning. (I think it actually said "Romanians Set to Flood Britain"). So now Romanians are the new bete noire of Europe - first Spain and now the UK. I don't doubt that the right wing press in Austria and Germany and elsewhere is saying the same shit too.

I should point out to Romanian readers of this blog that the Express is a noted extreme right wing rag read by (1) sad deluded elderly people who hanker after a day when food was rationed, German bombs were raining down on our cities, and there were no black people in the UK; (2) rural in-breds who have never actually been beyond a 5-mile radius from home and who have never even seen an immigrant in the flesh; or (3) members of the British National Party (our answer to Vadim Tudor's Party of the Great Romanian Nightmare). It shouldn't be assumed, though, that it is on the margins of British society, as I imagine it (and it's fellow bigoted muckspreader the Daily Mail) probably speaks to about 25% of the population. So while it doesn't mean that the nation has suddenly turned into a hardline fascist state full of anti-Romanian hatred, neither does it mean that the depth of bigotry among the small minded few should be underestimated.

(Some other choice headlines are quoted in this Independent article)

Poles Apart

Quite interesting being in the UK at the moment. Yesterday the government announced figures for the number of Eastern Europeans who have come to the country since the 10 new members acceded to the EU in 2004. Apparently the predicted figure of something like 15,000 a year has turned out to be more like 500,000 in the first two years plus, the vast majority of whom have come from Poland. Predictably this has led to calls from the Conservative Party (Motto: "Still the party of casual racism, whatever image makeover we may have tried to bamboozle you with") to make sure Romanians and Bulgarians are not given the same rights to move here as everybody else was. Equally predictably the Labour Party (Motto: "Taking policy decisions from the editorial pages of the Daily Mail") have started making noises of a similar limitation. Now obviously there's no way they can tell Romanians and Bulgarians to fuck off without it looking terribly discriminatory (since they quite happily let everybody else come), so they're kind of backed into a corner on this one.

Mind you, everybody (well, outside the Daily Mail and its Little Englander readership) are at pains to point out how beneficial all these people have been to the UK economy. And of these 500,000 ish people fewer than 1000 are on the dole and claiming benefits, so it's a bit much to go on about the drain on social services. There is of course a serious downside to this influx of people - not on the UK, which is doing fine, but in Poland and Lithuania and elsewhere whose workforces are being sucked dry of most of the young qualified workers who have opted to become builders and hotel workers in the UK rather than put their qualifications to good use at home.

Today's Guardian editorial points out that there are likely to be fewer Romanians wishing to move to the UK, for a number of reasons - the major one being that there really isn't much of an established Romanian community here, whereas there was a Polish one. [Although to ruin their argument they also say that there are fewer English speakers here, which while true in real terms is probably not true in per capita terms - Romanians young people speak excellent English in my experience, and the number of people passing advanced level exams from the University of Cambridge's suite* of international English language qualifications is very very high in Romania. (*I use the word "suite" because I've done a fair amount of work with them and know that's what they call them, so it's not just me being poncy)]

Anyway, since Germany is apparently now changing its mind again, it sounds like Romania may not get in at the end of this year after all, so it all may be academic for now.

In the Lebanon

One of the biggest problems with being stuck at Milan airport for a while, was being able to take a while reading English newspapers and learning of the ridiculous and sick position taken by my government over the possibility of a ceasefire in the Lebanon war. Something along the lines of “There’s no point having a ceasefire now as it may only last a week and we need to find a comprehensive peace agreement”. Are they really that stupid or just trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes? The whole point of a ceasefire is to stop innocent people being killed, maimed, and left homeless. You do that, and then you start to look for an agreement that is workable. Even if a ceasefire does only last a week, at least that’s a week in which no people are dying. For christ’s sake. But no, they just give everyone a green light to keep on killing as many people as they can (and given the disparity of deaths on both sides of the border it looks once again like Arab lives are basically worthless in Blair’s view.) I am more and more convinced that this bastard needs to be taken to the Hague as soon as possible and be tried for his war crimes.

It’s rare that I get this angry over something, but god almighty. How many people have you killed today Blair? Do you ever sleep? Or do you wake up in a sweat dreaming about swimming in the blood of children? I bet you don’t because you’re a wild eyed ideologue who really believes that killing Arabs is a necessary step toward the new world order.

And now, finally, the UN are debating a ceasefire resolution that will allow Israel to continue attacking people as long as they do it “defensively”. Since they claim that everything they do, from the daily brutality of the occupation to various invasions of Lebanon is “defensive”, this doesn’t sound like it’s much of a solution. And our glorious leader thinks he can now act to get a solution for the Palestinians – since he’s said this from day one, and has come no closer than he was then, I find it hard to imagine. And how he expects to be taken seriously by the Palestinian side, now he’s nailed his colours firmly to the side of Israel-can-do-what-it-likes-whenever-it-wants-and-be-applauded-for-it, is anyone’s guess. I despair. Every week I have to remind myself of how bad Thatcher was in order to have something to compare him with, but I’m reaching the point where I think he’s even worse than her. And that takes some bloody doing.

Romanians in Spain

There are a lot of Romanians in Spain. A recent survey into Spanish immigration found that something close to 400,000 Romanians live here (and given that the population of Romania is only something like 24 million, that’s a fairly big chunk of the Romanian population). In fact Romanians form the third largest immigrant group in Spain after Ecuadorians and Moroccans. (The fourth biggest group are Brits, who eschew the gritty urban poverty of the typical new immigrant and instead buy bars and houses with swimming pools in small sunny replicas of England, where they can all get together watch Sky on TV and read the News of the World while complaining about the Spanish) [Stats]

The image of Romanians here, though, is terrible. “Romanian” has become almost synonymous with “petty criminal” (and in some cases not so petty). People have told me that whenever anything gets stolen, or when homeless people start cluttering up people’s nice neighbourhoods, it is always “Romanians” who are to blame. (Though it seems that Romanian has become shorthand for all Eastern European immigrants). I have heard this stated to me every time I tell people where I live. It’s not all negativity - the other day I was on the metro and there were two Romanians playing the accordion very proficiently to the apparent delight of most of my fellow passengers who accordingly coughed up a fair amount of loose change. But I have heard a lot of stories – of pickpockets, of organised crime gangs, of house robberies, of public drunkenness, etc etc and so on, every time I’ve mentioned my home. Now, it should be pointed out that I haven’t yet heard anyone actually tell me a story of a personal experience – it’s all that kind of rumour, hearsay and TV news sensationalism. It may be based on an element of truth, but it seems likely to me that it is, at the very least, exaggerated.

Whatever the origins, it does not bode well for the Romanian emigrant experience here, and presumably with EU accession round the corner, there will be even more people looking to come here and work.

Unjustice

On Monday I had my first contact with a Romanian lorry. Shortly afterwards I had my first contact with Romanian justice. I use the last word there in the loosest possible sense. So loose in fact, that it is actually more or less antonymical.

What happened is this: I was driving a rented car with my parents as passengers down from Brasov towards the touristed village of Bran. We drove through the village itself, noting the castle for which the village gets its fame, and all the pensions and trappings of the tourist village. Having entered the next village, Moeciu, we decided that we should turn round and head back into the village where we were intending to spend the night. I saw a driveway on the left, checked behind me, and ahead, indicated left, checked again (nothing was ahead, and there was a lorry about 50m behind me), and turned into the driveway. Just as I was halfway in, there was a huge bang and a judder. At first I thought I’d hit a pothole or something, but then quickly realized that I had been hit by something. That something was the lorry I had noticed behind me when I’d started to turn. It was a bloody massive long lorry, carrying nothing, so it was going very quickly (as Romanian lorries are wont to do), and it had just clipped the very back corner of the car, smashing the lights and damaging the bumper.

This was obviously something of a shock, and it took me a while to work out what to do next. The other driver stopped and came over and remonstrated with me – presumably for something to do, since it was clear to me even in my semi-daze at that point that he was at fault, and it is even clearer to me now that he was. (Basically, I can surmise that he thought he could get round behind me, wasn’t really concentrating, and didn’t bother to slow down in the pouring rain, and maybe I went slower than he thought I would). I called home to ask Erika what to do now and then the woman from the car hire company, who was very helpful. Having been told that I’d need to go to the police with the other driver, we eventually tired of waiting for them to show up and drove down to the village police station. This was locked up with a note on the door giving a number to call. We called, and eventually about 20 minutes later, the village cop drew up and opened the door, ushering us both inside. He didn’t look that happy at having had his evening interrupted, and then when he realized that I was a foreigner and didn’t speak Romanian his mood darkened even further. I’d been told by this time that the process would involve him taking our statements and then deciding who had the fault in the incident. Already I could sense that this process was unlikely to be based on extraneous stuff like facts and that I could be onto a loser.

I called Erika again and asked her to speak to him for me. When he asked her where she was and she said Miercurea Ciuc, I could see his face getting even more thunderous – maybe because she was too far away to come down and translate, but more likely, I suspect, because she was clearly a Hungarian*. He wouldn’t let her act as translator over the phone, so we had to find someone – the car hire woman’s brother who was in the area came down to help out. Adding another 15 minutes or so on to the time of the report and more importantly on to the policeman’s dinner time. In the meantime, the lorry driver gave his version of events – a laughable tale, given the evidence. When I heard him tell the cop that he was already passing me when I started to trun, I had to step in, and in my terribly broken Romanian started illustrating how ridiculous this story was. I even drew a picture of what it have looked like were his version true – ending with the made up phrase – Acum sunt moarta (an attempt at "Now I'm dead") – illustrated with a theatrical imaginary knife drawn across my throat.

Eventually my translator arrived and I told my side, while the cop also filled in a report – now I know that he was actually making out his version of events – before I’d even given mine. At the time I thought he was just doing some more paperwork. Sign here and here the lorry driver was asked, and then me too. Only then did I realize that what he had actually written down was that I was the driver at fault. I protested again, but he had already made his mind up – and since I was exhausted and somewhat drained from the whole process, and since he had fined me 250,000 Lei (approx 5 GBP / 7.5 Euros) I didn’t have the energy to make too much of a big deal out of it.

Now, however, I am furious. Yes, we were incredibly lucky, in that if the lorry had hit anywhere further up the car we could have been killed, but in fact it was the other guy’s fault. My crime was to be a foreigner. The police officer at Moeciu is a xenophobe and I have no problem accusing him as being such publicly (not that he’ll ever read this of course). The whole thing is a joke. He even looked at the damage on the car so he knows full well who was at fault, yet he gave me the ticket. It’s fucked up. (There is of course one other possible explanation as to why he gave me the ticket and not the other guy, but I am pretty sure that no money changed hands, so I am not prepared to make that kind of accusation. Not sure whether corruption or rampant xenophobia is the worse accusation, but anyway).

So, I’m pissed off. Pissed off at the village policemen who decided to wield his power so unjustly. Pissed off at being found to be at fault when I so plainly wasn’t. And pissed off that this kind of thing goes on all the time, all over the world, and that I just see it once in a blue moon. If I were black, this would no doubt just be another day dealing with authority.

So, in closing, I’d like to give a hearty middle finger salute to Police Office Bigot in Moeciu, and hope that one day he gets his comeuppance.

Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that we’re all fine, and there were no injuries, and the only thing wounded was my sense of fair play.

(*Obviously I have no evidence for this but subsequent events have convinced me that it is more than likely. He's probably the kind of guy who votes for Vadim Tudor, and thinks Gigi Becali is a nice bloke who's got his priorities right. Tosser.)

The minority law and the far right

The political scene in Romania is currently gripped by the debate over the minority law. It’s difficult to find English language sources regarding this debate but I think it’s worth looking at anyway. What follows is what I’ve been able to glean about this debate from my limited Romanian and Hungarian and from talking to people. If there are any inaccuracies, I hope someone will please correct me via the comments page.

From what I understand, there is a bill before parliament to enshrine in law basic rights for minorities. It’s not that these rights don’t already exist in practice, but that they are not formally stated anywhere [Edit: Note comments from Andrei below]. This bill is proposed by the UDMR which is the Hungarian party in the Romanian parliament. [The UDMR is a fairly moderate centre right party politically, but its main function is to represent the interests of the Hungarian minority in Romania.] Because of the political makeup of the parliament, the UDMR are almost always a partner in whatever coalition government is ruling, and one condition of their joining the government is that they get to put this bill before parliament. So this isn’t the first time it’s come up, but each time it does, it seems like the dominant coalition partner (whether this be the DA as now, or the PSD as before) renege on the deal and start trying to weasel out of it.

So now it’s come up again. What amounts to a fairly watered down version of the original bill is up before parliament and it is being attacked left, right, and centre. Mostly, of course, by the ultra right, for whom minority rights are anathema. Cornelius Vadim Tudor, the ultra scumbag leader of the ultra rightist Party of the Romanian Nightmare (not actually the real name of the party), is pulling out all the stops to fill the population with fear of this terrifying Hungarian minority. Apparently this law will subject Romanians to oppression by those evil Hungarians. It’s an old trick – white supremacists argue that laws promoting diversity and human rights are actually laws designed to attack white people. So it is with Vadim Tudor. Vadim Tudor is the worst kind of bigot – he’s actually quite intelligent I think and he knows this fear-laden rhetoric is the way to mobilise people to support him. So, he whips people into a nationalistic fervour by claiming that the minorities are out to attack their right to exist and to be Romanian or something. In a recent debate he said, and I swear I’m not making this up “Do you really want Romanians to defend themselves alone? They will! I promise you things will go that far!” That’s practically inciting civil war, and he gets away with that shit, and not only that, but they give him vast amounts of air time on TV. He is utter utter scum. He also described the UDMR as a “terrorist organization”, just to really ratchet up the fear factor among his rural uneducated voting public.

Now, if it were just him attacking the bill, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all, but in fact the supposedly left wing PSD have also seized upon his coat tails for a spot of populist bigotry and have launched into the debate. I didn’t have any respect for them before, but now what little hope I held out for this bunch has gone right out the window. Also members of the DA (the dominant part of the coalition) have been speaking up against it, which means probably that it’s dead in the water. The media here are focussing on what this means for the government and whether the UDMR will pull out of the coalition and bring down the government, forcing early elections. But this is not the real issue (it just allows people to not think about the real issue).

What then, is the real issue? The debate around the bill seems to be centred on the phrase “cultural autonomy”, which, as far as I can tell, allows minorities the right to have an education in their native language and so on. In the case of Hungarians, at least, this already happens (at least up to age 18). What the anti camp are really against, I suspect, is the word “autonomy” featuring anywhere in any document ever. This bill does not, categorically, request any kind for autonomy for Harghita and Covasna counties, nor for Transylvania as a whole. But, the people against it like to present it as the thin end of the wedge and the beginning of this Hungarian master plan to break Transylvania (or parts of it) away from Romania. And of course they then hold up the example of these poor oppressed Romanians living in Harghita and Covasna counties who are already suffering mightily at the hands of these brutal Magyars, and if this master plan comes to fruition will be somehow oppressed and magyarised as they were at the end of the 19th century.

The other issue is language. Now it seems that many Romanians are convinced that Transylvanian Hungarians cannot and will not speak Romanian. I don’t know where they get this idea from, but it seems to have a lot of currency, even among well educated Romanians. Now, it is possible, that in remote villages people don’t speak Romanian well, or in some cases maybe at all. But Romanian is taught in schools, kids need to pass their Romanian exams to get through the various general exams and to leave high school with a qualification. I can honestly say I don’t know and have never met any Romanian citizen who doesn’t speak Romanian. Maybe they’re not all completely fluent and maybe they have an accent, but they speak the language. What seems to upset people is that, shockingly, they persist in speaking to one another in their native language. People who are otherwise quite intelligent have asked me whether this is “normal”. Whether it’s normal that people speak their first language to each other. I have to respond that yes it is, and to deny the people the right to use their native language is characteristic of dictatorships and oppressive regimes. And to offer people an education in their native language in their home country is not in some way weird or anti-patriotic whatever it is they fear. Democratic Spain for example offers Catalans and Basques the right to an education in their native language, while under Franco there were attempts to ban the languages outright. Which of these two governments is more modern and “European”? (I ought to note that one of the bizarrest arguments against the minority law is that it is “un-European”). The only thing that I can possibly imagine is that in the twisted political climate of fear and insecurity brought about by the posturing of idiots like Vadim Tudor, when people hear a conversation conducted by Hungarian Romanians in Hungarian they assume it to be some kind of plotting against the state.

To close, I have to say that listening to the rhetoric of the ultra nationalist PRM, while knowing that they command about 12-13% of recent polls, is the first time since I came here that I have wondered if just maybe there could be some kind of mini civil war in Transylvania. My hope is that the majority of the supporters of CVT and his ilk are actually not from Transylvania and in fact live in isolated rural communities in Oltenia and the like where they can’t do any damage. But this kind of hard line talk of terrorism and of Romanians “defending themselves” is just the kind of thing that Milosevic was saying in 1989. Fortunately, CVT doesn’t have the power that Milosevic did then, but it’s a slippery slope and as long as he’s given a platform to air his odious views, the damage is being done.

Racism in Romanian football

Romanian football has a serious problem with racism. This week UEFA punished Steaua Bucharest for racist chanting at their recent match with Shelbourne and forced them to play their next European match 250kms away from home. It’s shameful that it was left to UEFA to finally take some action and the Romanian FA (FRF) has never done anything about it.

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been watching a game on TV and heard fans launch into a chorus of monkey chants at one of the opposition’s black players. Because there are not that many black players in Romania, it doesn’t happen at every game, but for example one of the best players at Poli Timisoara, a Senegalese bloke called Mansour, always comes in for abuse, particularly when his team are playing in Bucharest. It’s worst at Steaua, but Dinamo are bad too.

I agree entirely with Csaba Asztalos, president of the Romanian Anti Discrimination Council in this statement "The image of Romanian soccer is in deep crisis and Steaua pays now for the FRF's lack of reaction (to racist behaviour) over the past several years," (taken from this article). In response the FRF spokesman says “these kind of actions are not a large phenomenon (in Romania soccer). It is about isolated incidents.”. Well, if the phenomenon is not widespread it is because there aren’t many black players in Romania. Ask Mansour if he thinks it’s isolated incidents.

Here is a good article about anti-Gypsy racism at Steaua and Dinamo , and in particular how it is not merely a fan-based thing. Gigi Becali (the repugnant owner of Steaua who I have dissed on this blog frequently) is one of the worst offenders. Of course this is not to say that all Steaua fans are racist, nor that racism isn’t a major issue in football elsewhere.

I can only hope that the latest UEFA action will begin a period of self-analysis by the Romanian media so that the FRF finally start to take action.

Going back in time

There are times when I realise that the place I live has some catching up to do. I no longer notice the horse carts and other aspects of rural life (and anyway, ten years ago I was living in Portugal, a country firmly ensconced in the EU by that time, and also subject to animal-drawn-transportation bottlenecks). We have a nice cable modem at home now, and so it’s easy to forget that out in the villages things are not necessarily in the 21st Century.

Occasionally though I get reminders.

Yesterday, we went to a baptism. A double baptism in fact, the recently arrived offspring of both Erika’s colleague Csilla and her sister (and one of Erika’s best friends) Meli. People flew in from all over for this event – Meli and family live in New York, a lot of old friends live in Budapest or elsewhere in Hungary. One or two live in Bucharest, and there was even a friend and her English husband who flew in from London. A fairly young and cosmopolitan bunch all in all. The event took place in their small home village of Csikszentdomokos about 30km north of here.

The Catholic church is undergoing renovation and so the mass was held in what seemed to be the town hall. This was a nice touch as it meant that rather than the priest being backgrounded by a large statue of a man writhing in agony while nailed to a cross, there was instead a rather nice mural depicting the village itself. We arrived fairly late (thankfully – it’s a bit of stretch sitting through a catholic mass in English for me, so doing it Hungarian would have made it even less appealing), but already the priest had made his mark, expelling the child of some friends of ours for being too loud. He apparently stopped the service and made some admonishing comments before telling his parents to remove him, which they did. Seems a bit un-Christian, but then I don’t suppose he gets many kids in his services (there certainly weren’t any not related to the baptismal portion of the evening at this one).

Then it was time for the baptism itself. The black clad shuffling widows filed out leaving the hall empty aside from the baptismal party. I sat back and watched as events unfolded in a detached, not really sure what was going on way. As the ceremony unfolded it became clear that the priest was a bit old school and was getting frustrated (a) at one of the babies crying; and (b) at his unfamiliar congregation not cowtowing enough to his normal dictatorial grip on proceedings. Occasionally he obviously said things that made people laugh slightly embarrassedly (as that is what they proceeded to do). At one point for example, (I learned later) he chastised many of the prospective godparents (and there were plenty of them) for not having brought a certificate proving their Catholicism. Two couples had managed to procure this certificate in advance so they became the official godparents. It’s not clear to me what this certificate involves, and whether you have to take a test. “Who or what is the third member of the holy trinity? I’ll have to hurry you.” It was all obviously a lot more hardcore than when I became a godfather last year, when I just had to show up and renounce Mal, without any of the worries about whether or not I was actually a Catholic, Christian or indeed monotheist of any sort.

It was at the end of the ceremony however that I realised something a little more earth shattering had taken place. I was watching the ranks of assembled and chastised unofficial godparents, when they all, almost literally took a step back and silently gasped. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a mass silent gasp, but I assure you it can happen. I saw it. There was a lot of shocked catching of eyes and incredulous looks. It was clear something major had happened. After it was all over I found out. Apparently, the priest had seen fit as part of his closing remarks, winding down the holy event that he had just been called upon to carry out, to add the following line (more or less, it’s a rough translation taken from several accounts, and in light of the fact that the last two words had knocked everyone sideways to the point that no-one was exactly sure what had preceded them) “Remember, that today you godparents have taken on a sacred duty, to ensure that these children remain in the arms of the church and in the love of Jesus Christ, and that all those who don’t accept the love of Jesus Christ are stinking Jews”

Jesus frigging Christ. This is a man who is respected and looked up to. In a village such as this his word is practically the last word in any matter. And he’s a repulsive anti-semitic racist bigot. If I hear some random old bloke say such a thing, I’d take is as something unpleasant but hopefully isolated. But this guy… He’s a role model. He’s a teacher. He’s a counsellor. He’s probably effectively a magistrate. And he’s a racist. And not only is he a racist but he actually doesn’t hide it and comes straight out with it while doing his job. This is how I know there is some catching up to do here. This priest, it is clear to me, not only feels it’s acceptable to hold these views, but also didn’t even stop to consider that he might refrain from expounding them in front of a congregation of young well-travelled and well-educated people (or anyone really).

Frankly I’m still reeling from it.

Book review

I have just finished reading a book which I wish, here and now, to recommend in the most glowing possible terms. That book is “Bury Me Standing”, by Isabel Fonseca. It is a non-fiction book, filed somewhere between anthropological study, historical account, cultural primer and impassioned plea, on behalf of Europe’s most misunderstood, misrepresented, unknown population, the gypsies.

Fonseca, an American Jew, mentions at one point how she came to be interested in the gypsies through the similarity of their European experience to that of the Jews. And in many ways the similarity in the way they have been scapegoated over the centuries is stark, and of course both populations were massacred by the Nazis. But really here’s where the similarity begins and ends. She spends time with various gypsy families throughout Eastern Europe, from Albania to Poland, describing their way of life and the values and beliefs that lie behind them. It’s really really fascinating. I can’t possibly do it justice in a few paragraphs here, but some of the things I didn’t know before reading the book include:

• The reason that there are more gypsies in Romania than in any other country is because Romania (or rather Walachia) was the only country in the world in which gypsies were systematically enslaved. Gypsies were actually therefore imported into the country from Bulgaria during the middle ages. Hence their numbers here now. (This is a fact that it is still suppressed and hushed up in Romania, and almost nobody here knows this)
  
  
• Gypsies* don’t really have a cultural sense of their own history. Gypsy history* tends to go back only as far as the oldest member of the family or clan group. Unlike the Jews, for example, gypsies* have no real legendary or mythical origin story – which is why nobody really knows who they are or where they originated, though it is fairly widely theorised that they originated in India. (*Obviously all statements here are generalisations and not intended to be some kind of definitive statement, but rather than precede any statement with the proviso “It is generally thought that…” or “Evidence seems to make the following generalisation roughly acceptable...” I’ll leave it to you to take it as read that I’m not actually saying “All gypsies are X” or “Gypsy people do Y”. OK?)
  
  
• They are, however, consummate story tellers, with story telling ability being highly prized, and the story and its telling being much more important than the truth of the tale being told. So, even those older-generation histories are not especially reliable as historical documentation.
  
  
• It’s not clear whether gypsies are nomadic through tradition or choice, or because they’ve constantly been forced to move on. Likewise, they don’t tend to work the land. Again, either by choice/culture or because with such a precarious existence they’ve not had the opportunity.
  
  
• During communist times in E Europe, they were forcibly “assimilated” – by having the traditional family groups split up and moved into villages to live side by side with the local population. The moment the wall fell in 89/90, the long standing resentments and racism towards the gypsy populations forced to live in their midsts exploded into terrible crimes against gypsies – where entire villages spontaneously broke into mini-civil wars and attempted to ethnically cleanse themselves of the hated Roma (gypsies were murdered, their houses destroyed and burned down all while the local policemen and fire departments looked on).
  
  
• Gypsies are (nearly everywhere) seen as thieves. I know people here tend to assume that they are and act accordingly. In Romania in 1994 for example, the author quotes the official crime figures. 11% of all (solved) petty crimes in that year were committed by gypsies. So, maybe it’s a stereotype rooted in some truth? But then you realise 11% of the population of Romania is gypsy, and then it doesn’t seem quite as clear cut.
  
  
• Other aspects of gypsy culture that stand out are a great sense of cleanliness (again bucking commonly held perceptions) and , a deep fear of and fight against death, and a complete lack of interest in integrating into the societies in which they find themselves.

In fact it’s this last thought which ultimately left me with a seemingly unanswerable question. How exactly can the gadje (non-gypsy) population of Europe learn to live with their neighbours, when their values and needs are so different from ours? And indeed when there is really no interest on their part in integrating in any meaningful way. Communist thinking failed because it required that everybody be a contributing member of (the same) society. Capitalism is failing because it is based on greed and selfishness and nobody wants the gypsies as their neighbours. (Though the book suggests that gypsies are exceedingly successful capitalists, being experts at making bargains and deals – another source of resentment among gadje). And because of the lack of a historical mind set and a similar lack of willingness to advocate for themselves in the traditional media of our societies, there is no chance of Gypsies gaining a “homeland” as Jews have.

Vaclav Havel once said that “the Gypsies are a litmus test not of democracy but of a civil society”. I can’t help but agreeing with him. Get yourself down your nearest library and get hold of this book. It’s gripping, tragic, fascinating and depressing all in equal measure. And she’s a damn good writer.

I know what they're thinking

Been away for a while and am now back witgh yet another slice of anti-rightwing vitriol. Those looking forward to light observations on life in Romania ought possibly to come back later in the week.

Being in the UK for a couple of weeks has meant that I have been exposed to the beginning of the election campaign. As one of the vast number of “natural” labour supporters who has been completely alienated by Tony Blair and his ongoing rim job on the Bush sphincter, I am vaguely interested to see how this effects his (and his party’s) chances. The trouble is that in the UK there are very few (if any) credible alternatives. The only party that seems to be completely reasonable are the Greens, but they’ll be lucky to win a single seat. From the extreme right inwards the main parties in this election are thye BNP (British National Party – bunch of psycho Nazis), UKIP (UK Independence Party - anti European tossers), Conservatives (tory scum), Labour (or rather “New Labour”) and the Lib Dems. (Not much choice on the left then).

As the second most supported party, the Tories have the best chance of ousting Blair, but instead of trying to do so by convincing people they are no longer the scum party of the Thatcher years, they have lurched even further to the right and have launched into a disgraceful and repugnant campaign based on racism. The main problems afflicting Britain today are apparently immigration and gypsies. Their main platform is one of telling refugees to fuck off, a policy made even more shocking by the fact that their leader Michael Howard is the son of a Romanian Jew who fled the Nazis and ended up in the UK. A refugee, in other words. These days of course refugees have been rebranded as “asylum seekers” which makes them much less cuddly and worthy of pity and help. It’s no longer about what they are fleeing and instead about them coming here (and, you know, doing such terrible things as helping to fund our pensions and contributing to the nation). Plus it has the word “asylum” in it which always conjures up an image of mad psychopaths running amok. It’s sick. Anyway, all of them do it from Tony Blair to the odious BNP, but the Tories have taken it one stage further. They have put posters up (mostly in immigrant heavy districts of inner cities), saying things like “Stop Immigration” and “Whites Only” (I paraphrase, but this is essentially the message that they pass on. Especially as they are completed with the Tories’ catchphrase of the election “Are You Thinking What We’re Thinking?” – to which the answer from any right thinking person will be “No, but I know what you’re thinking you racist scumbags”).

Frankly I think they’ve made a massive mistake and that all the disaffected labour voters who would have stayed at home or registered a protest vote for the lib dems or someone, will instead be so disgusted by the vile rhetoric coming from the tories and actually vote for Labour anyway. God knows what the UK will look like if they get in. One thing’s for sure, anyone fleeing holocaust and genocide as Howard’s father did, would not be allowed in under his son’s government. Frankly, the disgraceful nature of their campaign would reach its logical conclusion with our very own Cristalnacht. It’s difficult to imagine that a party once led by Margaret Thatcher could actually get any worse, but it seems to be the case.

I blame the Daily Mail to be honest. Anyone associated with that loathsome racist rag ought to be hunted down and killed by a pack of dogs (thus giving those poor unemployed hounds something to do).