Comments on: Hungary’s Biased Justice

By: David Balazs Beleznay

David Balazs Beleznay — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:12:13 +0000

It would be a fortunate thing if anybody here would point out the gypsy or roma or shinti Hungarians ARE Hungarians, have as much right to call themselves Hungarian as any member of Jobbik or the Goj Motorosok. Gabor Vona, Rev. Hegedus and Krisztina Morvai are no closer to genetically, culturally or ethnically to the original Magyar Tribes then the Gypsy and Jewish Hungarians they so abhor.
To lump Gypsy Hungarians into one Social/Cultural group makes about as much sense as describing American Jews as a homogeneous population, sharing the same language, cuisine, culture.
The “Gypsy Problem” of Hungary is a CLASS PROBLEM more than anything. In a society where easily identifiable groups live in SOCIAL and CULTURAL SEGREGATION – integration of these people will always be a problem. Jews from segregated villages of Eastern Europe arriving in New York in the beginning of the 20th Century found that the established “German Jews” were virtual ALIENS who did not share much of their culture, language and fate.
Today most Hungarians who have Gypsy heritage but are integrated into mainstream society will identify themselves as “Hungarians” not “Gypsies” as this term would define them as not being part of part of the mainstream society. Yet “CIGANY” (or Gypsy) and “MAGYAR” are NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TERMS.

By: Karl Pfeifer

Karl Pfeifer — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:46:28 +0000

Doctor Heath,
I agree with most of what you say. However I believe that you are mistaken if you think that “socialism” in the eastern European countries tried to give a humanistic lesson to it’s captive customers.
I am familiar with the situation of Hungary. There was after the 2nd WW a land reform. The majority of Gypsies were left out of the land reform program, although many had previously made a living from agricultural work.
There was during the time of Rakosi and Kádár full employment in Hungary. The gypsies had to take the heaviest and most dirty jobs. And in the eastern part of the country there was inofficial segregation.
The communist rulers did not much to change the situation of the Gypsies. Of course not for all the problems is Hungarian society responsible. Now blood is flowing and the EU does not seem to care about much.

By: Doctor Heath

Doctor Heath — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:39:51 +0000

You could take every single comment contributed by the retarded bigots who’ve turned up here to write apologies for mindless anti-Roma cruelty, change the terms for gypsies and Roma to ‘Afro-Caribbean’ and re-write the lot from the point of view of a British knuckle-dragger who believes that the multi-hued inhabitants of these islands cannot live together and that it’s only “understandable” that you’d want to chuck a bottle at any and all black people. Visitors to Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are routinely dismayed by the prevalance of equally murderous nazi sentiments in those countries. How depressing that decades spent as second-class citizens of Stalin’s and Brezhnev’s Russian Empire has taught these chaps and chapettes so little.

By: Karl Pfeifer

Karl Pfeifer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:55:38 +0000

Seismic and other readers of HP
Please ask editors of British media, especially “index on censorship” to publish this scandal.
I am a bit surprised, that all those nice liberal British intellectuals, who protested against letting “Historian” David Irving to sit in an Austrian jail, because they pretend to be concerned about “freedom of opinion”, are not saying a word, when the freedom of opinion of a journalist who criticised racist völkisch National-Socialists is cut back.

By: Seismic

Seismic — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:28:47 +0000

Very well-argued post by the way!

By: Seismic

Seismic — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:27:42 +0000

Oh. Thanks Karl, that is very disappointing.

By: Alec

Alec — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:09:05 +0000

Further to Tom Gallagher’s comment, when I first moved to Caithness in the 1990s, one aspect which struck/shocked me immediately was the residual concept of ‘white trash’… the ‘tinkers’, almost exclusively called Macphee (note, distinct from Irish Travellers or Gypsies).

Imagine all the venom and hatred the likes of John Littledick would direct against ‘chavs’, and then some.

At this time there were one or two families still living in lean-tos, and one in particular where the husband was seriously abusive towards wife and children, with the suggestion that the eldest son’s partner was shared about; a few years back, based on a false belief that a janitor at Wick High School had used the t-word, his car was torched; but most were/are pleasant, reasonable and urbanized.

Yet, to advance to a similar social level as someone called Mackay or Sutherland or Swanson or Cannop… okay, maybe not Cannop… could expect, they either had to marry (one man I know declined to let his wife and children take his name) or move elsewhere. And maybe still do. For instance, I know how *did* use the t-word at Wick High School, and he continues to hold all the old-time prejudices.

There have been anecdotal tales of, with the arrival of Roma and outside Travellers in small numbers, the oppobrium being transferred. I know of one family whose child fell ill being told by an A&E doctor at a certain county hospital that “their sort was not welcome here”.

This same doctor is, apparently, nice-as-pie otherwise.

By: Karl Pfeifer

Karl Pfeifer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:50:28 +0000

Seismic that is true, but the 3 main christian churches and the Jewish community protested together against the Slovak language law, restricting the use of Hungarian. That is O.K.
But they did not protest together against murderous antiziganism, against antisemitism and hatepreaching.

By: Karl Pfeifer

Karl Pfeifer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:50:23 +0000

By: Seismic

Seismic — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:29:04 +0000

Some theologians and clergymen in Hungary are now beginning to protest against Hegedus:
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=hu&u=http://portal.c-press.hu/200907175165/belfold/ifj.hegedus-lorant-es-a-fasisztoid-magyar-garda.html&ei=_w9hSsbpLsXRjAef9JnyDw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=3&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dlorant%2Bhegedus%2Bjr%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26tbo%3D1%26tbs%3Dqdr:d