Harry's Place

i am of hungarian parentage and i am currently in budapest. two words spring to mind:

no future

and by the way, there is ‘gypsy criminality’ indeed. it does exist

No Albert, criminality can’t be ethnic. There are criminal gypsies, but the great majority of them lives in abject poverty and is discriminated.
Even after the liberation of Hungary in 1945 they were discriminated. Gypsies did not get land during the land reform.
Discrimination did not disappear during the Kadar period. And the word gypsiecriminality was first time used by the writer György Moldova in 1988. A professor of criminology who was also a communist wrote an expertise against the publication. This was published recently.

Interesting. My Hungarian relatives told me that the communist gave the gypsies houses and the tore up the floor boards and used them for fire wood.

Lauren, even if the story is in some cases true, does it make it acceptable to murder gypsies?

During one year as far as I am informed 7 Gypsies were murdered in Hungary. The last one was a 25 year old father and his 5 year old son.
The perpetrators threw a Molotov-cocktail on their house, and when they fled they were shot.
Let’s not blame the victims. Yes there are some criminals between the Gypsies but this does not make racist incitement against them which leads to murder acceptable.

typical european wanna-be-do-gooder nonsense. yo just can’t accept te fact that there are cultures among us who do not want to integrate

gypsies prohibit their children from attending school and teach them that non-gypsies (”gadjos”) are idiots whose stuff you must take. the even prevent them from learning hungarian and allow them to speak in their own language only.

i saw a social worker the other day with a group of gypsy kids, he brought them to school (and back probably). these kids, they had mud in their faces, mud on their fingers

now don’t tell me there is no water for them to wash and no opportunities to learn hungarian and so on

the newest trend: saw off a statue somwhere in town, mold it and sell the metal

alternatively: proffer gasoline on the roadside which is water really. and so on and on and on.

alternatively: send your daughter begging or make her become a prostitute. still better than school

the vast majority of gypsies are criminals. there are some who aren’t, they take part in hungarian society. they often become actors singers and musicians.

the rest become criminals. my mom, she hates no race whatsoever but when she sees a gypsy approaching her house she throws a bottle (at the age of 73)

in fact it is fortunate there is a (fascist) home security in her village protecting her – she almost got mugged the ther day. by whom? well..

Bloody hell. The Hungarian fash-supporting eejits have found their way here.

Having witnessed Budapest Pride march 2008 be set upon by hundreds of neo-Nazis, I know what criminal element scares me in Hungary. And it’s not the gypsies.

hoity toity yada yada

anyway: hungarian fascists are a huge, very serious problem. i know what hapened during the pride march, it’s beneath contempt.

however, hungarian gypsies also pose a problem.

i don’t undestand HP sometimes. you say the lefties are hypocrites and live in cloud-cuckoo land. you say if there is truth to be spoken, political correctnes should not prevent anyone from telling te truth

now, a majority of gypsies are criminals, as a matter of fact. but i guess saying that makes me a fascist, hungarian style.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a problem with gypsy criminals and integrating gypsies into the social mainstream, but I don’t think throwing bottles at people who look like gypsies and setting up fascist vigilante squads is going to help the situation.

Anyway, we’re getting distracted from the main point of the increasing public acceptance of fascist sentiments in Hungary.

Does anyone know anything about the anti-fascist movement in Hungary? How is it organised etc?

haven’t seen any such anti-fascist movement. i guess people who are anti-facist are becoming apathic and a-political and never really meet the fascists

hungarian society is polarised to the tilt. being left or right wing decides everything: yoour friends, your relationship and your workplace.there is no middle ground and people are getting excited really easily, the fascists in the first place

i don’t know any right winger personally and i am unlikely to meet one, even though the suburb of budapest my mum lives in is full full full of them

apathetic, pardon

you know what i would love to do? i daydream all the time of being a billionaire who can afford to buy all the property that surrounds the bbc and the guardian and gift those houses to hungarian gypsies and to some real good french arabs from the real good quarters, some bonehard algerians from marseille and such. like 2500 from each group in front of the beeb

now that would pleasure me

“I don’t think throwing bottles at people who look like gypsies and setting up fascist vigilante squads is going to help the situation.”

A very interesting viewpoint. May I ask your view of Peter Hain’s wish to have his boot-boys, the Anti-Nazi League, to kick the shit out of Fascists/Racists party members and their supporters?

Is it O.K. to give a good kicking to someone wearing DocMartins if they have a crew cut?
Is political violence O.K. if it is directed toward you think hold viewpoints you disagree with?
Because if it is, then you can’t disagree with the murder of gypsies per say, only the choice of target.

As a typical European do gooder, I am looking at the root of problems.
You do generalise – as racist always do – according to you all gypsies are dirty, who do not send their kids to school, who make prostitutes out of their daughters versus the good and pure Hungarians, who never commit a crime and of course if we could believe Hungarian racists there is no “pure blooded” (igazi Magyar) prostitute.

Not very long ago a Hungarian girl was murdered and the mayor of the place at once declared to do everything against Gypsy terror, the Hungarian Guard was there and of course the Goj Motorosok. Recently the perpetrator a non-Gypsy neighbour was arrested by the police and he confessed to have committed the crime.
So should we now speak about Hungariancrime?

You transport crude racism. Why don’t you post on the Website of the BNP or Jobbik?
I do not deny, that there are problems with many Gypsies in Hungary. But it is also a fact, that during the Kadar-period most of them worked and they worked as construction workers, in the mines and on the fields.
Of course there was also during Kadar’ time discrimination against Gypsies and even in eastern Hungary in some places segregation.

Albert,

Please can we leave off your BS about the Roma, if you’ve got a chip on your shoulder about them why not take it to the Daily Mail or somewhere else.

yes i do generalise and yes HP, e.g. the poster ‘modernity’ above, sometimes epitomises the very sort of european hypocrite i thought HP wants to challenge

“Albert, you and your BS about the roma, take it to the daily mail!”

one sentence – done! you belong to the good guys! not that you know anything about what it’s like to live in hungary, but who the heck cares!

and Karl – you super righteous great mind of wisdom, i did not say ALL GYPSIES i said “a vast majority” are doing all these anti-social things. fact.

u can’t just change the world by saying “This can’t be so it’s not.”

gypsy culture is inherently anti-social. there.

i try to judge all individuals as individuals, but when approached by a gypsy i check my wallet

and now everybody go wild, i love it

“I don’t deny there are problems”

how generous! i am sure you would not deny no nothing if these folks would lurk around your house.

in fact, you would be most happy a fascist militia chases them away – and you would be even happier if it was your mum’s house and you live 1000 miles away.

but you would not tell HP innit? cos u is a hypocrite

by the way this all sounds more spectacular than it is. there was never violence in this suburb – just a few arguments and now it’s safe

sorry didn’t mean to stop anyone from going mental about my views

“You do generalise – as racist always do – according to you all gypsies are dirty, who do not send their kids to school, … who never commit a crime and of course if we could believe Hungarian racists there is no “pure blooded” (igazi Magyar) prostitute.”

Ah the argument to “Thou shall not generalise”.

The latter claim = that there is no “pure blooded” prostitute or criminal, was not made by albert so we can dismiss it as a strawman.

But lets take one of his claims, the most obviously refutable.

Gypsies do not send their kids to school.

is that true or not? Can he actually “generalise” on that without being called a racist – i.e. if it were true that Gypsies did not send their kids to school could he actually say “Gypsies do not send their kids to school” or would that statement, even if true, be “racist”. Is that what you mean?

This is the level of debate amongst the politically correct. things are not true, or false anymore, just ideologically true or false.

( Of course it could well be false, in which case send us some links to sources. You seem to want to refute the claim by claiming it is ideologically unsound)

what do you mean “not sending them to school”?

they say: “son, you mustn’t go there”

they are illiterate

Am I the only one who thinks Albert is a Nazi bottom-feeder, or Swuppie (so difficult to tell the difference these days) merely pretending to be Jewish?

With their Zion of the Old Testament lost because of their sins and rebellions against God, let the most promising eminence of the moral order of the New Testament, the Hungarian Zion be irretrievably perished.

Bet he gets on well with Stephen “Children of Hagar” Sizer.

btw murdering gypsies is – needless to say really – despicable. and my parents also have had some gypsy friends but you don’t even know they’re gypsy cos they live like anyone else and are able to read – the grew up apart from gypsy culture and the gypsy community

Dear Karl,

One of the reasons of the increasing support of the far right in Hungary is exactly the folly of the left denying the existence of real social problems. The Roma population’s inability to adapt to the mainstream society is a fact. No doubt that they are not the guilty party, that their inability is not the result of their genes, race whatever, but the left impotence to face the problem and denial of the existence of Roma criminality is only helps dr. Hegedus and his ilk. Would you deny the existence of the Italian maffia too? This problem is very complex and will be very hard to solve, but the first step is to face the reality. I have no idea what is the best way to help them and I’m very much interested to hear serious suggestions regarding the possibilities. Hiding our heads in the sand will serve only the Fascists, Hegedus, the Jobbik and the biased Hungarian courts and will give ammo to bigots whose solution is throwing bottles or murdering Roma people.
Saying that there are other than Roma prostitutes and criminals too won’t help, no reasonable people would say the opposite, but statistically the number of Roma criminals and prostitutes is significantly bigger than the others. This is not determined by their genes but their present place in the society and everyone who wants to help them must have realistic and humanistic ideas how to change this place. Let’s try to do it without denying the reality.

i am not jewish, only my father. not quite sure why alec cites this statement from above in order to illustrate my racism and nazism

i am just telling HP what is the situation here in hungary and that i am happy my mum is safe, even if this security is brought about by fascists – i never lived in hungary myself and i don’t care as long as mum is alright

why would i like sizer??? is he not an anti-Israel christian cleric?

Albert, you wrote:

“yes i do generalise and yes HP, e.g. the poster ‘modernity’ above, sometimes epitomises the very sort of european hypocrite i thought HP wants to challenge”

I am not sure how old you are, whether or not you can string a sentence along, but I’ll put it this way: people that make sweeping generalizations about other ethnic/social minorities are normally called bigots.

You might want to think on about that, if you can.

Albert, I doubt your basic jerkishness is due to your not being of a matrilineal Jewish line – it seems inate. You’ve blundered into a discussion about Magyar neo-Nazis who, 70 years ago, would have been cheering on the Pojarmos, with a rant about Roma social-ills.

It doesn’t matter if one is Gentile or Jew, all that’s required to know *not* to do this is a scintilla of human compassion.

Plus, I wasn’t quoting you next. Equally jerkish and racist doesn’t mean identically jerkish and racist.

modernity

So what would you call a person who makes sweeping generalisations about people who make sweeping generalisations.

modernity:

someone who condescendingly comments on others’ (substantial) socio-political problems without having experienced them and who, despite having no arguments at all, would like to compel others to be more tolerant and understanding without knowing and without wanting to know whether here is an interlocutor at all is called a (european) hypocrite lefty tw@t.

it’s exactly what BBC/guardian are doing with Israel

Alec:

i do not understand what you are trying to say

I am really rooting for the “gypys criminality” here — may they make life as difficult as possible for the Hungarian “Christian” biker fascists! I recommend pickpocketing and motorbike theft. Very effective to piss off racist thugs.

I regularly visit Romania and there it is clear that the European-Union inspired strategy to advance the position of the Roma/gypsy communities by focussing on anti-discrimination laws and programmes, is not getting to the heart of the problem.

I think the gadjo (non-gypies) suspicion and fear of gypsies would recede if the control enjoyed nside the gypsy world by well-entrenced elements who exploit Roma women and children often in harrowing ways and also prey on vulnerable members of the gadjo society, was challenhed, and new elites and role models were supported.

But progress will only occur if the multicultural taboo is challenged that all cultures are of equal merit and therefore it is discriminatory to criticise some longstanding practices. The balance of power needs to shift in the Roma communities in Romania from the ones who engage in human trafficking or the black market to others who desire to get ahead through availing of educational opportunities and working in the transparent economy. perhaps most Roma would be prepared to adhere to the customary rules of society if they were able to break free from the grip of powerful clan figures who insist on a morality being followed that is hard to reconcile with that of the rest of society and who often encouarge a disciminatory attitude towards members of mainstream society, especially the elderly.

But the Eurocrats prefer showcase events and insisting that mainstream prejudice (which undoubtedly exists in abundance) is the main source of the problem. The Roma issue is going to become a huge transnational issue in Europe (with particular hotspots such as Hungary). But since the EU has effectively made a pact with power networks based around communist-era elites and those moguls who benefited from economic shock therapy, there is little likelihood that Brussels will adopt a paintstaking and long-term approach that is needed in order to loosen the grip of exploitative groups and promote instead wideranging educational and social development, focussing in particular on releasing women from servitude.

Tom Gallagher seems to concur, he just uses more elegant language than I – sorry to be so boorish.

and these eurocrats have no clue who they are dealing with. a few months ago a flock of romanian gypsis came t berlin, 1000 or so. because they engaged in washing car windows and playing music everywhere, supertolerant berlin first contemplated keeping them, then city hall gave their leader €50.000 for them to leave.

they took the money and stayed. now the topic is taboo. the woman who came up with the €50k solution quit office, on her own initiative. have fun, berlin!

In Hungary there is a law that every kid has to go to school.
So Roma kids have to go also.
It is a silly statement, that Hungarian left denies problems. Anyone looking at Beszélö can find an entire Roma dossier, where all the problems are analysed and documented. The Hungarian sociologist István Kemény was certainly no right winger and he wrote some of the most interesting documentations about Roma or as they are called in Hungary about the cigány minority.
But from accepting that there are problems it is a far way to the statements I’ve criticised.
Of course the solution can’t be, that all cigány leave Hungary and go elsewhere.
I suggest to discuss about my article above and not about the complex problem of cigány minority. It is much more interesting to note that in Hungary you are allowed to deny the crimes of German and Hungarian National Socialists, that you can incite against Jews, Cigány, Homosexuals, Leftist etc. Because of “freedom of opinion” but when a Hungarian journalist is saying that a racist and antisemitic gang of motor bikers is “fascist” he is condemned by a Hungarian court.
So Albert could you probably relate to this problem.
Interesting the Non-Jew Bakács is called on some Websites “mocskos zsidó” “dirty Jew”. The same Websites deny vehemently anisemitism in Hungary.
Albert could you explain us where does this antisemitism come from?
Are you blaming the Jews of Hungary?

Karl

i can totally relate to the problem and i would never ever live in hungary myself. so that’s how i started my posts and then i said “there are also problems with gypsies” which apparently is not a popular thing to say here

being the son of a jewish holocaust survivor, i can explain whee the antisemitism is coming from:

1. partly from weird, voodoo-style catholicism
2. partly from jealousy, as usual
3. party from the fact that the communist elite had a lot of jews within its ranks and some benefitted from their connections after he wall fell
4. partly from an inferiority complex of a small country that tends to overassess its proficiency and blames others (germany, EU, jews, russians, USA) for its mediocrity (that is a compliment btw)

Albert
3) Most of the Hungarian millionaires who benefited from their connections were Non-Jews.

I believe you underestimate the appeal of völkisch National-Socialism to so many Hungarians.

Antisemitism also comes because in Hungary there was almost no frank confrontation with the past, with left or right dictatorships and with antisemitism.

Interesting is the text of Istvan Bibo about subject matter.

Karl

3) i can only tell you what my father tells me, and his parents were commies

Hungary is an interesting country. If you listen to Hungarian National-Soicalists they will tell you, only the Jews were responsible for the Kadar-Regime. This is of course nonsense. Many of those National-Socialists were members of the CP, some of them like the leader of the antisemitic MIÉP party István Csurka was even an informer of III/III, the political police. The Kadar-Regime was liked my many Hungarians.
The National-Socialists claim that there was no Kadar-Regime but that György Aczél ruled the country. Aczél (a Jew) was only a certain time responsible for the cultural sector. He used to play out intellectuals who critisised the party. To Jewish ones he would say, are you mad to collaborate with those antisemites and to the Non-Jews he would say, now you collaborate – despite being népi (völkisch) with the Jews.
He did at no time rule Hungary.

“If you listen to Hungarian National-Soicalists they will tell you..”

M8 I don’t listen to hungarian national-socialists. I don’t know any, in fact I know few gentile people here and for the time being, I am not even that keen. the fact that i am happy that fascists protect my mum does not mean i socialise with them – we’ve got nothing to say do we?

what i particulalry don’t like about those hungarians i know (the older ones) is their constant useless futile politicising about dealings past and present. one of the reasons why i fancied london was that i thought politics are not so important in the every day life, that everybody would be talking business rather

at present, when hungarian labour speaks in parliament, the conservatives (nationalists) leave the room. they block the passing of every bill, that’s why the PM stepped down

my suggestion: fuck all this, do not bother, do not delve into it. hungary is of no imprtance and won’t play any significant role unless and until hungarians develop a normal political culture and understand hungary’s position in the world and in europe

For an apolitical person, you seem to have a lot of prejudices against Gypsies.

“I’ll put it this way: people that make sweeping generalizations about other ethnic/social minorities are normally called bigots.”

Quite. Even if true. Polite society differentiates itself from the lower orders with one’s polite untruths.

“I’ll put it this way: people that make sweeping generalizations about other ethnic/social minorities are normally called bigots.”

Quite. Even if true. Polite society differentiates itself from the lower orders with one’s polite untruths.

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

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.

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.

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.

Oh. Thanks Karl, that is very disappointing.

Very well-argued post by the way!

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.

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.

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.

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.